Historical Artifacts in the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King

Hello, everyone :)

Hope your weekend is going well. It's fascinating how time goes by that it's already mid-May!

Centuries-old tree found around the Museum

And speaking of time, I can't believe that it's been over a decade ago when we were chanced to take a little adventure in the Museum of the Western Han Dynasty in Guangzhou where we had a few remembrances through photographs which unfortunately aren't that good. Nevertheless, just like other past mementos, I figured they are worth-storing in the blockchain for me to look back at in the years to come.

And let's go, shall we?

The first leg of this wee exploration begins in the tomb relics through this staircase.

We shall walk down into the underground chambers where we get to see some interesting finds. It is worthy to note that this site was discovered in the early 1980s during an excavation for a hotel construction.

According to history and I quote:

The tomb is nearly 11 meters long and over 12 meters wide. It is divided in seven parts, with a front chamber, east and west wing rooms, the main coffin chamber, east and west side rooms, and a back storage chamber.

It is disheartening that this tomb of the Nanyue King carries with it a sad story too. Along with over a thousand artifacts were human sacrifices. It was said that 15 courtiers were buried alive with the king to serve him in death.

Back to our adventure, we were able to see a series of amazing burial artifacts and even murals and carvings on the walls.

These for instance are called Gou Diao, a percussion instrument by the Yue people. Accordingly, these are made of bronze and each one of them weighs 191 kilograms. Each piece bearing an inscription indicating that the instruments were cast in 129 BC.

Many different old silver coins in various designs, inscriptions and sizes.

Various wooden carvings like horse carriages and horsemen too.

Terracotta sculptures of court men in various interesting patterned garments and robes. Pardon the poor photos. We were obviously not good at taking them then.

A beautiful and exquisitely-carved dragons. I am not sure if these were made of natural jade though. The ingenuity of people in the past is just astounding.

And a screen support in "Pu" Dragon Shape, made of bronze and apparently, it was used to hold the lacquered screen on bottom corners.

And a bean-shaped porcelain pillow of the Ding Kiln with floral, a plump baby, stamping and pearl patterns.

There were many imperial antiquities like seals, porcelain artifacts and others that were individually enclosed on glass displays but these were the only decent ones we've got on photos. Some items had staggering price tags on them so I reckon they were on auction or something.

And the only decent capture of a very interesting totem on the wall.

And because this is getting long, let me end this wee adventure with a replica of the Louvre, photographed outside of the Mausoleum. And perhaps not very soon, we will get to re-visit the other things we've seen during this exploration.

Thank you for your time and until then, enjoy life!

All photos are my own. 150522/11:00ph