VietNamNet Bridge – The last feudal dynasty of Vietnam in Hue City went through many historical events. Tens of thousands of rare artifacts of the Nguyen Dynasty have been lost.

The Forbidden City in the past.

According to Dr. Phan Thanh Hai, Director of the Centre for Conservation of Hue Monuments, from the eighteenth century, the nobility of Hue was interested in collecting antiques and purchasing valuable items.

Researcher Phan Thuan An said that in the golden age of the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945), palaces and temples in the royal citadel as well as the tombs were decorated with and stored a lot of precious objects, which were the most valuable things in the country.

Working for years in the colony, Robert R. de la Susse is a French official who had deep understanding of and loved Vietnamese culture. In an opportunity to visit the Hue royal citadel in the early 1910s, after seeing artifacts in Can Chanh and Phung Tien palaces, he called these places "museums".

In a book titled "Guide de l'Annam" (Travel Guide to Central Vietnam) published in France in 1914 by Philippe Eberhard, a teacher of King Duy Tan, agreed with the Robert on the quantity and quality of the treasures in the royal palace of Hue, where he frequently visited while working in the capital of the Nguyen Dynasty.

Robert R. de la Susse described Can Chanh Palace as follows: "The immense palace is the most beautiful house in the royal citadel. The pillars, the walls and the ceiling are made of monolith ironwood, carved and inlaid with mother of pearl and ivory. In the palace are six carved wooden cabinets containing the most precious objects in the kingdom, of immeasurable value: seals made of gold blocks, including one weighing 18kg; the precious germ items ... "

He described the Phung Tien palace as follows: "This museum contains most of jade items. There are a lot of jade vases, sets of tea cups, pens and ink slabs, the items of all kinds and all shapes made of white, blue, gray jade, with or without veins... There are pots of ornamental trees made of gold, silver, germ, jade, pearls and coral.”

Regarding treasures of gold, the most popular objects are Kim Buu and Kim Sach. Kim Buu are the King’s seals which are made of gold blocks, each weighing from 3kg to 4kg. The other seals are those of queens, also made of gold and silver. Kim Sach are books consisting of pure gold pages. There are warmers, teapots and sword hilts made of pure gold.

Others are: a crown woven of gold of King Tu Duc, his belt inlaid with jade, coral, pearls joined by a big diamond; a wide range of quartz items, many rhino horn hilt ..."

The gold seals of Nguyen Kings.

According to the author Philippe Eberhard, the Ta Vu and Huu Vu houses had many royal furniture and rare decorative items, such as two large jars, three wonderfully carved and mother-of-pearl inlaid cupboards; King’s costumes and hats decorated with jade; and many ornaments donated by countries ...

Generally the treasures in the palaces are identified as valuable, diverse and abundant, but they are not all national treasures in the entire system of the Hue palaces because there are some palaces and treasures that the two French authors were not permitted to visit, such as Can Thanh Palace, the King’s house in the heart of the Forbidden City and the place possessed the most valuable treasures of the Nguyen Dynasty.

Another Frenchman, Paul Boudet, who was in charge of archives and library in Indochina, in 1942 was granted a special favor to be access to all the libraries and archives in the imperial city of Hue, including the Can Thanh palace. Emperor Bao Dai allowed him to compile statistics of all treasures stored in this palace.

In a long article of high academic value, Paul Boudet showed us that at that time, Can Thanh Palace had up to 26 gold books related to the coronation of King Gia Long, Thieu Tri, Tu Duc, Ham Nghi, Dong Khanh, Thanh Thai, Duy Tan and Khai Dinh and the queens and crown princes. Also in this palace, he listed 46 seals made of jade and pure gold of the Emperors and Empresses.

The most precious treasures are considered to be stored at Can Thanh Palace. However, this palace was destroyed by bombs after 1945.

"Apart from that document, we are also fortunate to have the original handwritten book by the Secret Affairs Bureau of the Nguyen Dynasty in late 1926 listing hundreds of precious items stored at Can Thanh Palace, including seals made of gold, gem, gold and silver books and other treasures made of other materials," researcher Phan Thuan An said.

Researcher Nguyen Xuan Hoa, former director of the Department of Culture and Information of Thua Thien Hue province, said that the Home Affairs Bureau of the Nguyen Dynasty was in charge of managing all assets in the royal citadel. This is a direct logistics base of the king, and also a form of state budget of the last monarchy in Vietnam.

From the reign of the first King of Nguyen Dynasty - Gia Long – this bureau was established with six warehouses. In the time of Emperor Minh Mang, the bureau had 10 warehouses, including warehouses for gold and silver items, for silk and cloth, for porcelain, pharmaceutical products, candles and oil, crystal and stage equipment.

When the bureau was moved to the present place, the Home Affairs Bureau was assigned by King Minh Mang to cast silver ingots and to build a silver warehouses to contain 200,000 taels of silver. The bureau then cast gold ingots weighing 100 and 50 taels.

The historical book of the Nguyen Dynasty noted that in 1885, this warehouse stored 91,424 silver bullions, with each bullion weighing 10 taels; 78,960 silver bullion weighing one tael/bullion, 500 taels of gold and 700,000 taels of silver.

Dai Duong

To be continued...