The Baoji Bronzeware Museum holds one of the finest collections of Zhou dynasty bronze vessels in China and one of the most important concentrations of Bronze Age metalwork in the world. The city and its surrounding countryside have produced an exceptional number of Zhou bronzes because this area was the original heartland of the Zhou state — Baoji is where the Zhou people developed before their conquest of the Shang dynasty in 1046 BCE and their founding of a kingdom that lasted 800 years.
The collection includes ritual vessels (ding tripods, gui tureens, zun goblets, and bells), weapons, chariot fittings, and inscribed objects of the type that historians use to reconstruct the political and religious life of early China. The museum building is dramatic — a modern structure incorporating the form of traditional bronze vessels — and the curation is excellent. Admission is free; the museum is on the eastern section of Binhe Avenue along the Wei River.