Jiahu Site Museum 贾湖遗址博物馆

About Jiahu Site Museum

The Jiahu site was identified in 1961 and dug in eight campaigns between 1983 and 2013, and is dated to between roughly 9,000 and 7,500 years ago. Those excavations recovered bone flutes, worked tortoise shells and incised symbols. The flutes were made from the hollow ulnae of cranes, the joints sawn off and finger holes drilled along the shaft; marks left on the bone show the makers measured length, bore and hole spacing. More than thirty were found between 1984 and 1987 and again in 2001, with between two and eight holes and seven the commonest number.

The museum opened on a trial basis in May 2023 and arranges its displays on a '1+4' plan: a main exhibition on Jiahu culture called 'Source of Rites and Music', and four subject halls covering the investigation of the site, the bone flutes, tortoise shells and symbols, and burials and funerary practice. Objects on show include flutes, tortoise shells, turquoise ornaments, carbonised rice and bone needles fine enough to take a hair. Reconstructions of semi-subterranean, stilted and ground-built houses stand beside the building, and a few hundred metres away a large timber shelter covers part of the excavation, crossed by a boardwalk.

What to look for

• The bone flute hall, one of the museum's four subject galleries
• The main exhibition 'Source of Rites and Music' on Jiahu culture
• Carbonised rice samples and bone needles fine enough to thread a hair, among the excavated objects displayed
• The tortoise shells and incised symbols in the hall devoted to them
• The reconstructed semi-subterranean, stilted and ground-built houses beside the museum
• The sheltered excavation area a few hundred metres away, where a boardwalk crosses trenches whose sections show the layered soils

Location & getting there

Getting to Jiahu Site Museum

Confirm the venue or campus, reservation channel and exhibition calendar. A museum name may cover more than one building.

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