Museum of Heilongjiang Province

Museum of Heilongjiang Province
黑龙江省博物馆

Address: 64 Hongjun Street, Nangang district, Harbin, Heilongjiang province
Hours: 9:00 - 16:30 (1 April - 7 October, last ticket: 15:30),
9:00 - 16:00 (8 October - 31 March, last ticket: 15:00)
Closed Mondays (except for national holidays)
General admission: Free (passport required for entry)

The Museum of Heilongjiang Province is installed in a former Russian department store, a Baroque-style building constructed in 1906. It was officially established in August 1954 with the integration of Songjiang province into Heilongjiang province.

The Museum boasts more than 110,000 artifacts, the most celebrated of which are Neolithic jade wares unearthed from the Xiaonanshan tomb complex, gilt bronze and gold Buddhist sculptures datable to the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and unearthed from the Bohai kingdom's capital city (in today's Ning'an county), and delicate silk fabrics and accessories unearthed from tombs of the State of Qi in the Jurchen Jin Dynasty (1115-1234). The museum is also home to specimens and fossils of both ancient and modern creatures, including flat-head hadrosaurs of the late Cretaceous Period some 65 million years ago and colossal skeletons of the woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) and mammoth dated to the Quaternary Period 20,000 years ago. It even holds 25,765 insect specimens.

A noteworthy artwork in the museum's permanent collection is the seated dragon, a copper statuette dated to the Jin Dynasty. It was unearthed in 1965 at the site of Sanggyeong (in today's Acheng of Harbin), the former capital of the Bohai kingdom. It combines the images and characteristics of dragons, unicorns, lions and dogs. This ingenious copper piece is unique and elegant in shape, lively in appearance, and delicate in craftsmanship. China is the hometown of dragon culture. For thousands of years, the dragon has been depicted in a variety of shapes, but a dragon posture perfectly combining several animals is rarely seen.