Our Memorandum of Understanding with the Palace Museum in Beijing is creating new opportunities for collaboration, with exciting results.
We signed our first Memorandum of Understanding with the Palace Museum in Beijing in December 2016, and it was renewed in 2023 for another five years.
It was the first such agreement between the Palace Museum and an English university, allowing researchers from our Department of Archaeology to become the first English university archaeological team to excavate within the walls of the Palace Museum.
Plus, it created opportunities for both institutions to engage in new and exciting collaborations.
This partnership allowed our archaeologists to make a remarkable discovery about the ceramics industry in 14th century China.
Analysis of a high-quality glazed ceramic pottery called celadon showed that it was produced in the Zhejiang Province in China from the 12th to the 15th century on a global scale.
Long before products could be shipped around the world with a click of a button, these ceramics were used across China as a tableware and exported across the Indian Ocean as far as East Africa, Arabia, Egypt and Iran.
The researchers say the phenomenal scale of production within the kilns at Longquan in the Zhejiang Province is solid testimony to China’s technical skill and development at that time.
From England to China and back, our Memorandum of Understanding with the Palace Museum has allowed us to exchange artifacts and ideas.
In 2019 and 2020, our Oriental Museum lent items to a major international exhibition, Longquan of the World: Longquan Celadon and Globalisation, which was held at the Palace Museum and then at the Zhejiang Provincial Museum.
In October 2024, our Vice-Chancellor and Warden Karen O’Brien led a delegation to China, where they received a warm welcome from the Director of the Palace Museum, Dr Wang Xudong.
Together, they co-hosted the latest in our Global Lecture Series, including talks from our own Dr Rob Witcher and Professor Liu Jianguo from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
As part of the continuing partnership, discussions have begun to create collaborative exhibitions in Beijing, as well as a show in Durham. Later, a major exhibition featuring key objects from the Oriental Museum will travel to the Palace Museum.
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