Exploring History at Ningbo Museum

Displays from Sanxingdui

Last week, our high school students had the opportunity to visit Ningbo Museum for a special exhibition on the Sanxingdui civilization. This recently discovered Bronze Age culture is transforming our understanding of early Chinese history, showing that advanced societies flourished beyond the well-known centers of the Yellow River valley. The striking bronze masks, intricate jades, and mysterious ritual objects captivated our students and raised fascinating questions about belief systems, technology, and cultural diversity in ancient China.

Addressing students in front of Ningbo Musuem

The museum itself was an experience. Designed by Wang Shu, a Chinese architect who won the Pritzker Prize, the building is constructed from recycled materials — bricks, tiles, and stones salvaged from abandoned villages in Zhejiang Province. It feels like a collage of history, combining the old with the new, and providing a fitting setting for students to think about memory, heritage, and change.

I was delighted when our Mandarin teacher (thank Ms. Bao!) suggested the visit, and in the lead-up to the trip, I prepared several activities to help students approach the museum like real historians.

We began with a hook activity where students acted as archaeologists discovering “mysterious objects” — in reality, everyday classroom items such as pens, chairs, and paperclips. Their challenge was to describe the object in detail without naming it or saying its use. The class then guessed based only on descriptions. This playful exercise showed students how archaeologists work with limited evidence and the importance of careful observation. From there, we transitioned into a discussion on how historians and archaeologists know about the past. Students reflected on the difficulties of interpreting objects, explored the difference between primary and secondary sources, and saw how evidence is pieced together into hypotheses and theories. They also learned that evidence is often incomplete or confusing — and that debate is a natural part of historical work.

Next, we moved into artifact analysis. As a class, we closed in on a working definition of “analyze”: to break down something into parts, identify relationships, and draw conclusions. We discussed how artifacts can serve as clues, telling us about a society’s technology, beliefs, culture, and daily life.

Together we practiced analyzing real historical artifacts, including a Mesopotamian clay tablet, Egyptian canopic jars, and a Roman coin. Students described these artifacts in detail, asked questions, and inferred what they could reveal about the societies that produced them. Finally, students practiced independently, applying the method themselves.

On the day of the field trip to Ningbo Museum, students were ready to put these skills into action. Their task was an Artifact Hunt: choose eight artifacts that interested them, record important details, and make a sketch of each one. Sketching forces us to slow down — when you draw something, you notice features you might otherwise overlook. This activity worked quite well. Students were fully engaged, carefully observing, sketching, and analyzing artifacts.

Students deep at work!

To continue this learning journey, our post-visit activity will bring the focus back to the students themselves. Each student will create a personal exhibition — a kind of time capsule — by selecting six non-digital objects from their own lives. For each item, they will write a museum-style label explaining what it is, why they chose it, and what it reveals about their world. I'll write a on this soon, in a later post. Just as Sanxingdui artifacts help us understand an ancient civilization, these personal objects will show how everyday items can tell the story of a life, a culture, and a time.