Jingzhou Museum 荆州博物馆

About Jingzhou Museum

Its Chu, Qin and Han material gives the region a more intimate history than a sequence of battles. Bronze and jade displays add different kinds of workmanship, while the Phoenix Mountain Han tomb exhibition brings a burial assemblage into focus. Use the current gallery plan to choose a route through these collections, and distinguish excavated originals from explanatory reconstructions.

Jingzhou Museum was established in 1958 as a comprehensive local museum. It occupies a site of more than 50,000 square meters with over 23,000 square meters of building space, and was designated a national first-grade museum (国家一级博物馆) by the National Cultural Heritage Administration in 2008.

The museum holds more than 130,000 items, the great majority recovered through archaeological excavation, along with a smaller number of heirloom and revolutionary-era relics; 553 sets are classed as first-grade national relics. Its holdings include the male mummy excavated from the Han-dynasty tomb at Fenghuangshan (凤凰山) in Jiangling.

What to look for

• Chu, Qin and Han lacquerwork and excavated writing on bamboo and wood.
• Regional bronze and jade collections and the Phoenix Mountain tomb exhibition.

The surrounding area

A separate historic-city stay on the Jianghan plain, centred on the old city and its enclosure.

Location & getting there

Getting to Jingzhou Museum

Use No 166 Jingzhong Road in Jingzhou’s historic town. Confirm the current visitor entrance and admission procedure with the museum; this location is separate from the outlying Xiongjiazhong archaeological park.