Regional Museum

Regional Museum is a large integrated museum and centre for the collection and study of cultural relics in Xinjiang situated in Xibei Lu, in Urumqi City.

Overview of Regional Museum
Regional Museum, built in 1953, has an exhibition hall covering about 7,800 square meters. The construction here is in a Uygur style, and the internal decoration is rich in ethnic features. Over 50,000 items of treasure are displayed here, not only to represent the ethnic life and humanity here, but also to illustrate its revolutionary spirit. With such abundant items, the exhibition is widely known for its comprehensive and informative nature.

What's Regional Museum famous for
The Silk Road derived its fame from silk. The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region Museum has also become famous for its rich collections of silk artifacts from many periods of history. Brocades from Eastern Han are highlighted, as well as all kinds of specialized silk-woven items from the height of the Tang. These are as lustrous and beautiful today as when they were new and display weaving techniques that were highly refined many hundreds and even thousands of years ago. These are regarded as unique treasures by textile authorities and art historians around the world. A number of the articles on display here are the earliest extant examples of certain weaving technologies in China.

Present Regional Museum
Presently, the museum opened new exhibits called the Xinjiang History Exhibition and the Xinjiang People's Customs Exhibition. The History exhibit shows the history of Xinjiang by using material from its rich collections and highlighting material from recent archaeological discoveries. The Customs exhibition introduces the customs and cultural lifestyles of twelve different ethnic groups in Xinjiang, including the Uighur, Kazakh, Mongolian, Kirgiz, Hui, Tajik, Uzbek, Russian, Tatar, Daur, Xibo, and Manchu.

The exhibits have an array of tools, coins, jade, fabrics, pots and paintings all from the area. The most dramatic and interesting exhibits are the "Mummies of Urumqi" - ancient corpses preserved and found in the desert sands. The corpses include a baby who died around 3,800 years ago, still wrapped in swaddling as well as a couple who died at different periods but were found buried together. The most famous however, is the "Luolan Beauty", a corpse of a woman believed to have died in her 40s and to be of Indo-European ethnicity. Discovered in 1980 in the riverbed of the Tieban in Loulan city, the corpse is believed to be around 4,000 years old. When found, she was still clutching a small purse and wore leather and fur sandals.