THANH HOA – On an area of more than 4,000 m2 on the slopes of Don Son mountain, Vinh Loc district, Mr. Nguyen Hai Hung displays more than 50,000 antiques and welcomes visitors for free.
Mr. Nguyen Hai Hung, 54 years old, in Vinh Loc town, Vinh Loc district, is known as the “antiquities boss” in Tay Do region, the old name of the Ho citadel.
Currently, he owns more than 50,000 antiques of all kinds, dating from hundreds to thousands of years. Every day, Mr. Hung spends time cleaning, admiring and then meticulously arranging the number of antiques according to each type, age…
The number of rare and precious antiques collected by Mr. Hung for the past 30 years is now displayed in 5 old houses built on an area of more than 4,000 m2. He named the small museum on the slopes of Dun mountain (Don Son, next to the Nam Giao altar, about 2.5 km southeast of the Ho citadel) as Lam Son Trang.
In the photo is a house dating back to the 3rd Khai Dinh dynasty (Third year Khai Dinh) bought by Mr. Hung from a family in Yen Bai in 2011. The five-room house, is designed in the style of a stack of seven beds, The entire facade is made of jackfruit wood, carved with sophisticated patterns. Here, Mr. Hung displays about 1,000 antiques.
The most in the museum of antiquities of Mr. Hung are Vietnamese and Chinese feudal ceramics.
Mr. Hung was born in a low-lying rural area in Nga Son district, Thanh Hoa. He had a large family, so he had to go to work to earn a living by the end of 4th grade. In 1985, leaving his hometown, he went to Vinh Loc district to set up a business as a cattle trader.
Around 1990, during a pig trade, Mr. Hung happened to have an antique dealer ask his Minsk car to transport antiques and was well paid. After being hired many times to carry goods, Mr. Hung realized that this profession was “easier to earn money than driving a pig”, so he came up with the idea of hunting for antiques to resell for a profit.
“From bowls, jars, to bronze drums of all kinds, etc., whenever I heard that I could dig up valuable things, I would always look for them,” he said. Just like that, he became the largest antique dealer in the region. .
The old house dating back to Thanh Thai was seven years old (7th year of King Thanh Thai’s reign – 1896), designed with three compartments in the style of an upside-down house, bought by Mr. Hung from a family in Vinh Tien commune, Vinh Loc district. 2016. In his house, Mr. Hung displays and keeps about 1,500 artifacts.
In the middle of the old house dating back to Thanh Thai, there are 8 ancient paintings, which he bought from a man in Da But village (Vinh Hung commune, Vinh Loc district). The old owner of the painting said, found a number of paintings in the trunk of a large tree when demolishing the buffalo stable. There were many people who paid high prices, but Mr. Hung did not agree to sell but left background research.
Mr. Hung said that in the first 15 years when he first started playing with antiques, he mainly bought and sold them to make a profit, but in the past decade, he only collected them for play and display. He wishes to expand the small museum so that antiquities can contribute to introducing the history of cultures to more people.
Prominent among them is the Dong Son bronze drum dating back more than 1000 years. On the face and body of the drum, there are many delicate patterns and 6 embossed frogs… Every time the owner hits, the drum sound echoes far away.
One of the antiquities that Mr. Hung considers the most precious in his collection are two pairs of “second ton Thong” he just bought when people dug them in the fields of Bai Xuan village, Vinh Phuc commune, Vinh Loc district. Artifacts are said to be related to the Ho Dynasty, used for the king to wash his hands and clean his clothes before performing the ritual of offering sacrifices to heaven and earth in the palace.
A bronze statue of a genie used in ancient ritual sacrifices.
Mr. Hung’s antiquities museum has about 300 kg of copper coins of all kinds, including money from the Ming, Qing, and Le dynasties. Many jars are still quite intact, but there are jars that are oxidized, broken, and discolored.
The bamboo cottage in the left corner of the museum is where Mr. Hung keeps more than 45,000 ceramic artifacts of all kinds. Because the area is not large enough, the owner has to stack it or put it around the porch, spilling out into the gardens.
Nguyen Ba Linh, director of the Ho Dynasty Citadel Heritage Preservation Center, said that the Lam Son Trang Antiquities Museum of Mr. Nguyen Hai Hung in recent years has been a satellite attraction of the world cultural heritage citadel. Lake, attracts many tourists to visit. The artifacts here have great historical value, help viewers understand more about ancient cultures and have great educational significance.
(According to vnexpress )