This book accompanies the landmark 2016 exhibition at the CAFA Art Museum, a special project of the 34th World Congress of Art History. Curated by Zheng Yan and organized by the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Qingzhou City Museum, the exhibition focuses on a remarkable hoard of hundreds of Buddhist sculptures unearthed in 1996 from the site of Longxing Temple in Shandong Province.

Dating from the late Northern Dynasties (6th century) to the Northern Song dynasty (as late as 1026 CE), these works span nearly five hundred years. Yet their power lies not in perfection, but in fragmentation. The exhibition’s central theme asks why these damaged sculptures—shattered during imperial anti-Buddhist campaigns—were not discarded. Instead, monks treasured them as spiritually potent relics (sharīra) and buried them together in a deliberate ritual act.

Breaking from conventional displays of only fully restored icons, this book features hundreds of previously unseen fragments: severed Buddha heads, broken limbs, engraved stone shards, and broken feet. By juxtaposing fragments with intact statues, it challenges Western notions of “sculpture” and invites us to see Buddhist images as living, numinous beings. Key works include the earliest dated piece, the Han Xiaohua Maitreya (529 CE), a late Northern Song painted arhat, and a Northern Qi gilded standing Buddha shown alongside its own fragments.

Hailed as one of “China’s 100 Major Archaeological Discoveries of the 20th Century,” the Qingzhou hoard reveals a uniquely Chinese understanding of sacred objects—where broken things, like the Buddha’s own body, become relics worthy of veneration.

Fully illustrated with color photos, text in Chinese, with an introduction in English.

2016, Heibei Fine Arts Publishing House, hardcover, 172 pp., as new.