Nanyue King Museum Royal Tomb Exhibition Area 南越王博物院王墓展区

About Nanyue King Museum Royal Tomb Exhibition Area

The Nanyue King Museum Royal Tomb Exhibition Area (南越王博物院王墓展区) is a site museum at 867 Jiefang North Road (解放北路) in Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, built over the tomb of Zhao Mo (赵眜), second king of the Western Han-era Nanyue Kingdom. It was known as the Museum of the Western Han Nanyue King (西汉南越王博物馆) until 2021.

On 9 June 1983 workers digging foundations for the China Hotel (中国大酒店) on Xianggang hill (象岗) broke into an ancient tomb, which proved to be Zhao Mo's and held a great quantity of relics. The tomb was kept where it lay and a museum rose around it: the first phase opened on 8 February 1988, the complex was finished on the same date in 1993, and in September 2021 it became one of the exhibition areas of the new Nanyue King Museum. The site covers 14,000 square metres.

Visitors usually move from the front exhibition building through the tomb area to the main exhibition building on the north side. At the entrance to the front building stand two walls of red sandstone, 12 m high and 35 m wide, made from more than 1,300 blocks; from its far end a flight of 44 steps connects it with the tomb area, and a pair of crouching stone tigers stands outside the door. Over the burial stands a rain- and sun-proof shelter of steel and blue coated glass shaped like the truncated-pyramid mound of Emperor Wu's Maoling (茂陵), ringed by a square gallery 176 m around. Inside, the tomb's upper structure and rammed-earth fill are visible, and a passage lets visitors walk down into the front chamber.

The main building, fronted by three small glass pyramids that echo the Louvre, stands on the north side. The exhibition area's two main displays are a history of the Nanyue state, 'Qin-Han Southern Frontier' (秦汉南疆), and the tomb finds in 'Treasures of Nanyue' (南越藏珍). The tomb yielded 244 jade objects or sets alone, and among the pieces shown are the king's gold seal, his jade burial suit, and a lobed silver box whose hammered decoration resembles West Asian metalwork, making it almost certainly an import.

What to look for

• The gold seal inscribed 'Wendi xingxi' (文帝行玺, 'seal of Emperor Wen'), with a coiled dragon knob, found on the king's chest and described as the largest Western Han gold seal yet excavated in China
• The silk-thread jade suit (丝缕玉衣), 1.73 m long and made of 2,291 jade plaques, the earliest complete jade suit found in China
• A rhyton-shaped jade cup (角形玉杯) carved from one piece of green jade, placed in 2002 on the first list of relics barred from exhibition abroad
• The openwork double-ring jade pendant with a dragon and phoenix (透雕龙凤纹重环玉佩), whose design became the museum's emblem
• The descent into the tomb's front chamber beneath the blue glass shelter
• More than 200 Tang to Yuan ceramic pillows given by the Hong Kong collector Yang Yongde (杨永德) and his wife, shown in 29 cases

Location & getting there

Getting to Nanyue King Museum Royal Tomb Exhibition Area

• Search for 南越王博物院王墓展区 with 广州市 and 越秀区.