Zhengzhou Shang Capital Site Museum and Shang City Walls 郑州商都遗址博物院与商城城垣

About Zhengzhou Shang Capital Site Museum and Shang City Walls

The Shang city site runs from Fenghuangtai in the east to Xishakou in the west and from Huayuan Road in the north to Erligang in the south, about 25 square kilometres in all, so the archaeology lies under and between the streets of modern Zhengzhou rather than in a fenced park. Three concentric lines of city wall survive along with a palace area, residential settlements, burial grounds, craft workshops and storage pits. The best preserved elements are the inner wall, some seven kilometres in circuit, and the palace area; together they are described by the Zhengzhou heritage bureau as having set the pattern for later Chinese city planning. Royal bronze ritual vessels recovered from three storage pits have supplied much of the evidence for the date, ritual practice and bronze-casting technique of the Shang court here. The site was named in the first batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level in 1961.

The Zhengzhou Shangdu Site Museum is the central building of the Zhengzhou Shang Capital National Archaeological Site Park, 200 metres west of the junction of Dongdajie and Chengdong Road. Its exterior borrows forms from the site and from archaeology itself, including city wall, rammed earth, jade, bronze and the excavation square. After a trial opening from December 2021 it opened formally on 26 July 2022, with about 5,500 square metres of galleries. The permanent exhibition on the civilisation of the Shang capital runs in seven sections and shows more than 1,000 objects, among them bronzes, jades, bone artefacts and pottery. A separate institution, the Archaeology Museum of the Zhengzhou Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, opened on the same day in the same site park with 2,100 square metres of its own galleries.

What to look for

• The rammed-earth inner city wall, about seven kilometres around, which still stands between the streets of the modern district.
• The permanent exhibition in the Shangdu Site Museum, arranged in seven sections on the Shang capital, with more than 1,000 bronzes, jades, bone objects and pottery vessels.
• The museum building itself, whose exterior uses city wall, rammed earth, jade, bronze and excavation-square motifs drawn from the site.
• The palace area of the Shang city, the other best-preserved element of the site alongside the inner wall.
• The nearby Archaeology Museum of the Zhengzhou Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, a separate 2,100-square-metre display on a century of excavation in the Zhengzhou region.

Location & getting there

Getting to Zhengzhou Shang Capital Site Museum and Shang City Walls

Check which interiors and courtyards are accessible. Active places of worship and protected monuments may have different visitor rules.

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