Hebei museum mocked online over fake ‘national treasures’

A museum in Hengshui, Hebei province has become an online laughing stock after a blog about the thousands of apparently fake “national treasures” on display circulated on the internet.

Hundreds of thousands of internet users were astounded by the shoddy, clumsy modern-day knockoffs that were displayed as ancient relics worth millions of yuan.

Exhibits that used modern-day colours, patterns and techniques were labelled as being from the “Tang”, “Han” and even “Xia” dynasties.

“Astonishing” and “beyond belief” were the words he used to describe how he felt when he saw the collections.

Among the bogus relics Ma discovered a vase featuring modern cartoon figures, which was deemed to be from the Qing dynasty, chinaware depicting characters from a novel that had not been written at the time the piece was said to have been made and china depicting a story from a famous novel but which featured incorrect characters.

Ma also expressed doubts over the suitability of the low-level security arrangements for exhibits that would be worth millions of yuan if the labels were true.