Six Dynasties Museum

Address: No. 302 Changjiang Road, Xuanwu District, Nanjing City

Hours: Closed on Mondays, remaining hours 9:00--18: 00 (ticket sales stop at 17:00)

Tickets: Tickets 30 yuan

Walking time: 2021.2

Walking method: Metro Line 2 Daxinggong

In November last year, I went to the "Tiger and Dragon Pan" exhibition hall of the Nanjing Museum in Chaotian Palace to learn about the history of Nanjing. In the long history, Nanjing was a prosperous period of development during the Six Dynasties, Ming Dynasty, and Republic of China. I have always known that there is a Six Dynasties Museum in Nanjing Grand Palace, but I have never had special time to visit it. Occasionally, a few friends had never been here even after chatting, so they set off immediately. Walking out of Daxonggong Subway Station, you will reach the Six Dynasties Museum on Hanfu Street after walking one or two hundred meters.

Nanjing is known as the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties and one of the four major ancient capitals of my country. In the nearly 400 years since the Wu State of the Three Kingdoms, six consecutive dynasties established their capitals in Nanjing. Therefore, Nanjing had the reputation of being the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties before the Tang and Song Dynasties. The Six Dynasties Museum in front of you is the most comprehensive site museum displaying the cultural relics of the Six Dynasties in China, and it is also the most systematic thematic museum reflecting the culture of the Six Dynasties. Above the five characters "Six Dynasties Museum" is the museum LOGO designed based on the six Dynasties human-faced tiles unearthed in Nanjing. This LOGO reminds me of the different faces and tiles in the Nanjing Museum.

As soon as you enter the museum, there is a museum cultural and creative store on one side-Nanjing Wenbo Six Dynasties Store

Nowadays, the products in cultural and creative stores are all products with unique creativity and exquisitely designed. There are also some designed based on the shapes of the treasures in the museum, so that more cultural relics that are "offered up" can enter our daily lives.

The museum has a spacious, hollow hall with a height of 16 meters. The transparent roof and large glass windows on one side introduce sunlight directly into the hall. From the top, there are six hanging frames, each recording the six dynasties of "Wu, Eastern Jin, Song, Qi, Liang and Chen".

On the first floor of the hall, there is a steel and glass ceiling that highlights the beauty of structure and materials, and "moon doors" and stairs on the straight walls of the north and south are embellished, giving a symmetrical aesthetic feeling. What is amazing is the 78 glass windows inlaid between beige lime slabs on the ground.

The hall is holding "Mo Meeting Huizhou-Nine People's Sketching Works Exhibition of Zhaji's Works". The work shows the Hui-style architecture with blue bricks and small tiles and horse-head walls and the natural scenery of mountains and streams in front of us through Chinese paintings and oil paintings.

There is a "drum cart" placed in the corner of the hall. In ancient times, this car was used to measure mileage. It was one of the indispensable guard vehicles of honor when the emperor traveled.

In the other corner is a "guide cart", which is a vehicle to indicate directions and a vehicle for the emperor's ceremonial duties.

The graphic display board on the wall shows the chronology of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Southern Dynasties

Chronology of the Six Dynasties emperors

From the visiting guide on the wall, we can know that there are four basic displays in the museum, namely,"Imperial Capital of the Six Dynasties", temporary exhibition hall,"Elegance of the Six Dynasties", and "Heroes of the Six Dynasties".

We chose to start our visit from the ruins exhibition hall on the first floor. The exhibition "Imperial Capital of the Six Dynasties" here introduces the urban history of the Six Dynasties.

The memorabilia of the construction of Jiankang City during the Six Dynasties is displayed in front of us through this table.

Jiankang City during the Six Dynasties was the most important capital city in ancient southern China and the essence of Han culture.

In the center of the first floor are the ruins of the rammed earth city wall of Jiankang City in the Six Dynasties surrounded by glass rings. This section of the city wall is 20 meters long and 10 meters wide. It is part of the east city wall of Jiankang City and the "foundation" of the entire museum. It is also because of this section of the city wall that there is the Six Dynasties Museum here. In 2008, when archaeologists were excavating the site where the museum was located, they discovered the rammed earth wall 2 meters underground. It was verified that it was an architectural site of the Jiankang Palace City of the Six Dynasties before 1700, so they decided to build it on site. A museum showcases that historical era.

In addition to this millennium site, drainage ditch sites and revetment sites are also exhibited.

The chart describes the main rivers and water conservancy projects of Jiankang City

Wood piles from the Six Dynasties period unearthed at the Nantu construction site of Daxinggong in Nanjing

It uses pictures and words to introduce the weapon used during city defense at that time-the bed crossbow.

City bricks from the Six Dynasties period unearthed from the Shitou City site.

