Xinjiang Regional Museum, a famous landmark at Urumqi in China, is one of the major tourist attractions as people can get a glimpse of the history and diverse ethnic cultures of Xinjiang.
It’s a provincial-level comprehensive museum and a national first-class museum with over 40,000 cultural collections.
Visitors can see rich ancient artifacts ranging from the silk, cotton, linen and woolen fabrics, ancient books, wooden sculptures, clay figurines, paintings, bronzes to different ethnic costumes and living items and some ancient corpses and fossils. An official of the museum Qimangul said that Xinjiang has a unique historical and cultural heritage, including historical sites, textiles, documents, statues, murals, mummies, costumes, jewels and other treasures, which have fully illustrated that these were important facts of the central government's governance and jurisdiction over Xinjiang in the past dynasties, and these were valuable evidence of cultural communication, exchanges and integration among peoples.
These treasures are not only historical witness for deepening the history of the Chinese nation’s community and studying the pluralistic integration pattern of the Chinese nation, but also vivid materials to foster a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation, to tell the story of China Xinjiang well and show the cultural confidence of the Chinese nation, she mentioned.
She further said the major achievements of archaeological discoveries have confirmed China's millions of years of human history, 10,000 years of cultural history and more than 5,000 years of civilization history.
China is the hometown of oriental human beings, she said, adding that Peking Man invented artificial fire about 50,000 years ago, which is one of the earliest in the world, as early as 10,000 years ago, our ancestors planted millet and rice, and the origin of agriculture is tied with West Asia and North Africa for the first place.
“Our ancestors were at the forefront of the world in the achievements of ancient times in the Neolithic Age, Bronze Iron Age and other ages such as crop cultivation, wild animals’ domestication, seeking medical treatment, observing geography tool making, character creation, villages and cities construction and so on, " she said.
Archaeological excavation and research showed that the history of human activities could be traced back to the middle and late period of Paleolithic Age (about 50,000-40,000 years ago) in Xinjiang. China entered into the Neolithic Age about 10,000 years ago, the official said.
Xinjiang’s Neolithic Age sites were mainly Microlith sites, polished stone implements, which reflected the economic lifestyle of primitive hunting and agriculture, she added.
Xinjiang had entered into the Bronze Age about 4,000-2,800 years ago, forming an oasis civilization dominated by farming and a prairie civilization dominated by nomadic and animal husbandry, she mentioned.
Xinjiang had entered into the Early Iron Age in succession about 2,800-2,200 years ago.
Human migration activities and the communication and dissemination of materials and technologies had promoted the economic and cultural development in Xinjiang, she said, adding that painted pottery culture had a profound impact on Xinjiang. “Prior to the 4th century BC, primitive religion was widespread in Xinjiang. By the middle and late Warring States, the oasis cities at the centre of the Tarim Basin began to appear” she informed.
Meanwhile, Xinjiang is a multi-ethnic border region where 47 ethnic groups jointly create a great history and splendid cultures. This folk culture exhibition hall lies on the first floor, covers about 15,000 square meters and displays more than 2,000 collections. It mainly introduces the houses, furniture, costumes, daily necessities and folk customs of 12 main ethnic groups, including the Uygur, Kazak, Mongolian, Xibe and other Nationalities. It’s a fantastic folk museum to learn about the ethnic lifestyle, dining, wedding, religious and music and dance cultures. Inside the exhibition hall, many lifelike ethnic wax figures stand in real life scenes. Visitors thus can clearly see their exquisitely-made unique clothes and accessories and picture their daily life.
There are some other exhibitions in the museum which you can drop by to further know Xinjiang’s history and ancient wisdom of China.
The ancient mummy collections on the second floor are the most famous and interesting exhibition of the Xinjiang Regional Museum.
Due to the dry weather and special ancient funeral system, Xinjiang has the largest number and most best-preserved mummies in the world. The hall covers about 700 square meters and houses 6 ancient corpses and related relics excavated from Turpan’s Astana Cemetery, ancient tombs in Shanshan, Lop Nor. The most famous and oldest one is the Loulan Beauty, who is said to be an Europeoid buried nearly 4,000 years before. Also, visitors can see the corpse of Zhang Xiong - a Chinese famous general of Gaochang Kingdom, “Qiemo Men, Women, Infant” mummies with Eurasian features, special make up and clothes and a male mummy wearing a golden mask.
A few representative ancient tombs have been restored to help people know more about ancient burial culture together with relevant documents. Some people, especially the children, may be frightened when seeing the mummies while some are quite curious about these mummies which were naturally dried and totally different from the Egypt mummies.
