Hunan Provincial Museum Overview & Map Weather Transportation Information
Hunan Provincial Museum is located on No. 50, Dongfeng Road, Changsha City. It covers an area of 50,000 square meters (about 12.2 acres) with a construction area of 20,000 square meters (about 4.9 acres). First built in 1951, the museum was open to the public in July 1974. It has gathered together most curios unearthed in Hunan Province, unfolding the cultural development of Hunan Province throughout thousands of years.
What to visit
Collection
This museum has a collection of more than 110,000 objects, over 763 of which are top grade cultural relics. Most of these objects were discovered by archaeological excavation. What's more, the museum has gathered together nearly all the fine works unearthed in different parts of Hunan Province.
Classification
According to the various textures, the cultural relics in Hunan Provincial Museum can be classified into the following kinds: bronze, silk paintings and books, lacquers, textiles, ceramics, paintings and calligraphy. These cultural relics include stone implements and pottery from the Neolithic Age, bronze wares of the Shang Dynasty (16th - 11th century B.C.) and Zhou Dynasty (11th - 221 B.C.), and celadon wares from the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 - 220) to the Sui Dynasty (581 - 618) and the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907). Some masterpieces by famous scholars like Wang Xizhi, a famous calligrapher from the Tang Dynasty, and Wang Fuzhi, a great philosopher of the late Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) and the early Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911) are also on display. Cultural relics unearthed in Mawangdui are the highlights in the museum.
The highlight - Mawangdui Exhibition Hall
Among all the collection, the relics from Mawangdui are most excellent and miraculous and are the basic display of the museum. In the exhibition hall, there is a silk coat which is thin as cicada, 1.28 meters (about 1.40 yards) in length with a pair of long sleeves, but weighs only 49 grams. The most surprising one is the well-preserved female corpse of Marquess Xin Zhui, the wife of Li Cang which has been buried under earth for more than 2100 years. Although the beautiful feature of the corpse cannot been seen anymore, there are lenitive skin, abundant subcutaneous fat and flexible parenchyma, which are well unusual in archaeology. It also proves the highly developed technology of ancient China.
A visit to this Mawangdui Exhibition Hall will allow the visitor to understand an aristocrat's life at the time of the Western Han Dynasty. Not only can one see the actual artifacts, but one can begin to understand the politics, economics, cultural and scientific technologies of the time. It is as though one were reading an encyclopedia on the Western Han.
Temporary exhibitions
In addition to the annual exhibitions, the museum often organizes temporary exhibitions on special topics at home and abroad, such as the Exhibition of Hunan Revolutionary History, the Exhibition of Chu Cultural Relics, the Exhibition of Paintings of the Ming and Qing Dynasties Collected by the Museum, the Exhibition of Crafts of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the Exhibition of Painting Collection of Qi Baishi, etc.
When to visit
- Opening Hours: 8:00 - 18:00 (Apr.1 to Oct. 9)
No tickets selling after 17:00
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Hunan Provincial Museum