The human-faced tiles on the entire wall are displayed here, which is more abundant and diverse than the tiles on display in Chaotian Palace. Tile is a building component used to protect cornice in high-standard buildings such as palaces and temples. However, it has various decorative patterns, and the patterns of different styles are extremely decorative. The decoration mainly includes cloud pattern, human face pattern, animal face pattern and lotus pattern. Facial patterns are rare in other areas and are very distinctive. The 162 faces on the entire wall showed their momentum against the red wall. Look carefully at the faces on the tiles. Some people laugh, pursed their lips and smiled, pretended to be thoughtful, looked sad, looked kind, and cried bitterly. Some people also have beards on their facial patterns, which can be divided into male and female images. The human face pattern tiles are very interesting and comparable to the "QQ emoticons" during the Six Dynasties.

The mural shows the scene of the year

The residents of Jiankang City in the Six Dynasties mainly lived on both sides of the Qinhuai River, and the names of these streets and alleys are still in use.

The text introduces the residence of Jiankang people in the Six Dynasties

Unearthed cultural relics, pottery urn from the Six Dynasties.

The place of residence in the Six Dynasties-pottery houses and unearthed cultural relics-iron keys.

This is a home furnishings from the Six Dynasties

These small Buddhist shrines and sculptures show the beliefs of Jiankang people in the Six Dynasties

These are the unearthed eating utensils of Jiankang people.

Remnants of pottery sculptures from the Six Dynasties

There was a popular "retro slippers" at that time-Six Dynasties clogs, which were also accompanied by illustrations to introduce the tying method of clogs.

The pottery model shows the ceremonial ceremony of travel and is also the way of travel for Jiankang people in the Six Dynasties. Nanjing is located in the south where there is abundant rainfall, and the main road at that time was built with strong and durable masonry. The main means of transportation at that meeting were ox-carts.

Pottery circles unearthed from the Nantu construction site of Daxinggong

The bottom level includes the city and life chapters of the Imperial Capital of the Six Dynasties. The city mainly shows the architectural scale, palaces, urban roads and drainage system of Jiankang City in the Six Dynasties. The life chapter uses a large number of cultural relics to restore people's daily life during the Six Dynasties.

Starting from the bottom floor, we slowly walked into the Six Dynasties and continued to climb the stairs to watch the Six Dynasties.

Go up to the second floor and see the exhibition hall through this "Moon Gate".

Look at the exhibition hall on the first floor from this angle. Large glass windows incorporate the scenery outside the window into the overall beauty. The transparency of the roof glass embraces the sunshine into your arms. The embellishment of beige and blue glass makes the place look elegant and intellectual.

Here, a simple wooden frame and arched building is used to build a scene layout like an ancient gate. The four words in the middle "Six Dynasties Style" tell us the theme here.

Through text introduction and floor schematic drawings, we know that the layout of the second-floor exhibition hall is like the dowry box elements used by women in the ancient Six Dynasties. The art in porcelain, lines and statues of the Six Dynasties are displayed in large and small spaces.

The introduction in the preface allows us to understand what we are about to see in this exhibition hall.

Text introduction Unit 1: Art in porcelain

The text introduces the birth of celadon

"Elegance of the Six Dynasties" displays the fine cultural relics of the Six Dynasties found in Nanjing, using cultural relics to interpret the aesthetics of the people of the Six Dynasties.

Using wooden partitions to divide the space, this looming feeling increases the sense of flow of the space.

Various fine porcelain is displayed in the small exhibition hall.

Celadon pots of various shapes and sizes

Celadon bottles and incense burners of various shapes and sizes

All the roads to the exhibits are surrounded by bamboo shadows. Coupled with faint yellow quiet lights, bamboo shadows are wrapped around, and the bamboo leaves displayed through the curtain sway, and the sand sound of bamboo leaves in the bamboo forest seems to be heard in my ears, which has its own style and charm.

Celadon aroma

Celadon flat pot

Various celadon chicken head pots are displayed in the large window.

The chicken head pot is also known as the chicken head pot or the sky chicken pot. It generally refers to a pan-mouth pot with a chicken head attached to one side of the pot body and a handle on the other side. It is a typical type of celadon among the Six Dynasties. The emergence of this type laid the foundation for the development of pot holding in the Tang and Song Dynasties.

Celadon chicken head pot unearthed in Qixia Lingshan

celadon lion insert

celadon horse

Celadon tiger in the museum

Celadon lotus pot

The treasure of the Six Dynasties museums-the celadon lotus statue is a masterpiece of celadon in the Southern Dynasties. It can be called the "king of celadon" and a rare Buddhist art. It was unearthed in 1972 in the Southern Dynasty tomb of Lingshan, Qilin Gate, in the eastern suburbs. The green porcelain flower honor has a trumpet-shaped opening, a high neck, a round belly, and rounded feet. The honor cover looks like a monk's hat. The decoration is elaborate and beautiful, with lotus as the main decorative pattern, focusing on embossed, embossing, carving and other craft techniques to properly decorate each part of the lotus pattern. The lotus petal pattern is the most contemporary symbol of the porcelain of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. The celadon lotus is decorated with a strong Buddhist color.

