Anhui Provincial Museum

The Anhui Provincial Museum is the best single introduction to the province's history and culture. The new building, opened in 2011, is well-organized and handles the full sweep from Neolithic through modern times, with particularly strong holdings in Han dynasty bronzes, jade, and lacquerware excavated from tombs across the province.

The galleries covering Huizhou culture — the merchant civilization of southern Anhui that produced the white-walled villages now familiar from tourism brochures — are genuinely illuminating, explaining the economic and social conditions that generated such remarkable domestic architecture. The natural history wing has a respectable collection of specimens from Anhui's varied landscapes. English labeling is limited, but the quality of the objects largely compensates. Allow two to three hours.

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The Han dynasty bronzes in the museum's collection include several pieces recovered from the tomb of Liu Jian, a prince of the Huainan kingdom whose territory covered much of modern Anhui. His tomb was one of the most elaborately furnished ever excavated in eastern China — the objects suggest a court culture of extraordinary refinement in a region the later historical record largely ignores.

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