Hubei Provincial Museum



Located on the bank of beautiful East Lake, Hubei Provincial Museum was established in 1953 and covers
an exhibition area of 2,400 sq meters. The museum boasts of having great musical instruments collections,
bronze wares and lacquer wares.

Covering a space of 40,000 square meters, the Museum houses more than 140,000 pieces of collections.
More than 15,000 relics were excavated from the Zeng Houyi Mausoleum tomb, including the bronze ritual
vessels, coffins, musical instruments, gold and jade decorative items, lacquer ware, weapons, inscribed
bamboo strips and other relics.

The museum also holds artifacts from the 1973 discovery of an ancient copper smelter on Tonglu Mountain
in Dazhi. This finding shows that China led the world in mining and smelting techniques from the Warring States Period through the Western Han
Dynasty.

Nearly 300 Chu State tombs have been excavated in Hubei, yielding tens of thousands of relics which are now on show in the museum. One
noteworthy find was a collection of silks from the No.1 Mashan Chu Tomb. To find ancient silk in such good condition is extremely rare, and the
hoard is known as the Silk Treasury of the Warring States Period. Thousands of lacquer items were found in the tomb too.

The biggest bell is 153.4 cm (60.4 inches) with a weight of 203.6 kg (448.9 pounds). Although the bells had been buried underground for more
than 2,000 years, people can still use them to play music! A lacquer box found in the tomb is also marvelous.

The twenty-eight constellations which the celestial sphere was divided in ancient Chinese astronomy were painted on the box. The pictures tell
the archaeologists that ancient Chinese had known astronomy already in the fifth century B.C.

The collection of calligraphy and paintings are age-old. The successive lacquer paintings and bamboo
books far from the period of Qin Dynasty and Han Dynasty are both rare works in the Chinese art history
and calligraphy history.