This is a celadon pile of figure buildings and soul bottles unearthed from Wu's Tomb in Shangfang, Jiangning District, Nanjing City. The soul bottle, also known as the "pile plastic bottle" or the "barn bottle", was a kind of openware popular during the Three Kingdoms and Two Jin Dynasties and was specially fired for burial purposes. The bottle decoration content is very rich, and the forming process is extremely complex. Various figures, birds, towers, and pavilions are piled above the shoulders of the celadon bottles, in a scattered manner and in a myriad of postures. The abdomen is decorated with a simple stamp. The unique shape with complex top and simple bottom reflects the perfect combination of details and the whole. This decorative style, which integrates multiple themes, is closely related to the concept of people praying for souls to ascend to heaven at that time.

The celadon pile of figures in the Western Jin Dynasty unearthed in Lion Mountain in Xiaguan.

The blue porcelain pile sculpture of the Three Kingdoms period unearthed in Shangfang, Jiangning

Celadon is fashionable with elegant blue color, but it also has color changes.

The color of celadon changes

The stippling process is introduced with words and pictures. Stippling is a decorative technique of adding brown color on celadon.

Various colored celadon stippling covers cultural relics

It is introduced in words that underglaze color is a kind of line beauty in painting

This treasure is a celadon underglaze, colorful feather-pattern pan-mouth pot unearthed from Wu's Tomb in Changgang Village, Yuhuatai District. The bottle is tied around the neck, round and flat. The arc-shaped cover has the shape of a bird looking back. The porcelain body is white with gray in the middle, and the surface is covered with bluish-yellow glaze. There are neatly arranged and spaced on the bottles
Various magical and unique artistic images such as feathermen, fairy grass, lovingbirds, and Buddha statues are all outlined in brown color, and the underglaze color painting and pasting are integrated into one. The entire body of the body is painted with smooth brown patterns, with a vivid charm. It is the earliest object seen in my country to beautify porcelain with painting techniques. It can be called an artistic treasure among early porcelain. This treasure was unearthed in 1983. The superb underglaze color painting process changed people's previous understanding that underglaze color painting began in the Tang Dynasty.

The exhibition hall is winding and winding, with flowing wine and winding water, and full of scenery! There are almost no real walls in the exhibition hall, but bamboo, wooden railings, etc. are used to partition the exhibition hall, and light and shadow effects are used to make the museum visually transparent and change the scenery. When you are in it, the whole person's body and mind are also in an elegant and quiet atmosphere. Relax.

Each exhibit is set off by light and shadow, surrounded by bamboo forests, and the stone pillars under the light also reflect an ultimate aesthetic feeling.

The bamboo leaves sway with light and shadow, there is a calligraphy work "Preface to the Orchid Pavilion" between the winding water and the floating wine cups, and the rectangular low seats placed are designed and made based on the pottery couch unearthed in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. In the artistic conception of "Lanting Elegant Collection", a stone unicorn lies there.

After watching the porcelain, it is now the theme of "statue".

Pottery female figurines in the Eastern Jin Dynasty

The calligraphy section introduces the beauty of calligraphy during the Six Dynasties

Stone carving, the artistic beauty of calligraphy

The beauty of seal cut articles

figure brick

Calligraphy on bamboo slips

Wrong printed brick painting of seven sages in bamboo forest

A heavyweight cultural relic of the Six Dynasties-Shimen of the Southern Dynasties Tomb in Lingshan. The front of the stone door post is engraved with the patterns of divine beasts and flowers and plants, and the inner side is engraved with the patterns of flowers and plants and the statue of a warrior. This is the only stone door with decorative patterns preserved in the six dynasties tombs excavated so far. The exquisite tomb walls showcase the painting and sculpture art of the Six Dynasties.

The back wall of the tomb chamber has a special shape, with both sides of the upper part protruding outward, the middle part being built with portrait bricks and pattern bricks to form a prominent tower-shaped structure, and the middle is a pavilion.

The design of the exhibition hall highlights the garden style, and the scenery of bamboo and plum trees makes the space highlight its elegance.

The "Six Dynasties Style" exhibition hall on the second floor is rich in content. According to the three themes of porcelain, statues and calligraphy, it presents us with the three most representative aspects of material life in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. A large number of precious cultural relics such as pottery figurines, celadon, epitaph, tile dang, and stone carvings from the Six Dynasties period on display take us to understand the Six Dynasties from an aesthetic perspective. Listening to classical music here and walking through elegant scenes to appreciate the celadon, calligraphy and paintings of the Six Dynasties, everyone is intoxicated by it. Continue to follow the spiral staircase to the third floor.

