Bowers Museum Board Members Visit Turpan Museum

    A seventeen-person delegation from the Bowers Museum, USA, recently visited the Turpan Museum in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The delegation was led by Dr. Peter Keller, President of the Bowers Museum, and Mrs Shiliu Xiuzhi, the Vice President of the Museum's Board of Directors. Hou Shixin, Director of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Museum, accompanied the delegates on their visit to the museum.
During the visit, Dr. Keller showed a keen interest in the museum's collection. He was particularly taken with the "Giant Rhinoceros Fossil Exhibition Hall" and its spectra vision displays of dinosaurs and oceanic scenery and was full of praise for the laser imaging equipment in the museum's "Excavated Documents and Coins Exhibition Hall".
    The delegates also visited the museum's storage facilities, where they learnt more about the items in the museum's collection and the academic research that is currently being carried out at the museum. During the tour of the museum, Dr. Keller expressed his wish for greater academic cooperation between the two museums and suggested the possibility of exchanging items from their collections for future exhibitions. 
    The Bowers Museum is one of Southern California's leading museums, is the largest in California's Orange County and is one of the few museums in the US which is devoted to the study of mankind through the arts. The museum houses a collection of over 85,000 objects, which include works of art from Pre-Columbian and Native American cultures as well as artifacts from Africa and the Pacific. Its world-class exhibits and storage facilities have bolstered the Museum's position as a repository for storing and preserving works of art for the benefit of future generations. Over the years, the Bowers Museum has collaborated with other internationally renowned museums, including the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City, Beijing, and the British Museum.   (Translated by Kelly McGuire)