The Xinjiang Regional Museum stands in the centre of Urumqi and is the best place in China to understand the Silk Road as a lived reality rather than a legend. The collection comes from the oases, desiccated towns and cemeteries of the Tarim basin and the surrounding deserts, where extraordinarily dry conditions have preserved organic material that would have rotted anywhere else.
The preserved remains
The museum's most famous exhibits are the naturally preserved human bodies recovered from Bronze Age and later sites in the desert, several thousand years old. They were not deliberately mummified; the dry, salty, cold conditions of the Taklamakan simply stopped decay. The preserved clothing, hair, tattoos and personal possessions buried with them make this one of the most informative archaeological collections anywhere for the study of early populations in Central Asia. The displays are handled with a degree of restraint, and photography of the human remains is restricted.
Textiles and objects
Equally remarkable is the textile collection. Silk, wool, felt, cotton and brocade survive in colours and patterns that are usually lost within decades in wetter climates, and they document a trade network that stretched from China to Rome. Alongside them the museum holds wooden and lacquer objects, manuscripts in several languages and scripts, coins, Buddhist sculpture from the cave temples of the north, painted foodstuffs, and everyday equipment - all of it recovered from desert sites and preserved by aridity.
The ethnographic collections
Another major section covers the peoples of Xinjiang - Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Mongolian, Tajik, Hui and others - through dress, jewellery, musical instruments, household objects and photographs. Given the size of the province and the number of distinct cultures within it, this part of the museum is a useful introduction before travelling to Kashgar, the Ili valley or the grasslands.
Practical notes
The museum is in central Urumqi and easily reached by taxi or metro. Admission is free but requires registration with a passport, and the museum is closed on Mondays. Labelling is in Chinese with English on the main objects, and audio guides are available. Allow two to three hours. Because photography is restricted in parts of the collection, check the signs at the entrance to each gallery.
