Yuyao City Museum

Yuyao City Museum

The Yuyao Museum is located at the scenic western foot of Longquan Mountain, covering an area of approximately 5 acres with a total construction area of 1,600 square meters. It was officially opened to the public on January 18, 2003. The establishment of this museum has added a beautiful new landmark to Yuyao, a city rich in historical and cultural heritage, and has also put an end to Yuyao’s history of lacking a comprehensive local museum.

The Yuyao Museum was built and expanded on the foundation of the original “First Mountain Temple.” Designed in harmony with its mountain-and-water surroundings, the architects have skillfully blended modern architecture with ancient structures, resulting in a well-arranged layout, seamlessly integrated styles, and fully functional supporting facilities. Today, the museum — with its green tiles, white walls, latticed windows, and carved railings — has become an iconic building in the leisure area at the western foot of Longquan Mountain.

As a venue that comprehensively showcases the long and rich history and culture of Yuyao, the Yuyao Museum is destined to become a base for patriotic education that combines functions such as collection, research, social education, cultural entertainment, and leisure. It will also serve as a window for the city’s spiritual civilization development and external promotion.

The Yuyao Museum has a total of five exhibition halls, including three permanent ones and two temporary ones. The three permanent exhibition halls feature the museum’s core display, “Seven Thousand Years Up and Down,” which consists of an introductory hall, a ceramics hall, and a bronze/jade/miscellaneous objects hall. Nearly 300 representative cultural relics from the Hemudu Neolithic Age to the Qing Dynasty are displayed here, presenting to visitors the long-standing and profound history and culture of Yuyao in an intuitive manner. The introductory hall primarily uses charts, models, and sculptures to provide a general and comprehensive overview of Yuyao’s history and culture. Exhibits include a sand table model of Shuangcheng from the Qing Dynasty in Yuyao, full-body bronze statues of the “Four Sages,” and handwritten works by these sages.

The Ceramics Hall highlights Yuyao’s long and profound ceramic culture. On display are exquisite pieces from the carbon-tempered and sand-tempered pottery of the Hemudu Neolithic Age, to the patterned pottery and proto-porcelain of the Three Dynasties period, and up to the celadon from the Yue Kiln during the Six Dynasties, Five Dynasties, Northern Song, and beyond. Highlights include a bird-shaped pottery ewer from the Neolithic Age, a proto-porcelain incense burner from the Warring States Period, a celadon chicken-head ewer with a lizard-handle from the Western Jin Dynasty, and a parrot-patterned cosmetic box made of secret-color celadon from the Yue Kiln. The collection is truly dazzling and filled with fine works. In addition, the Ceramics Hall also displays many exquisite porcelain pieces from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, such as a celadon basin from the Yuan Dynasty’s Longquan Kiln, a celadon fisherman figurine from the Ming Dynasty’s Dehua Kiln, a blue-and-white gu in the Qing Dynasty, a blue-and-white underglaze red celestial globe vase, a cobalt-blue vase, a polychrome figure-shaped club vase, and a famille rose large plate, all showcasing the achievements of generations of Yuyao’s cultural relic collectors.

The Bronze, Jade, and Miscellaneous Objects Hall displays a wide array of high-quality miscellaneous artifacts, including stone tools, bronzes, bone objects, jades, gold and silverware, bricks, tiles, seals, and inkstones. Highlights include a stone battle-axe and a bone dagger from the Hemudu Neolithic Age, an ivory round-carved bird-shaped dagger, a bronze crossbow mechanism from the Eastern Han Dynasty, a bronze mirror with four deities from the Eastern Han Dynasty, a bronze mirror with double phoenixes from the Tang Dynasty, a jade bi disc from the Warring States Period, a gold tiger charm from the Song Dynasty, a gold square token and a gold ear picker from the Ming Dynasty, inscribed bricks from the Western Jin Dynasty, a zodiacal goose-shaped bronze seal, and a Duanyan inkstone engraved with the name of Zhu Yizun from the Qing Dynasty. Though most of these miscellaneous items are relatively small in size, they are exquisitely crafted and elegant, embodying the crystallization of the production, life, and artistic wisdom of ancient people in Yuyao, and hold significant historical and artistic value.