Xinjiang Museum

The Xinjiang Museum in Urumqi is the principal collection of antiquities in the whole region, founded in 1953 and given its present building in 2005. The display leads from the Bronze Age and the stone statues of the steppe to finds from the Silk Road: textiles, ceramics and wooden documents written in several languages. Its best known section holds the mummies of the Tarim Basin, preserved in the dry sands of the desert. Separate halls are devoted to Tang funerary figurines and to the daily life of the peoples living in Xinjiang today. Captions are duplicated in English, and half a day is worth setting aside for a visit.

On the map