Nanjing Museum of the Six Dynasties
Located at 302 Changjiang Road in Nanjing’s Xuanwu District, the Museum of the Six Dynasties is a highly distinctive museum devoted to a single historical and cultural theme. It is China’s most comprehensive site museum for artifacts from the Six Dynasties period, and also the most systematic local museum dedicated to interpreting Six Dynasties culture. It officially opened to the public on August 11, 2014, and has a floor area of more than 23,000 square meters.
In Chinese history, the term “Six Dynasties” refers collectively to six regimes that flourished between the early third century and the late sixth century: Eastern Wu, Eastern Jin, Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen. Since all six established their capitals in what is now Nanjing, the city is often known as one of China’s great “ancient capitals of the Six Dynasties.” When I visited, the museum had four accessible levels in total: three above ground and one below.
The basement level houses an exhibition called “The Imperial Capital of the Six Dynasties.” It focuses mainly on artifacts from the period, especially architectural remains and excavated burial objects. Through these materials, one can glimpse a Nanjing that was already densely populated, economically vibrant, and technologically advanced. Historically, the Six Dynasties overlap in part with the Northern and Southern Dynasties period, while culturally they were deeply shaped by the refined spirit associated with the Wei and Jin eras. That cultural sensibility is clearly visible in the figurines, human sculptures, and Buddhist images on display.
The first floor was hosting a national touring exhibition titled “Imprints of Beijing’s Central Axis.” Beijing’s Central Axis is the north-south line that structures the entire old city and embodies key principles of ancient Chinese capital planning: choosing the center as the foundation of the state, and governing from the center. It links major heritage landmarks such as the Bell and Drum Towers, Jingshan, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen, the Temple of Heaven, and Yongding Gate, revealing the unity of ritual order, imperial architecture, and public urban space. As a World Cultural Heritage site, its significance lies not only in the buildings themselves, but also in the way it preserves, in remarkably complete form, the traditional Chinese vision of capital planning and the urban cultural lineage that continues to this day. After introducing Beijing’s Central Axis, the exhibition also turned to Nanjing and presented the city’s own planning concept of “three axes and one line,” including schematic maps of urban planning from the Southern Tang, the Ming dynasty, the Republican era, and the Six Dynasties period. Faced with the hilly, river-laced terrain of the Jiangnan region, Nanjing developed a city-building philosophy that was flexible and inclusive, capable of absorbing what came before while adapting to new needs. It pursued a ritual order in harmony with nature and a city layout shaped by the contours of the land, revealing the distinctive wisdom behind the planning of southern capitals. Set beside Beijing, the comparison is genuinely fascinating.
The second floor features an exhibition called “The Splendor of the Six Dynasties,” devoted to the art of the period. The main displays include celadon, pottery, sculpture, painting, calligraphy, and underglaze-painted ceramics. Among them, celadon is by far the richest category. Six Dynasties celadon is known for its gentle glaze and elegant forms; compared with Han ceramics, it feels more austere and refined, and in many ways closer to the mature ceramic aesthetics of later ages. That said, many of the objects I saw were not truly “green” in the pure sense, but leaned toward yellowish or gray-green tones. According to the exhibit notes, this was largely due to the presence of iron oxide in the clay body and glaze, combined with the fact that the refining of raw materials, the stability of the glaze layer, and the control of reduction firing were not yet fully perfected, so color could vary quite easily. Celadon in this period was not limited to everyday wares; it also produced highly characteristic forms such as spirit jars, chicken-head ewers, and lotus-shaped zun vessels, showing how religion, burial practice, and daily life intersected. In the history of Chinese ceramics, Six Dynasties celadon marks a crucial transition from early proto-porcelain to fully developed porcelain, serving as an essential bridge before the celebrated wares of the Tang and Song reached their height. Its beauty is often understated, cool, restrained, and quietly literati in spirit, perfectly in tune with an age that prized cultivated conversation, metaphysical depth, and naturalness.
The pottery in this gallery consists largely of human figures. Sculpted figures from the Six Dynasties often have elongated bodies, narrow shoulders, flowing drapery lines, and simplified facial features, creating an aesthetic of lean elegance and airy grace. That style is closely tied to the aristocratic culture of the time, the spread of Buddhism, and the broader sensibility often described as the spirit of the Wei and Jin. As for calligraphy, the museum explains that this was the crucial period of transition from clerical script to regular script. The brushstrokes gradually shed the pronounced flaring strokes characteristic of clerical script, while the structure moved away from a broad, flattened form toward greater order, compactness, and balance. At the same time, running script and cursive script grew increasingly mature. The overall style placed greater emphasis on brush energy, rhythm, and inner vitality, producing a mode of writing that was transitional in form yet unmistakably infused with the elegance of the Wei and Jin. Taken as a whole, the works on the second floor embody an aesthetic that is austere yet graceful, restrained yet spacious, and above all concerned with spirit, resonance, and inner strength.
The third floor is devoted to an exhibition titled “The Great Figures of the Six Dynasties,” which highlights important historical personalities and celebrated cultural figures of the period, including the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, Wang Dao, Xie An, Gu Kaizhi, and Wang Xizhi.
A full ticket to the Museum of the Six Dynasties costs CNY 30, and I would recommend allowing at least two hours for a visit. If you are interested in Chinese history, culture, and art, especially the story of the capital city during this remarkable period, this museum will more than reward your curiosity.
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