Online broadcast of Yuanmingyuan archaeological excavation made over social media (5)

At 9 a.m. on Aug. 17, the Yuanmingyuan park made an online broadcast to showcase relics from the Yuanyingguan excavation site. A spokesperson for the park explained that this activity aims to advance public understanding of archaeology, and to allow more people to know about the excavation and protection of the Yuanmingyuan relics.

Located in northwest Beijing, Yuanmingyuan, or the Old Summer Palace, was built from 1709 onwards and had once been a resort for the imperial families of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

It was pillaged and burned by British and French troops in 1860 during the Second Opium War, along with several other imperial gardens in Beijing.

French writer Victor Hugo criticized the destruction of Yuanmingyuan in his "Expedition de Chine (Expedition to China)," in which he likend the looting to "two robbers breaking into a museum, devastating, looting and burning, leaving laughing hand-in-hand with their bags full of treasures; one of the robbers is called France and the other Britain."