Shining light on a rich past

National Museum of China is currently holding an exhibition that showcases items made by Chinese artisans centuries ago. Lin Qi reports.

At a time when people relied heavily on oil lamps, the smoke they emitted would pervade the rooms they lit. To solve this problem, Chinese artisans more than 2,000 years ago developed the gang deng, a beautifully crafted lamp with a smoke-guiding tube.

A fine example of such a lamp is a painted bronze piece that dates back to the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24).