Hong Kong Palace Museum to host exhibition on origins of Chinese civilisation

Exhibition to open on September 25 and showcase more than 100 of nation’s top archaeological finds, with some dating back as far as 6,200BC

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Exhibition highlights include a cloud-shaped jade plaque from the Hongshan culture, which spanned 4,500bC to 3,000BC. Photo: Handout

Published: 7:21pm, 21 Aug 2024Updated: 7:39pm, 21 Aug 2024

The Hong Kong Palace Museum will host a new exhibition next month that charts the origins of Chinese civilisation in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in October.

The exhibition will open on September 25 and showcase more than 100 of the nation’s top archaeological finds and relics, with some dating as far back as 6,200BC.

The exhibits are on loan from 14 major cultural institutions in Hong Kong and mainland China, with the artefacts including 16 grade-one national treasures.

The museum said on Wednesday that nearly all of the pieces in the exhibition, titled “Bank of China (Hong Kong) Presents: The Origins of Chinese Civilisation”, will be shown in the city for the first time.

The exhibition “highlights the achievements of two decades of comprehensive research, which involved large-scale archaeological surveys and in-depth investigations into the origins, formation and development of Chinese civilisation”, it added.

The artefacts on show include ceramics, jades, stone sculptures and objects made from bone and bronze, covering the mid-to-late Neolithic period to the Xia dynasty, or from about 6,200BC to 1,500BC.