Unique national treasure: The golden outfit of Saint Mother Le Chan

Gold cards, earrings, bracelets, lip balm boxes, necklaces... are the set of gold items of Nghe Temple offered to Holy Mother Le Chan.

Pure gold set, high refinement

The gold set at Nghe Temple ( Hai Phong City) has just become a national treasure with the name in the dossier as Nghe Temple metal products. The treasure dossier states that the set is made of gold, with a gold content of 92 - 98%. In other words, the gold used in the metal products is 24K pure gold (gold content over 90%), relatively soft, easy to stretch, thin, and has little impurities of other colored metals.

Golden areca bunch

Golden fan

Cards

PHOTO: DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE

The state management agency has assessed the gold content of this set twice. The first time was to make a record of "Depositing gold in the bank for safekeeping" at the State Bank of Vietnam. The set of gold artifacts was kept here for 65 years, before being brought to the Hai Phong Museum. The second time was in 2024, on 3 artifacts, by a gold shop in Hai Phong City. The results of this analysis showed a change in the gold ratio in some artifacts, for example, the golden areca bunch was once assessed as 95% gold, but after analysis, the ratio was 99.87%. From there, the national treasure dossier stated: "...the set of gold artifacts was made from highly refined materials, the gold ratio accounted for a large amount, some artifacts had almost absolute composition".

The set of metal items includes: 1 betel leaf, 1 bunch of areca nuts, 4 playing cards, 1 gold leaf, 1 fan, 3 pairs of earrings, 2 boxes of lip balm, 1 pair of bracelets, 1 set of buttons and 1 necklace with 999 beads.

Specifically, the betel leaf consists of two parts: an elliptical leaf and a hollow cylindrical stem. The leaf surface has 5 large veins, each with small, concentric, symmetrical veins extending from the stem to the top of the leaf. The tip of the leaf has a folded crease.

Areca bunch in block shape, with 3 fruits, 3 tassels attached to the stem. The left side of the areca is smooth, not carved with patterns; the body of the two areca fruits has slight dents.

The cards have embossed shapes such as lotus flowers, five-petaled flowers, lemon flower bands, etc. The body of the card is rectangular, with a winding dragon shape, long body, fiery tail (characteristic of the Nguyen Dynasty dragon image), facing the sun, the head facing the top of the card. The card also has words, such as Trang Huy Thuong Dang Than. There are also cards with a sun face that is embossed, concave, and hollow to attach decorations (possibly jade but no longer available).

The fan has the exact shape of a folding fan, including a handle and a strip of ribs; there is a small round hole in the middle of the handle. The decorative surface is crafted with delicate patterns and details. The fringe is embossed with a strip pattern of four consecutive lemon flowers. The fan ribs are embossed with 9 small circular patterns, the fan has a flared opening, wide flaps, and gradually narrows towards the handle. The negative side is not decorated.

One pair of earrings is relatively intact, only the attached gemstones are missing. The earring face is shaped like a stylized phoenix, with a base on the tail for mounting jade. Another pair of gold earrings is shaped like a lemon flower, with small circular bands embossed on the edges; the top is made of a small circle to attach to the piercing. The third pair of earrings is shaped like a hollow sphere, with 8 small circular panels on the body, and curved round hooks attached with 6 decorative dragonfly wings around.

The lip balm box has a lid with a peony design in full bloom, the body has pine, chrysanthemum, bamboo, and apricot in small cloud-shaped boxes, separated between the patterned boxes are small, raised round nail caps.

The bracelet has a hollow body, the surface of the bracelet is smooth, without any decoration. The bracelet clasp is a small round knob, decorated in the shape of a daisy with 11 rays. The bracelet also has an ankle chain, with a heart attached to one end of the chain and a five-pointed star attached to the other end.

999 small beads necklace is crafted by molding method. The beads are spherical in shape, with a round hole in the middle. The surface of the beads is smooth, without decorative patterns.

The chrysanthemum set has a hemispherical body and a hollow center. The gemstone attached to the artifact no longer exists.

Gifts to the Holy Mother

Some royal decrees, horizontal lacquered boards, and parallel sentences at the Temple of Literature show beautiful words such as "Female General Le Chan is a heroic and virtuous woman". The Hai Phong An Bien stone stele also records "In the 9th year of Khai Dinh, the royal decree Trang Huy Thuong Dang Than" which was concretized on the card of the golden set of clothes, with beautiful words and ranks conferred on the holy mother Le Chan. From that, the Hai Phong Museum believes that this is a unique set of clothes, an item, a sacrificial object offered by the indigenous community to the holy mother Le Chan in the early 20th century. It also shows a religious feature of the people of Hai Phong. The choice of gold as the material, a material associated with the royal court, shows the great remembrance of the person offering it to the female general Le Chan.

Yellow betel leaves

The set of metal objects is considered a typical representative of the style of creating jewelry for worship statues during the Nguyen Dynasty. Accordingly, this set of jewelry is special in that it represents the style of artifacts during the Nguyen Dynasty, and is also special because it is not attached to the statue like other jewelry for worship statues. "Thereby, it can be seen that the set of metal objects from Nghe Temple is a continuation of the tradition of creating jewelry for worship statues, a typical representative of the creativity in using jewelry for religious purposes in Hai Phong City," the treasure dossier said.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/doc-la-bao-vat-quoc-gia-bo-do-vang-cua-thanh-mau-le-chan-185250717230218913.htm