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Monthly Archives: June 2008

Shanghai Museum: Pottery & Porcelain

This album contains nearly every artifact which was on display at the Shanghai Museum Pottery Gallery on August 23-24, 2008. This is definitely the most thorough collection of Chinese pottery I have ever seen. This is one of four albums I’ve created for some 1250 artifacts I photographed in the museum. Photos by Gary L. [...]

Shanghai Museum: Ancient Bronze Gallery

This album contains every artifact which was on display at the Shanghai Museum Bronze Gallery on August 23, 2008. With the National Museum still closed for renovation, the Shanghai Museum is probably the greatest museum in all China, and one of the greatest in the world. This is one of four albums I’ve created for [...]

Shanghai Museum 2006

This is the first Chinese museum I ever photographed, two years before I started this website. I have since added 8 or 9 additional albums of museum & Shanghai photos taken in 2008 & 2010. You can find them using the “Shanghai” tag on the website. Photos by Gary L. Todd, Ph.D., Professor of History, Sias [...]

Anyang: Yin Ruins Museum and Final Shang Capital

Anyang was the site of the last Shang (Yin) capital, for some 255 years. In 1899 the famous oracle bones were discovered there, confirming the historicity of the last 9 of the Shang kings. Fu Hao, the consort of King Wu Ding, was buried there c. 1200 BC. She is considered China’s first female general, [...]

Henan Provincial Museum: Han Dynasty to Present

This museum in Zhengzhou was built around the artifacts from the tomb of a king of Zheng discovered in 1923 in Xinzheng. The tomb, dated to c. 575 BC, contained the famous crane and lotus urn, probably the most exquisite bronze found anywhere in the world (see Henan Provincial Museum: Beginnings to Han Dynasty). This [...]

Henan Provincial Museum: Beginnings to Han Dynasty

This museum in Zhengzhou was built around the artifacts from the tomb of a king of Zheng discovered in 1923 in Xinzheng. The tomb, dated to c. 575 BC, contained the famous crane and lotus urn, probably the most exquisite bronze found anywhere in the world. Superb bronzes from the state of Chu are also [...]

Beijing Capital Museum

The nucleus of this collection was originally housed in the Confucian Temple, now moved to this ultra-modern facility. In 2010 I added a new album of high-resolution photos of the bronze gallery and the early Beijing gallery. Photos by Gary L. Todd, Ph.D., Professor of History, Sias International University, Xinzheng, Henan, China. http://picasaweb.google.com/GaryLeeTodd/BeijingCapitalMuseum#

Sanxingdui Museum

After 1929 peasants near Chengdu began finding jade artifacts. In 1986 two burial pits full of bronze vessels, heads, masks, and trees were unearthed nearby. The culture which produced them was contemporary with Yin (Shang Dynasty) culture of Anyang, c. 1200 BC. Most likely they evolved into the Jinsha Culture, and later the Ba-Shu culture. [...]

Xi’an: Terracotta Army of Qin Shihuang

The terracotta army protected the tomb of First Emperor of China Qin Shihuang (221-210 BC). Photos are from Pits 1, 2, & 3, and from the on-site museums. Some 8000 soldiers have been discovered and 1000 excavated to date, with only one found intact. Color faded within weeks of excavation, so work was halted for [...]

Beijing: Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square lies just south of the Forbidden City. On the north end is a large portrait of Mao Zedong, who stood on that spot on October 1, 1949, and announced the birth of the People’s Republic of China. On the west side is the Great Hall of the People, China’s main government building. Opposite [...]