The Yunnan Provincial Museum is a regional museum, and is located W. Dongfeng Rd. in Kunming, containing around 50,000 objects in its collections. Among these, historical objects account for around 30,000 items of which there are 7,000 Dian bronzes, revolutionary items (7,200), ethnic minorities cultural objects (7,000), handicrafts (4,000). In addition there shows a replica of the Chinese imperial gold seal given to the Dian King in the 2nd century. The Museum represents the local minority people in particular, and features arts from the Dali Kingdom as well as other periods of Yunnan history. Many of the objects in this exhibition have important scientific and artistic value, and provide material evidence of mankind's social development.
Stone Tools
Discoveries from the Yuanmou site in Yunnan are displayed in this exhibition. The fossilized remains of two early hominid teeth, dating from around 1.7 million years ago, were found at the site in 1965. This is the earliest hominid fossil found on the Asian continent to date, and provides extremely important scientific evidence in the research into man's development from primates
Bronzes
From the Warring States to the Western Han period, the various peoples of Yunnan were creating a distinctive bronze culture. Bronzes excavated at a place called Wanjiapo include the earliest bronze drums to be excavated in China. Some bronzes from this site have been exhibited in over ten countries around the world, among which are a cow-and-tiger patterned piece that is particularly lively and a cowry-shell container notable for its reflection of slave-society sacrificial practices. Various items reflect the close cultural interaction of Yunnan people with people of the motherland. These include an incense burner that is central-plains in character, a walking lamp, a bronze mirror, a bronze spear, Wuzhu coins, and so on. The seal of the King of the Dian Kingdom in particular testifies to the fact that Yunnan was already an indivisible part of China from some 2,000 years ago.