Technical Visits

The technical visits of ICOM-CC 2021 virtual conference will offer the participants a unique experience to know the best museums in China and their conservation labs. The list will be expanded as we get closer to the Triennial Conference.

1. Palace Museum

A Brief Introduction to Scientific Analysis of Artifacts at the Palace Museum

The Palace Museum possesses a collection of more than 1.8 million artifacts and undertakes the mission of conserving the largest architectural complex of ancient royal palace in China. The artifacts are composed of various types of materials and their analysis requirements are complicated. For many years, scientists and conservators from the Conservation Department have preliminarily developed related analytical techniques and research systems. Moreover, the group has focused on the analysis of ancient ceramics, metals and enamels, polychrome artifacts, lacquer artifacts, dyes of textiles and other important fields. A great many analytical research works have been done and a large number of achievements have been made. This video is going to give you a brief introduction to the scientific analysis of artifacts, the related laboratories and the main research equipments at the Palace Museum.

2. National Centre for Archaeology

*Focus on conservation and restoration of the archeological artifacts discovered from water.

National Centre for Archaeology is an institution directly under the National Cultural Heritage Administration. Founded in September 2020. Mainly undertakes technical archaeological researches on analysis and monitoring, spatial and microscopic measurement, new materials and digitization. Research on Archaeological Standards and Technical Specifications. Organizes underwater archaeology, frontier archaeology, archaeometry, sino-foreign cooperative archaeology, etc.

The National Centre for Archaeology grew out of the National Centre of Underwater Cultural Heritage. It has a world-class technical level in underwater archaeology, preservation of underwater cultural heritage, etc. The underwater archaeological projets and cultural relic preservation projects, such as Nanhai One, Cruiser Chih Yuen and Cruiser King Yuen, have made an important impact both at home and abroad.

3. The Capital Museum

*Focus on conservation and restoration of textiles.

Capital Museum is a large comprehensive city museum in Beijing. The museum houses more than 120,000 pieces of various collections, most of which are archaeological objects and art works.

Since the end of 2017, the Capital Museum had carried out emergency preservation for a golden lacquer coffin, which was a typical example of a semi-waterlogged piece of northern Chinese wood-based lacquerware, excavated from a middle to late Ming dynasty eunuch’s tomb. Repaired by lacquer, combined preventive conservation, scientific analysis, botanical and microbiological analysis, and other analytical methods. Through the above measures, the lacquerware for five hundred years has been reborn.

4. The Shanghai Museum

*Based on their bronze’s collections, the museum focus on the metal restoration.

Established in 1952, Shanghai Museum is a large museum of pre-modern Chinese art housing a collection of over 1.02 million items. The Museum set up Restoration Workshop in 1958 and Scientific Laboratory of Conservation in 1960. These two departments were merged together to form the present Conservation Center in 2015. The bronze conservation and restoration in Shanghai Museum is characterized with mutual combination of traditional restoration craftsmanship and modern conservation science and technology. In 2020, the "Bronze restoration and replication technology" of Shanghai Museum is included in the Fifth List of Representative National Intangible Cultural Heritage.

5. China National Silk Museum

*Focus on textile protection.

China National Silk Museum (NSM) located in Hangzhou is a museum themed on textiles and clothing and centering around Chinese silk. NSM commits itself to the conservation and research of textile relics, and applies research oriented to industry demand, and targes basic research with academic objectives. Focusing on the three core areas of fibers and dyes, conservation and restoration technologies for textile, technique reconstruction of traditional textile, NSM keep pooling scientific and technological resources, try to make key technological breakthroughs and explore new fields, provide technical services and textile conservator training for museums.

6. Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum

*Focus on terracotta artifacts.

7. Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum

*Focus on smart museum.

Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum(Chongqing Museum) is a comprehensive provincial museum integrating researches on the local culture of the Ba-Yu region, the cilvilization of the Three Gorges region, Chongqing history in the rear area during the Anti-Japanese War, immigrant culture and city culture. It is one of the earliest national first-class museums, and receives policy and financial support from both the central and local governments.

Based on the technologies of intellisense, non-destructive testing and micro-change monitoring, the preventive protection concept gives direction to the museum intelligent protection by building an early detection, diagnosis, analysis and evaluation system for the diseases of cultural relics. A complete preventive protection process, including monitoring, evaluation, pre-warning and regulation, can be realized through the real-time dynamic situation of the preservation environment from "outside" to "inside" , and precise monitoring of the state of cultural relics from "macro" to "micro".

8. China Electronics Technology Group Corporation Chong Qing

*Focus on the electronics technology like 3D printing.

Zillions is a professional company in the research and development, production, integration and service of cultural relics protection equipment.

As a leading central enterprise in technological innovation, Zillions fulfills the mission of "cultural relics protection depends on science and technology". By making breakthroughs in core technologies and products, Zillions fills the gaps in domestic cultural protection equipment and enhances its capabilities to supply products for market.

The company has formulated seven major business directions, namely cultural relics preventive protection projects and services, digital protection and utilization projects, standardized warehouse integration, smart exhibitions, smart museums, smart archaeology, and cultural heritage security risk management and control. In addition, the company takes smart cities and "Internet + applications service” as its two extended business areas.

The company has undertaken many major projects of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Cultural Heritage Administration and other ministries and commissions. Hundreds of domestic cultural and museum organizations such as Dala Palace, Shanghai Museum, Sanxingdui Museum, and Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum have established partnership with Zillions to jointly develop and demonstrate a series of cutting-edge technologies and products.

9. Dunhuang Academy China

*Focus on painting surface like the Mogao Grottoes.

Dunhuang Academy is a comprehensive and disquisitive public institution，which is responsible for the management of World Cultural Heritage Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, Tianshui Maijishan Grottoes, Yongjing Binglingsi Grottoes, as well as that of National Key Cultural Relic Protection Unit Guazhou Yulin Grottoes, Dunhuang West Thousand Buddha Caves, and Qingyang North Grotto Temple. It is the cultural heritage and museology management organization that occupies the largest number of world heritage and the most cross-regional scope in China. It is also the domestic and overseas considerably influential research entity of Dunhuang studies, ancient murals and earthen site protection research base, and the national first-class museum.

10. National Museum of China

Established in 1912, the National Museum of China (NMC) is the largest single-building museum in the world. The NMC houses more than 1.4 million items of collection, covering ancient and modern artifacts, rare and antiquarian books, and works of art. In 1952, the Restoration Room was established. In the early 1960s, natural sciences and technologies began to be applied to the conservation and restoration of museum collections, and the Conservation Laboratory was established. Recently, the Laboratory was reconstructed as Preservation & Conservation Institute, the aim of which is the preservation and scientific studies of the museum collections.

As a supporting unit of the key scientific research base for the conservation of metal artifacts under National Cultural Heritage Administration, the NMC Preservation & Conservation Institute not only inherits the traditional techniques but also develops modern conservation technologies, methods, and materials. It continues its research and efforts in the conservation and restoration of metal, paper, oil painting collections, scientific value studies, as well as preventive protection of culture heritage.