Cultural relics take a starring role as the past is examined to better explain our present times, Wang Kaihao reports.

History's patina and dust has been wiped off, the sparkle restored, but there never was any hiding the remarkable glittering array of treasures that will now be viewed, appreciated and seen in a new light by the nation.

The third season of The Nation's Greatest Treasures, a popular TV variety show on cultural relics, will be premiered on Dec 6, it was announced at a news conference in the Palace Museum in Beijing on Monday.

The first season of the program with China Central Television was piloted in December 2017 and soon became a cultural phenomenon. On Douban, China's major film and TV critic website, both of the previous two seasons gained 9.1 points out of a total 10.

In each episode, three key exhibits from one museum were selected to be highlighted. And the items were introduced by A-list entertainment stars through short historical stage dramas, while vivid behind-the-scenes stories related to the relics were relayed by experts.

"The new season will trace the root of the Chinese people's psychological genes," Jin Dong, an actor, says in the trailer of the third season."We can thus better understand the meaning of exploring our ancient civilization."

"The celebrities were quite humble during the production of the show," Yu Lei, the director of the show, says."Here, the cultural relics are the biggest stars."

Both of the previous seasons were led by the Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, and were joined by key provincial-level museums in China.

Nevertheless, Yu revealed on Monday that the third season will see a format change to better reflect the development of millennia's Chinese civilization through the cultural relic sites with a wide time span.

"We want to broaden our horizon to evaluate Chinese heritage from a global perspective to see what makes China as it is," she says."Through the developing and evolving Chinese civilization, we can also see how it contributed to the world."

Consequently, nine key historical heritage sites have been selected for the third season. The Palace Museum, which embraces the 600th anniversary marking its constructional completion this year, remains.