Östasiatiska museet - Exhibitions

Who lived in China before there was a China?

The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities holds large collections of objects that are many thousand of years older than the China of the Emperors. They were made by people who lived in the same part of the world, but who had not heard of China, even though they lived along the same rivers that flow through present-day China. They had their own names for things, but these names are forgotten, because this was long before written history.

All the artworks and objects that they have left behind reveal a remarkable amount of creativity and ingenuity. If we could meet, across the millennia, we would probably hang out and have fun. Nations and cultures are temporary creations, such as Sweden and the Swedes even, but human creativity unites people of all periods and from all parts of the world, although with different abilities and constantly unexpected results!

As a visitor you will above all meet the world-renowned painted pottery from the period before China, in many different traditions and stiles. The founder of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Johan ”Chinese-Gunnar” Andersson discovered it in his archaeological excavations in the 1920s, and got the permission to bring it all home to Sweden.

You will also meet world unique figures of shamans and earthenware musical instruments, and many other objects that both show connections and changes between the time before and after the beginning of history.