Lushun Museum

Lushun Museum
旅顺博物院

Address: 42Liening Street, Lüshunkou District, Dalian, Liaoning Province
Website: www.lvshunmuseum.org (Cn)
Hours: 9:00 - 16:30 (1 April - 31 October, no entry after 16:00)
9:00 - 16:00 (1 April - 31 October, no entry after 15:30)
Closed Mondays (except for national holidays)
Email address: Lvshunmuseum@163.com
Admission fee: Free

Founded in 1915 in Lushun district in Dalian, Liaoning province, when the area was part of Chinese territory leased by Japan, Lushun Museum explored China’s modern development.

On February 1, 1951, the museum was turned over by the Soviet army to the Chinese government, together with its collection of 20,637 items of historical and cultural relics and 7,700 volumes of books.

The museum now comprises two venues, known as the "main museum" and the "branch museum". A foremost-protected cultural heritage site of China, the main museum was designed in modern European architectural style with oriental artistic elements. Permanent exhibitions feature bronze ware, ceramics, Buddhist statues and coins. The branch museum was built in 2000 and displays locally unearthed artifacts. The former site of the headquarters of Japanese Army in Manchuria, the Sino-Soviet Union Friendship Tower, is also administered by the museum.

Currently, Lushun Museum holds a collection of over 60,000 cultural relics and hundreds of thousands of items, the most notable of which is the former collection of the scholar-collector Luo Zhenyu (1866-1940), China's acclaimed epigrapher, philologist and antiquarian. The 7,000 pieces from Luo's collection include oracle bones, bronze ware, ink rubbings, rare books and archives from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) imperial cabinet. One of his pieces, a bronze rectangular pod, Lü ding, with 44 characters in five lines inscribed inside the bottom, is a testimony of a punitive expedition that occurred during the Western Zhou Dynasty (c.11th century -771BC).

The museum also has a gallery reserved for displaying mummies discovered in Turpan, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, in 1912 by ŌtaniKōzui.