The three-story scenery uses "stone" as the main scenery. Perhaps because Nanjing is a "stone city","stone" is used to divide the space to increase the sense of historical hierarchy.

Old dead branches, round lying stones, Chinese classical freehand style and modern buildings outside the window are wonderfully blended together.

This design is very special, but at a glance, it is clear that this is a famous story of "straw boat borrowing arrow" during the Three Kingdoms. Hundreds of arrows shot in the same direction, and at the end there was a shining spot. It was very spectacular.

Looking at it from this perspective, you can think of an idiom-thousands of arrows shooting at the same time. This idiom is also a metaphor for the historical image of the time. Although the Six Dynasties were prosperous and competitive, they were also troubled times. For more than three hundred years, wars were frequent, and six dynasties changed one after another.

The Six Dynasties were a special period in history. It was an era of sword and fire, an era of poetry and wine, and an era of impermanent destiny. Extraordinary times have created a large number of people of the hour. There were many famous people in the Six Dynasties, and special times made immortal legends."Jinling was so strong in the past that it swept away heroes and heroes." The third floor is an introduction to the heroes of the Six Dynasties.

Unit 1: Governing the country

Introduction to the historical stories of governing the country on the exhibition board

The exhibition hall on the third floor runs through the entire venue with a main passage, like the Yangtze River stretching thousands of miles. Independent exhibition halls are scattered on both sides of the main road.

The entire space adopts geometric lines and is full of design. On the white wall, the light hits the wall, creating a contrast between light and shadow. In the "Good and Capable Generals" section of the Light and Shadow, the generals and ministers of the Six Dynasties are introduced.

In addition to the introduction of the text section, there is also an exquisite exhibition of cultural relics of the Six Dynasties in the exhibition hall. This is a copper crossbow machine unearthed at Tongji Gate on the Qinhuai River.

The unique portrait brick walls of the Six Dynasties serve as the spatial shaping of the scene, giving us more sense of historical hierarchy.

Unit 2: Thinking. Due to the troubled times, the Six Dynasties were famous for their freedom and freedom, coldness and grandeur, and elegance. The troubled times have given birth to a large number of romantic celebrities who are "elegant and elegant and do not stay in things", such as Xie An, Ruan Jie, Ji Kang, Liu Ling, Wang Rong...

There is also an entire section dedicated to introducing the romantic prime minister Xie An.

Various sects

The exhibition hall adopts a concise technique of opening and closing widely, using three-dimensional or planar divided scenery from different angles.

The Six Dynasties created an extremely brilliant "Six Dynasties Civilization" and achieved unprecedented prosperity in science and technology, literature, art and other aspects. Zu Chongzhi, a scientist in the Southern Dynasties, made his most outstanding contribution to calculating a fairly accurate pi. He was the first scientist in the world to calculate the value of pi to more than seven digits. He created the "Daming Calendar" and designed and manufactured water pestle mills, compass carriages, thousand-mile ships, etc., and made remarkable achievements in his life.

He Chengtian, a famous astronomer and mathematician in the Southern Song Dynasty, was proficient in celestial arithmetic and made the "Yuanjia Calendar", which was more precise than the old calendar. This calendar was in use as a calendar officially promulgated by the country for 65 years.

Unit 3: Literature and art. The Six Dynasties created a group of special talents who were admired by later generations of literati. They had a kind of speech and behavior that was different from the customs and even different from any historical period. In the eyes of future generations, it was a true celebrity style. The seven sons of Jian 'an, the celebrities of the Zhengshi Dynasty, the seven sages of the bamboo forest, the aristocratic family of Wang Xie, the Tao Ling of Taoyuan, and the calligraphy of the Youjun, etc., led the glory of the Six Dynasties.

The combination of light, shadow and cloth is used to show the antique atmosphere. The character in the scene is Liu Xie, a literary theorist and literary critic in Chinese history, during the Liang Dynasty of the Southern Dynasties.

Poetry of the Six Dynasties

History, novels, and comic creation during the Six Dynasties

Tools for literary and artistic creation

Almost all museums are facades with large glass windows. Walking through the history of the Six Dynasties in the museum, you can see the Presidential Palace across the street, and the city streetscape with high-rise buildings further away, which feels a bit like the world. A museum that takes tranquility in the bustle, a museum that melts history in art, a museum that allows people to understand Nanjing from their blood and soul!

I visited the Six Dynasties Museum and comprehensively displayed the history and culture of the Six Dynasties from the perspectives of "city","people","things" and "beauty". I learned about the beginning of Nanjing's history, and I was even more proud to be in Nanjing.