Changsha: Hunan Provincial Museum

Visitors to China may sometimes find themselves remarking on how a country with such a long and rich history offers so few museum options. Indeed, tourism nationwide focuses mostly on standing monuments to the past - such as the Forbidden City and Great Wall. In the Hunan Provincial museum, however, historians have managed to bring history to life.

Situated in the provincial capital of Changsha, the museum hosts a number of featured exhibitions throughout the year. These mostly consist of national treasures from Beijing, but occasional international collections from Europe or the US splashdown in the city. The real highlight here, however, is the in-situ collection of local historical treasures.

You won’t have to be an expert in needlework, lacquer and embroidery to appreciate the exhibits on the first floor, although a little knowledge would tell you the examples excavated from a nearby site in the early 1970s demonstrate technology and methods so advanced for their time, that they pre-empted developments in the west by 1000 years.

By far the most impressive exhibit on display is the preserved body of the Marquis of Dai. At 2100 years of age, the old lady looks in miraculously good shape. Her cadaver is so well preserved that her muscles maintain a level of elasticity, and her joints are nearly free of rigor mortis.

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The museum also displays the old lady’s internal organs alongside the remnants of her last meal. Over two millennia after her death, visitors to the museum can peer upon the watermelon seeds that she must have struggled to swallow in the hours leading up to her death.

Address: Hunan Provincial Museum, No.50 DongFeng Road, Changsha.
地址：中国湖南省长沙市东风路50号