Brief information on Regional Museum  

If you only have time to see one thing in Urumqi, you must take a trip to the Regional Museum. The centrepiece of the museum’s collection is an extremely well-preserved collection of mummified human remains discovered in the desert. The remains are still the subject of controversy to this day.

The Regional Museum is a provincial level museum, displaying a comprehensive range of historical relics. Located on Xibei Road in Urumqi, the museum was constructed in 1953 and opened to the public on October 1, 1963.

The museum boasts a collection of 32,000 cultural relics, 288 of which are rated first-class in national rankings. The articles on display at the museum highlight archaeological finds from the Silk Road as well as local cultural relics, including silk, pottery and porcelain, terracotta figures, weapons, documents written in different languages, and Mummies of Urumqi, as well as various articles of the 12 local ethnic groups, giving a vivid introduction to the customs and cultures of the regions different ethnic groups.

The Mummies of Urumqi display the preserved bodies of men, women and babies discovered in the vast desert. The corpses include a baby who died around 3,800 years ago, still wrapped in swaddling. The most famous, however, is the Luolan Beauty; the corpse of a woman believed to have died in her 40s and was of Indo-European ethnicity. Discovered in 1980 on the riverbed of the Tieban in Loulan City, the corpse is believed to be around 4,000 years old. When found, she was still clutching a small purse and wore leather and fur sandals. It ranks as the earliest and best-preserved mummified body in China.

The Museum features two basic displays: the Display of Xinjiang Historical Relics and the Display of Xinjiang Folklore. The museum has held a number of exhibitions, both at home and abroad, including the Primitive Society of China, Xinjiang Mummies, Xijiang from the Han to Tang Dynasties (206BC-907AD), Xinjiang Excavations, and Paintings Collected by the Museum.

The museum’s publications include The Silk Road, Excavations of Xinjiang, and The Xinjiang Regional Museum.

*You can download the bilingual note to show it to a taxi driver or someone else to find your way to Regional Museum if you plan to visit Regional Museum and have language problems.