🏛️ 6 picks
Each dynasty left one thing you can still stand in front of — an army of clay, a suit of jade, a scroll of a whole city. These are the pieces worth the trip, and the museum that holds each.
Thousands of clay soldiers, each with a different face, buried to guard the first emperor forever — and still being excavated.
A Han prince sealed inside 2,498 plaques of jade sewn with gold thread — jade was believed to stop the body from decaying.
A bronze horse balanced on a single hoof, touching a flying swallow — the national symbol of Chinese tourism, and a marvel of Han casting.
A five-metre scroll painting the whole living city of the Song capital — hundreds of people, shops, and boats. The Song dynasty’s daily life, frozen.
The artifact you walk inside: the imperial palace of two dynasties, 980 buildings, home to twenty-four emperors from the Ming to the last Qing.
A single piece of half-white, half-green jade carved into a cabbage with two insects on its leaves — the most beloved object of the imperial collection.