Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture Museum

➡️ I've almost finished visiting the provincial museum and have started to aim for the city-level museums, where there are often unexpected surprises or scares, haha, it's like randomly opening a blind box 🏕️ The Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture governs the Tacheng and Altay regions, as well as 11 directly administered counties and cities, with its capital set in Yining City. It is the only autonomous prefecture in the country that governs both regions and counties/cities. The territory spans both the northern and southern wings of the Junggar Basin, situated between the Tianshan Mountains, the Altai Mountains, and the western mountains of the Junggar. 🏔️ Numerous agricultural production tools from the Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou periods have been unearthed in the Ili River Valley, such as stone hoes, saddle-shaped stone grinding discs, stone spades, and stone suns, as well as carbonized millet, Thai rice, barley, wheat, and other crops, indicating that early hoe farming had already appeared at that time. Before the 10th century BC, primitive animal husbandry had already existed in the Xinjiang region. The Ili River Valley, the southern foothills of the Altai Mountains, and the upper reaches of the Irtysh River all have lush pastures, where the Sai, Yuezhi, Wusun, Xiongnu, and other peoples successively practiced nomadism. Around 4000 years ago, the use of bronze tools became relatively common in the Ili region. All these indicate that as early as the pre-Qin period, Ili and its surrounding areas had already begun frequent economic and cultural exchanges, and agriculture, animal husbandry, and metal smelting production had seen further development. 🕦 Opening hours: 10:30-18:00