Yudu County Museum

Yudu County Museum

Yudu County Museum, also known as the Memorial Hall of the Starting Point of the Central Red Army’s Long March, is located at No. 5 Jiaotong Lane in Yudu County. It is a comprehensive local museum. In April 1971, with the approval of the Yudu County Committee of the Communist Party of China, the “Memorial Hall of Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Activities in Yudu” was established. In December 1978, it was renamed the “Yudu County Revolutionary History Memorial Hall,” and in April 1981, it was again renamed the “Yudu County Museum.” In November 1988, with the approval of higher authorities, the “Memorial Hall of the Starting Point of the Central Red Army’s Long March” was established and shares the same office with Yudu County Museum, operating under one team with two names.

During the third national cultural relics survey, the museum discovered a cluster of ancient kiln sites. — Preliminary judgments by cultural relics experts suggest that this ancient kiln site cluster dates back to the Tang and Song dynasties, making it about a thousand years old.

The kiln site cluster is located in Shangyao Village, Gongjiang Town, approximately 5 kilometers from downtown Yudu. The kilns are situated near the Meijiang River, with over 20 ancient kiln sites from the Tang and Song dynasties distributed across an area about 3 kilometers long and 1 kilometer wide from north to south.

These ancient kiln sites are built on gentle slopes, with layers of ceramic fragments accumulating up to 6 meters thick. The kilns mainly produced celadon and pottery, with extremely rich remains and a wide variety of artifacts. Celadon items include jars, bowls, ewers, and basins, among which jars are the most common—such as double-handled jars, four-handled jars, and straight-bodied jars. Pottery items mainly consist of vats, jars, pots, and bowls, with vats being the most numerous. The glaze colors of the ceramics are primarily bluish-brown, yellowish-brown, and dark brown. Most kiln tools are straight cylindrical pillars, with a few supports.

According to local villagers, it is said that in ancient times, the village had a thriving ceramic industry, with up to 99 kilns at its peak. Many people digging wells or building houses have unearthed large and small ancient pottery fragments, and some have even found intact ceramic jars and pottery bowls, though they did not realize these were what we now call cultural relics.

Shangyao Village is located near the Meijiang River, offering convenient water transport. The area is rich in porcelain clay, and some kiln sites were still in production as late as the 1970s. Additionally, Yaotang Village across the river is the site of the county’s founding city from the Western Han Dynasty.

After conducting an on-site investigation, Han Zhenfei, Director of the Ganzhou Cultural Relics Bureau, Director of the Museum, and a researcher in cultural relics and museology, stated that the Shangyao Tang and Song dynasty kiln sites are numerous, densely distributed, and have rich accumulation layers, making them the largest discovered cluster of Tang and Song dynasty kiln sites in southern Jiangxi.

Yudu County Museum in Jiangxi Province is located at No. 5 Jiaotong Lane in Yudu County.

Opening Hours:

Every day from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM (closed on Mondays).

Further Reading:

· National Second-Class Museum of China