Changsha >> Mawangdui Museum

Attraction Typ: Galleries and Museums

Location: City Centre - Central

Recommend: 5 Star

Mawangdui Museum

A trip to Mawangdui Museum will allow tourists to understand the aristocrat's life at the time of the western Han dynasty.

Mawangdui Museum (Chinese: 马王堆博物馆; pinyin: Mǎwángduī Bówùguǎn) is the museum famous for its preserving of the tombs and objects that it exhibits date bake 2,000 years.

Mawangdui Museum is located in Changsha City, Hunan Province. Some 3,000 objects from three separate tombs containing the senior Minister of the State of Chu, his wife and son were exhibited. Among the more than 3,000 relics unearthed, were exquisite lacquer wares, musical instruments, silk paintings, pottery and Chinese medicinal herbs. All of the artifacts placed in the grave as well as the corpse, swaddled in 20 layers of silk and linen can be found on display.

Corresponding to their locations in the east, west or south, those tombs were respectively known as Tomb No. 1, Tomb No.2 and Tomb No. 3. One of the most fascinating finds from the tomb is a T-shaped silk picture found in the Mawangdui No.1 Han Tomb, supposedly a banner for the soul. No.3 Han Tomb, most of which are of great medicinal, astronomical, philosophical and historical values.

The articles excavated from the tomb have been highly important in researching this very wealthy and sophisticated southern-Chinese culture. A trip to Mawangdui Museum will allow tourists to understand the 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 that time. It is as though one were reading an encyclopedia on the Western Han period.