Liangzhu Culture Museum

Liangzhu Culture Museum

The Liangzhu Culture Museum is a national AAAA-level tourist attraction.

The Liangzhu culture is an important ancient culture in the Taihu Lake basin of the lower Yangtze River in China. The Liangzhu Culture Museum is a thematic museum that comprehensively reflects the archaeological research findings of the Liangzhu culture.

The museum is located at the southern foot of Xunshan Mountain in Liangzhu Town, Yuhang District, 17 kilometers north of Hangzhou, and consists of four exhibition halls. The first hall offers a comprehensive introduction to the ecological environment, social economy, and daily life during the Liangzhu culture period; the second hall displays a variety of exquisitely crafted jade artifacts, abundant black pottery, and stone tools unearthed from the site; the third hall showcases a large "jade burial" tomb from the period.

The Liangzhu Cultural Relics Museum, the core part of the "Liangzhu Holy Land" park, consists of the main museum building and surrounding thematic gardens. They are important components of the "Liangzhu Holy Land" landscape. The main museum building was designed by a world-renowned architect and, with its unique aesthetic value, has become an indispensable exhibit within the "Liangzhu Holy Land."

The Liangzhu Culture Museum is a site-specific thematic museum established based on the Liangzhu cultural ruins. It backs onto Xunshan Mountain of the Liangzhu cultural ruins and faces National Highway 104. The museum building is designed in the pattern of a typical Liangzhu cultural artifact—the jade cong—and was completed and opened to the public in April 1994. Covering an area of 10,000 square meters with a floor space of 2,000 square meters, it was inscribed with its name by then-President Jiang Zemin. The interior consists of three exhibition halls: the "Liangzhu Culture Customs Exhibition," which provides a comprehensive introduction to the ecological environment, social economy, and daily life during the Liangzhu culture period; the "Liangzhu Ruins Group Archaeological Finds Exhibition," displaying various exquisitely crafted jade artifacts, abundant black pottery, and stone tools unearthed from the site; and the "Liangzhu Ruins Group Archaeological Fine Artifacts Exhibition," showcasing a large "jade burial" tomb from the period. There is also a temporary exhibition hall that hosts various related exhibitions on an irregular basis.

The content of the three exhibition halls complements and highlights each other, fully demonstrating the highly developed material and spiritual civilization created by the Liangzhu ancestors, illustrating that the origins of Chinese civilization can be traced back to the Liangzhu period some four to five thousand years ago.

First Exhibition Hall

Turning right from the foyer leads into the first exhibition hall, which provides an overview of the connotation and distribution of the Liangzhu culture. The entire first exhibition hall, set against a large background mural depicting the ancient primitive ecological environment and daily life of the Liangzhu culture period, reconstructs vivid scenes of fast-wheel pottery-making and the weaving activities of the ancestors. The exhibition displays advanced agricultural production tools from the Liangzhu culture period, including stone plows, stone shovels, stone knives, soil breakers, stone sickles, as well as stone arrowheads used for hunting and net weights for fishing. The complete set of exquisitely crafted production tools was the most complex and advanced among contemporary archaeological cultures. From this, it is not hard to imagine that the life of the Liangzhu ancestors was quite comfortable, as they enjoyed a diet of rice and fish and engaged in fishing, hunting, and gathering with contentment. The highly developed agriculture provided a solid material foundation for the emergence of specialized and clearly divided handicraft sectors, leading to the creation of numerous handicraft industries and achieving astonishing accomplishments. The elegant black pottery, textiles with intricate textures, sacred and exquisite jade artifacts, precious and vibrant lacquerware, as well as advanced bamboo and wooden ware on display will allow you to appreciate the creativity and colorful lifestyle of the Liangzhu ancestors.

Second Exhibition Hall

The second exhibition hall is located on the eastern side of the second floor of the main museum building, displaying some of the finest artifacts of the Liangzhu culture through six sets of display cases, including exquisitely carved jade artifacts, finely polished stone tools, and regularly shaped pottery. Between every two sets of display cases, there is a set of lightbox images showing exquisite jade and pottery not housed in our museum. In the center of the exhibition hall, four sets of glass screens as tall as the hall stand symbolically to block the line of sight. Each glass screen consists of two panes of glass sandwiching a double-sided image of a fine artifact, creating a strong three-dimensional effect. These lightbox images and screens not only create a fitting ambiance for a premium-quality exhibition but also expand the display capacity and enrich the information presented.

The jade artifacts are divided into two parts: one consists of major ritual objects, including jade cong, jade bi, and jade yue; the other mainly comprises decorative jade items such as trident-shaped objects, crown-shaped ornaments, huang pendants, cone-shaped objects, belt hooks, bracelets, spoons, daggers, necklaces, and animal ornaments like birds, turtles, fish, and cicadas. The pottery section not only displays various types of pottery but also showcases pottery inscribed with primitive characters, such as single-handled cups, oval dou vessels, and jars, particularly a black pottery jar inscribed with eight symbols, hailed as an "unprecedented treasure." At the end of the hall, there is also a brief introduction to the achievements of Mr. Shi Xin'gan, the earliest archaeologist of the Liangzhu ruins, and Mr. He Tianxing, a pioneer in the study of Liangzhu culture, as well as partial materials on the research findings of experts and scholars over the years.

Third Exhibition Hall

The third exhibition hall is located on the western side of the second floor of the main museum building. It reconstructs and displays a large "jade burial" tomb from the Liangzhu culture period, offering a powerful visual impact. Meanwhile, the surrounding walls showcase photos of tombs of different ranks, using a rich comparison of burial data to reveal the social stratification and class formation of the Liangzhu culture, elevating the interpretation of Liangzhu culture to the level of civilization. The entire exhibition reaches its climax.

Transportation: Take buses 372, 348, 313, or B Branch 8 within the city to Liangzhu Museum Station

Liangzhu Subdistrict: Liangzhu, with its long history and outstanding people, is the birthplace of the "Liangzhu Culture," hailed as the "Dawn of Chinese Civilization." The Liangzhu culture is a late Neolithic culture distributed around the Taihu Lake basin, represented by black pottery and polished jade artifacts. It was named after being first discovered in Liangzhu in 1936 and dates back 5,300–4,000 years. The dawn of Chinese civilization rose from Liangzhu, making it a sacred site of the Chinese nation and Eastern civilization. The National Cultural Heritage Administration has officially included it in the list for the "World Cultural Heritage" nomination. Liangzhu is situated in the scenic international tourist city by the West Lake—... More details about Liangzhu Subdistrict++