Ruichang City Museum

Ruichang City Museum

The Ruichang City Museum is located to the north of People's Park in the city center. It covers an area of approximately 6,000 square meters, with a building area of 1,500 square meters. The museum is surrounded by lush green lawns and blooming flowers, offering a very elegant environment, making it an ideal place for sightseeing in the urban area of Ruichang.

The buildings feature green tiles and white walls, with upturned eaves and flying rafters. The main structure—the exhibition hall—is a double-eaved hip-and-gable roof corridor-style building, designed in an antique architectural style. It boasts a grand presence, rational layout, beautiful shape, simplicity, and practicality. It forms a perfect courtyard composition with the office buildings located nearby.

Established in 1984, the Ruichang City Museum is a comprehensive museum and also one with distinctive features, ranking among the top in the province. In 1997, it was named a Ruichang City Patriotic Education Base. The museum currently houses a collection of over 3,000 cultural relics, some of which are classified as national first- or second-class relics. These are divided into categories such as stone, pottery, porcelain, bronze, and wooden artifacts. Porcelain makes up the bulk of the collection. The varieties include those from the Yue Kiln, Changsha Kiln, Hongzhou Kiln, Jingdezhen Kiln, Cizhou Kiln, Jizhou Kiln, Jian Kiln, and Baisha Kiln.

Currently, the museum hosts several exhibitions, including the "Ruichang Historical Relics Exhibition," the "Tongling Copper Mine Site Exhibition," and the "Love My Hometown, Build Ruichang Photo Exhibition." Over the years, the museum has also held temporary exhibitions such as the "Kong Fansen's Deeds Photo Exhibition," the "Han Dynasty Gold-Threaded Jade Suit Exhibition," and the "China's Marine Rare and Exotic Creatures Exhibition," attracting a continuous stream of visitors. These exhibitions have significantly enhanced people’s knowledge of social sciences, enriched their cultural lives, and at the same time provided them with education in historical materialism and patriotism.

The "Ruichang Historical Relics Exhibition" displays various types of cultural relics unearthed in the Ruichang area, ranging from the Neolithic Age to the Qing Dynasty. Through a large number of physical artifacts, it reflects the economic and cultural landscape of ancient Ruichang and the level of development of its productive forces. Most of the exhibited items are carefully selected fine cultural relics from the museum’s collection, such as a bronze ding vessel in the shape of a basin from the Spring and Autumn Period, a celadon bowl from the Tang Dynasty, a bronze tower-top lid box, a bronze ruyi-handle lantern, a Cizhou Dynasty blue-and-white flask decorated with water plants and lotus patterns, a celestial being riding a raft through the seven stars and twelve palaces, and a Yuan Dynasty mirror inscribed with Phags-pa script.

The "Tongling Copper Mine Site Exhibition" recreates the bronze mining and smelting production techniques from 3,000 years ago in the Ruichang area. It introduces the discovery, excavation, and research achievements of the Tongling Copper Mine site. Most of the exhibited relics were discovered for the first time in China’s archaeological history and hold significant archaeological and scientific research value. The Tongling Copper Mine site is currently the earliest, best-preserved, and richest in content large-scale copper mine site discovered in China, dating back 3,365 years. A wealth of cultural remains and artifacts provide valuable information for studying the origins of China’s bronze culture, ancient Chinese civilization, and the history of metallurgy. This site was rated as one of the Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries in China in 1991. In 1995, it was designated as a provincial-level key cultural relic protection unit by the National Cultural Heritage Administration and has since been nominated for the fifth batch of national key cultural relic protection units.

The "Love My Hometown, Build Ruichang Photo Exhibition" introduces the revolutionary struggles of the Ruichang people during the Agrarian Revolutionary War and the War of Resistance Against Japan, as well as the natural scenery and cultural landscapes of Ruichang. It also showcases the fruitful achievements made by Ruichang in all fields since the reform and opening-up. The entire exhibition is divided into four sections, displaying a total of 135 photographs.

Further Reading:

· China's National Third-Class Museum