Ancient Shu shines in Shanghai

Shanghai Museum East had its soft opening on Friday with the exhibition, Stars Over China: The Ancient Shu Civilization of Sanxingdui and Jinsha.

Construction of the new museum opposite the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum in the Pudong New Area started in 2017, and it is expected to open to the public this year in three phases.

Shanghai Museum East has six stories, with a gross floor area of 113,200 square meters.

Its exhibition space will be divided into 20 halls covering a total area of 33,600 sq m. It is expected to receive more than 5 million visitors every year.

The first to open alongside the Sanxingdui exhibition will be the hall of Chinese bronze art, which houses around 500 objects that present the development of bronze art in China from the 18th century BC to the mid-1800s in seven sections.

The Shu region was an ancient state in southwestern China that lasted for more than a millennium before its fall in the fourth century BC. Excavations of the Shu civilization, most notably at the Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites, started in 1929 and since the 1980s important discoveries have been regularly made.

Stars Over China: The Ancient Shu Civilization of Sanxingdui and Jinsha is hosted by the Shanghai Museum, the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, the Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan and the Jinsha Site Museum of Sichuan province.

Featuring 363 objects, including the latest archaeological finds fresh from preliminary cleaning, the exhibition is the largest display of ancient Shu civilization outside its home province of Sichuan.