Wanzhou District Museum

　　The predecessor of the Wanzhou District Museum was the Museum of Wanxian Prefecture in Sichuan Province. It is located in the central area of Wanzhou District, adjacent to the Yangtze River and neighboring Xishan Park. With its elegant environment and convenient transportation, it is a local comprehensive museum dedicated to collecting, researching, and exhibiting historical relics and folk customs of the Three Gorges region. Since its establishment and opening in 1988, the museum has focused on the Three Gorges area and has hosted exhibitions such as the “Exhibition of Cultural Relics from Wanxian Prefecture” and the “Exhibition of Folk Arts and Crafts from Liangping.” Currently, the museum’s permanent exhibitions include “Ancient Tombs of Eastern Sichuan,” “Flowing Time: Memories of Wanzhou,” and “The Ancient Elephant of Yanjing.” These exhibitions feature rich local characteristics and comprehensively reflect the political, economic, and cultural aspects of the ancient Three Gorges region, attracting a large number of domestic and international visitors. The Wanzhou District Museum has become an important window for both domestic and international tourists to learn about the human history of the Three Gorges region.

　　The Wanzhou District Museum currently houses over 40,000 cultural relics (sets), including categories such as paleontological fossils, pottery, porcelain, bronze ware, stone tools, gold and silverware, etc. The relics span from the middle and late Neolithic Age to the Ming and Qing dynasties and early 20th century, with the richest collections from the Warring States, Han-Tang, and Ming-Qing periods. Among the most valuable items in the collection are bronze chime bells, nao bells, and willow-leaf-shaped short swords with strong Ba culture characteristics, vividly shaped Han Dynasty pottery figurines, and exquisitely crafted celadon figurines unearthed from the “Fuma Tomb” of the early Tang Dynasty.

　　Given Wanzhou’s location on the golden tourism route of the Three Gorges and at the heart of the Chongqing reservoir area affected by the Three Gorges Project, the Wanzhou District Museum has leveraged its collection strengths to develop permanent exhibitions such as “Ancient Tombs of Eastern Sichuan,” the precious archival photo exhibition “Flowing Time – Memories of Wanzhou,” and the “Yanjinggou Ancient Elephant Exhibition.” These exhibitions cover a total area of 2,465 square meters and display 538 physical artifacts, along with 34 replicas and models.

　　With the construction of the Three Gorges Project, a large number of above-ground and underground cultural relics below the waterline urgently require protection and rescue. According to the “Cultural Relics Protection Plan for the Submerged and Relocated Areas of the Three Gorges Project,” there are 110 underground cultural relic sites and 24 above-ground cultural relic sites within the Wanzhou area that lie below the reservoir waterline. To rescue and protect these relics, the Wanzhou District Museum has established a dedicated coordination department responsible for liaising with archaeological teams from across the country. Additionally, the museum has formed its own archaeological team, which since 1999 has undertaken excavation tasks at more than ten underground relic sites such as Wanzhou’s Suheping, Xiazhongcun, and Daqiuping, covering over 40,000 square meters. These efforts have salvaged tens of thousands of cultural relics, among which the 2003 excavation of the Daqiuping Tomb Cluster in Wanzhou was named one of the top ten archaeological discoveries in the Chongqing reservoir area that year. Professionals have also written numerous excavation reports and research articles. Furthermore, the museum is responsible for the relocation and reconstruction of seven above-ground cultural relic sites below the waterline in the district (out of the 24 above-ground sites, seven require relocation and reconstruction, while the rest are preserved in situ or documented). By April 2008, structures such as the Huilan Pagoda and the Liu Family Memorial Archway had been reconstructed and unveiled to the public in their renewed forms, while reconstruction work on others such as the Lu’an Bridge is underway.