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

Gold cards, earrings, bracelets, lip balm boxes, necklaces... are the set of gold products 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 file as Nghe Temple metal set. The treasure file states that the set is made of gold, with a gold content of 92 - 98%. In other words, the gold used in the metal set is 24K pure gold (gold content over 90%), relatively soft, easy to stretch, thin, and has little other colored metal impurities.

Golden areca bunch

Golden fan

Cards

PHOTO: DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE

The state management agency has twice evaluated the gold content of this set. 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 items 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. This analysis result shows 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 said: "...the set of gold items 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 five large veins, each with small, concentric, symmetrical veins extending from the stem to the tip of the leaf. The tip of the leaf has a creased fold.

The areca nut cluster is block-shaped, with 3 fruits and 3 tassels attached to the stem. The left side of the areca nut is smooth, without carvings; the body of the two areca nuts has slight indentations.

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, head towards the top of the card. The card also has words, such as Trang Huy Thuong Dang Than. There are also cards with embossed sun faces, concave, 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; in the middle of the handle there is a small round hole. 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 was relatively intact, only the attached gemstones were missing. The earring face was shaped like a stylized phoenix, with a base at the end for mounting jade. Another pair of gold earrings was shaped like a lemon flower, with small circular bands embossed on the edges; the top was made into a small circle to attach to the piercing. The third pair of earrings was shaped like a hollow sphere, with 8 small circular panels on the body, and curved round hooks attached with 6 decorative dragonfly wings around them.

The lip balm box has a lid with a design of blooming peonies. The body has pine, chrysanthemum, bamboo, and apricot in small cloud-shaped boxes. The patterned boxes are separated by small, round, raised nail caps.

The bracelets have a hollow body, the surface of the bracelet is smooth, without any decoration. The 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.

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 any decorative patterns.

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

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 brave woman". The Hai Phong An Bien stone stele also records "In the 9th year of Khai Dinh, the title of 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, Hai Phong Museum believes that this is a unique set of clothes, an item, a sacrifice of the indigenous community, offered 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 to the female general Le Chan.

Yellow betel leaves

The set of metal products is considered to be 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 statues like other jewelry for worship statues. "Thereby, it can be seen that the set of metal products 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