The Shangshan culture exhibition, Dawn-Lit Rice Source, Glowing Mountains and Rivers, opens in Harare, Zimbabwe. [Photo/Jinhua Media Group]
An exhibition showcasing China's ancient Shangshan culture has opened in Harare, Zimbabwe, bringing the 10,000-year-old rice-farming heritage of Jinhua, Zhejiang province, to southern Africa.
Titled Dawn-Lit Rice Source, Glowing Mountains and Rivers, the exhibition uses rice and pottery to foster cultural dialogues between China and Africa.
Named after the Shangshan site in Pujiang county, Shangshan culture dates back 8,500 to 11,000 years, offers key evidence of China's 10,000-year cultural history, and is linked to the origins of rice agriculture, early painted pottery, and settled village life in East Asia.
The exhibition has three sections focusing on rice, pottery, and village, presenting carbonized rice and red-painted pottery with sun and geometric patterns and reconstructing a moat-enclosed settlement with stilt-style houses.
Visitors can experience Jinhua heritage, including Wuzhou kiln porcelain, Dongyang wood carvings, and Wuju opera costumes, and try Juyan tea, pottery-fragment puzzles, and Luban lock assembly.
"Shangshan culture is an important part of human civilization and deserves global attention," said Jiang Leping, a researcher at the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and a main researcher in the discovery of Shangshan culture.
Shangshan culture has been exhibited in 14 countries across Africa, Europe, and East Asia, drawing more than 2 million on-site and online visits.
