Lishui Museum

Lishui Museum

Lishui Museum

Nanjing Lishui County Museum is located in the central part of Lishui County and is a comprehensive county-level museum. The Lishui County Museum has gone through 25 years of development and has played a significant role in the county’s cultural and material progress.

The establishment of Nanjing Lishui County Museum can be traced back to 1971. At that time, cultural relics were considered part of the “Four Olds” and were not highly valued. Despite this, the county cultural relics office collected over 100 cultural relics within a year and held an exhibition titled “Excavated Cultural Relics of Lishui County.” It was on this foundation that the county cultural relics exhibition room was established. In 1978, the Lishui County Cultural Relics Exhibition Room moved to the county library. While undertaking the task of a county-wide cultural relics survey, the collection of cultural relics continued to grow. In August 1986, the Lishui County Government decided to formally establish the county museum.

The Lishui County Museum currently houses a collection of more than 2,000 items, including historical relics unearthed in the county as well as various revolutionary and folk relics collected from multiple sources. Relics from different eras reflect the historical development of Lishui. Among them, Western Zhou bronze ware, Spring and Autumn period proto-porcelain, Han Dynasty pictorial bricks, Liu Song Dynasty coins from the Southern Dynasties, Sui and Tang bronze mirrors, Northern Song shadow-blue porcelain, Yuan Dynasty blue-and-white porcelain and Longquan porcelain, and Ming and Qing dynasty epitaphs all have their unique characteristics. Professionals at the museum have conducted preliminary research on the collections and have successively compiled and printed materials such as “Collection of Rubbings of Coins in the Museum,” “Collection of Rubbings of Bronze Mirrors in the Museum,” “Catalog of Genealogies Found in Lishui,” and “Lishui Excavated Bronzes of the Wu State.”

In recent years, Lishui County Museum has made full use of its exhibition formats to leverage the museum’s role in cultural and material progress. It has successively held exhibitions such as “Excavated Cultural Relics of Lishui County,” “Exhibition of Revolutionary Cultural Relics Materials of Lishui County,” “Fossil Excavation Report Exhibition of Shenxian Cave in Lishui County,” “Ancient Arts and Crafts Exhibition of Lishui County,” “Marine Life Exhibition of Lianyungang,” and “Publication Exhibition of Lishui County.” The museum also contributed some of its relics to the “Ancient Qinhuai Excavated Cultural Relics Exhibition” held in the Dacheng Hall of Nanshan Temple. A Yuan Dynasty Longquan celadon lotus-leaf-lidded jar from the museum’s collection was also displayed at the 1990 “National Fine Cultural Relics Exhibition” held at the Palace Museum in Beijing.

Over the years, Lishui County Museum has consistently placed great emphasis on scientific research. The museum has not only sent personnel to participate in major provincial and municipal cultural relics and archaeology projects but has also utilized its collections to explore local history. It has successively compiled materials such as “Lishui County Cultural Relics Annals,” “Lishui County Temples Annals,” “Lishui County Stone Inscriptions Annals,” “Chronicles of the Development of Lishui County’s Cultural Relics and Museums,” and “Lishui Historical Chronology” (ancient history section). It has also published a series of papers, including “On the Periodization of Tumulus Tombs in the Zhenjiang Area,” “On the Origins and Disappearance of Copper-Iron Alloy Artifacts,” “The Circulation History of the Eastern Han ‘Xiaoguan Stele’ and the Yuan Dynasty ‘Sifan Stele’ in Lishui,” “Study of the Liu Song Dynasty ‘Two-Zhu Coins’,” “On the Excavation and Dredging of the Rouge River,” and “Several Issues Regarding the Huinong One-Yuan Note and Huinong Bank,” allowing the museum’s collections to have a broader impact.

　Currently, the county government has included the “Construction of a New County Museum” in the “Ninth Five-Year Plan.” It is expected that in the near future, an elegantly designed Lishui County Museum with garden tourism features will be presented to the public.