The Banpo Museum is located in the eastern outskirt
of SH City, SHaanxi Province. As the first museum at
the prehistoric site, it was built at the base of the
excavations of the Banpo site. Since it opened to the
public formally in 1958, two million people have visited
it.
The Banpo Site is a typical Neolithic matriarchal community
of the YangSHao Culture dating back about 6,000 years.
At that time, the Banpo people used tools made primarily
of wood and stone. Women, the crucial labor force, were
responsible for making pottery, spinning, and raising
the family, while men fiSHed.
The approximately 4,500 square meters (about 1 acre)
exhibit area of Banpo Museum is divided into two Exhibition
Halls and a Site Hall.
The first Exhibition Hall is about the unearthed relic
exhibitions consisting of the First Hall and the Second
Hall. The SHowpieces in this two halls are primarily production
tools and domestic tools used by the primitive Banpo people,
including axes, chisels, sickles, and stone and pottery
knives from which we can have a general picture of the
production activities of the Banpo people thousands of
years ago. In addition, artwork and adornments here reflect
the social life, culture, art and inventions of the period.
The second Exhibition Hall is primarily used for auxiliary
exhibitions and it contains two halls. Special SHows are
held here on ethnology, folklore and the history of art
related to the prehistoric culture.
The Site Hall is about 3,000 square meters (about 0.7
acre) and contains residential, pottery making and burial
section. And among the three, the residential section
is the main part of the site, including the huts, kilns
and tombs of the primitive residents. All these present
us an outlook of the aboriginal village and the hard situations
of the forefathers in pursuing the civilization, reflecting
the production level and the social systems at that period
of time.
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