The Jun Royal Kiln Site Museum is the best place in China to understand Jun ware — both as an aesthetic tradition and as a technical achievement. The three-floor building combines a conventional museum survey of Yuzhou's ceramic history with the actual excavated kiln ruins that supplied the Song, Jin, and subsequent dynasties. The bottom level preserves the kiln ruins in situ: the brick firing chambers, the stacking kiln furniture, and the layers of ash and broken ware that accumulated over centuries of production.
The ceramics on display show the full range of what Yuzhou kilns produced: the famous sky-blue and purple Jun glazes, the more unusual crimson pieces that result from the highest copper concentrations in the glaze, and the functional ware produced alongside the imperial pieces. The "kiln-change" phenomenon — the unpredictable colour transformation that happens during firing — is explained clearly here, and the display of pieces at different stages of firing makes the chemistry tangible. Admission is free, which seems surprisingly generous given the quality of the collection.