During G20 Summit, Let’s Visit “East and West Converge - Maritime Silk Road” Exhibition

Recently, the “East and West Converge - 13th-17th Century Maritime Silk Road” exhibition, serving as one of the ongoing cultural activities marking the 45th anniversary of the relations between China and Germany, grandly opened.

The German exhibition planner introduces the most attractive parts of the exhibition to the audience

The exhibition will last until September 10th. During the Hamburg G20 Summit in July, participants and tourists from around the world will have an opportunity to witness the development of the wonderful Chinese “Maritime Silk Road”.

Honored guests delivering speeches at the opening ceremony, from the left: Ambassador Shi Mingde, Carsten Brosda, State Councillor for Culture, Media and Digital Affairs, and Liu Shuguang, Deputy Heads of State Administration of Cultural Heritage

"The “Belt and Road” initiative proposed by China adds new impetus to the development of today’s Maritime Silk Road and Hamburg. The huge investment of the initiative can closely connect dozens of nations and billions of people. Hamburg and Shanghai are friendly cities to each other, and have a profound cooperative tradition. We hope the spirit of peace of the Silk Road conveyed in the exhibition can enter the “New Silk Road” cooperation."

Carsten Brosda, State Councillor for Culture, Media and Digital Affairs, delivers a speech

The exhibition is divided into four parts:

“Silk Road”, “Porcelain Road”, “Religion’s Road”, and “Road of Culture” 

The “East and West Converge - 13th-17th Century Maritime Silk Road” exhibition is the result of honest cooperation between Guangdong Museum and Internationales Maritimes Museum Hamburg. The exhibition showcases more than 100 pieces/sets of precious cultural relics dating back to the period between China’s Southern Song Dynasty and the late Ming Dynasty (13th -17th centuries A.D.), from many cultural relics units of China. Among the pieces are the “Nanhai One” and related wreck artifacts which are exhibited outside of China for the first time.

Statue of Zheng He

The statues of China’s Zheng He, Christopher Columbus and other world-famous navigators are solemnly displayed in the museum. Beautifully-exhibited ancient Chinese sailboat models, with ocean-going freighter pictures, and German lighthouse pictures and ancient ocean charts as the background are located in the second floor showroom, which are all familiar to residents of Hamburg. Visitors can see the models of Zheng He’s treasure ship and Fujian wooden sailboat. In addition, the Blue and White Jesus’s Suffering Portrait Porcelain Urn is one of the earliest export porcelains that bear the image of Jesus. The gold jewelries from the Southern Song’s wreck “Nanhai One” are exquisitely made artifacts.

Blue and White Jesus’s Suffering Portrait Porcelain Urn

Zheng He’s treasure ship model

Based on many years of research, this exhibition was carefully designed by both Chinese and German experts. Many of the cultural relics represent the newest result and highest level of China’s underwater archaeology, laboratory archaeology and out-of-water cultural relics protection. This doesn’t only help us learn the splendid history of the Maritime Silk Road, but it also helps us experience the new faces of China’s modern culture, cultural relic protection, and the museum industry’s development. It exhibits the Maritime Silk Road that connects East and West jointly opened by Chinese people and Europeans. This is not only a road of running business and trading, but also an intersection where Eastern and Western civilizations converge. The “Belt and Road” construction is set to boost the joint development, mutual benefit and win-win situation between China and countries of the world.