Through Time’s Lens at the MET: A Journey into the Heart of Human Civilization

During the spring break, I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) is one of the world’s largest and most visited art museums, collecting and exhibiting historic artworks from all over the world. Meanwhile, as an enthusiast of classical culture, I would definitely not miss this opportunity to see the precious cultural relics from around the world.

These artifacts provide insight into how ancient people thought and explored the world. This is a rare opportunity for the exchange and integration of ancient civilization and modern civilization. For example, ancient Egyptian statues, ancient Chinese sculptures, and paintings help me comprehend how ancient Egyptians and Chinese perceived the sun and moon throughout the last 5000 years, revealing the growth and progress of human civilization.

The thinking and dialectical methods used by prehistoric humans to explore the world can still inspire people today. From 3000 to 4000 BC, ancient China initiated the concept of “a round sky and a square earth”. In the following thousands of years, people began the exploration towards the earth and the sky. During this period, they went through the “round earth theory” proposed by Aristotle, until Magellan verified the theory later. There also existed constant debates about “geocentric theory” and “heliocentric theory” among people from different generations.

It is the constant evolution of this way of thinking that affected the development trend of human civilization and achieved modern civilization’s exploration to more complex phenomena, rather than being limited to the sky and the earth.