I was incredibly excited to visit this museum. I love Chinese art and furniture. As an anthropologist and archaeologist I think old junk is awesome. When I was studying in China, Wade and I often discussed going to Taiwan specifically to visit the museums here. A lot of people visit Taiwan just to do that.
(Outside of the National Palace Museum in Taiwan)Before I left for the museum I got my camera all ready. I made space on my memory card and loaded my bag with extra batteries. I was ready to take photos of all these ancient treasures. However, when I arrived I found out that photography was not allowed in the museum. NO PHOTOS PLEASE read signs posted all over the entrance way. Woe is me! I came all this way, to the other side of the world and I couldn’t even photograph anything. My memory isn’t very good, so I like to take photos so later on in life I can remember what I did and saw. I guess I will not be able to remember this museum very well.
I walked around the museum aimlessly, checking out the general lay of the land. There were only a few rooms on each floor. I thought I must be missing something, so I walked around again. I didn’t find anything else that I hadn’t already seen. It was a little weird to me that this was considered one of the best museums in the world. There were not too many exhibits and there were not many artifacts on display. In fact, I think the University of Penn’s Archaeology and Anthropology museum may have more Chinese artifacts.
(A Chinese Lion Sculpture Guarding the National Palace Museum in Taiwan)The one thing I was amazed about was how old the Chinese culture is. In the museum there were axes, jewelry, and other relatively sophisticated tools displayed dated from around 4,000 B.C.E. This is old! Paralleled to culture in Americas, the Chinese were way more advanced. In Honduras I was working on a Mayan site where their technology was basically at the same stage as the 4,000 B.C.E. Chinese, but this site only dated back to around 700 C.E. The Mayan civilization as a whole really didn’t start developing until the first or second century C.E. Why were the Chinese so much more advanced than other civilizations? I am going to read more about Chinese history and archaeology now.
5 comments:
You expected too much. In which museum, e.g. in Europe, are you allowed to take pictures? The Palace Museum in Taipei shows a very small selection of items. You have to come again in one ore two years to see more...
Does this mean that the exhibitions are always changing? Do they put more stuff in every few years? or is the museum expanding? A little more of an explanation would be nice here.
Only the most precious items are constantly shown in designated exhibits. The rest are rotated every few months and it is unlikely to see everything in a lifetime.
I visited the museum Oct 2007. After the first afternoon i decided to come back the next day for more. Awesome exhibits. Have to be savored. Visited both cafes inside--the one at the top has good views--wished I'd brought my camera for that. Left it in the cloakroom because photographing the exhibits was not permitted. On the same trip later in London I was allowed to photograph at will in the British Museum.
Yes, they change most of the items every 3 or 4 months. Some items can be exhibited less than 2 month of every 10 years; those items are too fragile. The museum was under construction about 2 years ago. In fact, it is bigger than it was. There are more than 650000 items in that museum and only 1% of them can be exhibited at a given time.
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