VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam has about 120 museums of provinces and sectors but only one commune museum. It is the Kim Lan Archaeological Museum of Kim Lan Commune, Gia Lam District, Hanoi.

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Funeral for Japanese archaeologist

Artifacts on display in the Kim Lan archaeological museum.

Gratitude to Japanese archaeologist Nishimura

Kim Lan Museum was inaugurated in March 2012 with a total investment of VND1.5 billion ($75,000), with an area of about 50 m2. From the outside, Kim Lan Community Museum looks like an ancient kiln of Kim Lan people.

The museum has more than 300 artifacts, such as ancient coins, pottery and terracotta items, household ceramics... annotated by three languages – Vietnamese, Japanese and English. The artifacts are mostly ceramic products made by the local people from the seventh century to the eighteenth century, showing part of the history of Vietnam in general and of the Kim Lan pottery village in particular.

A retired teacher – Mr. Nguyen Van Nhung – is one of the five members of the group "Find the Roots" who have been tirelessly searching for ancient pottery pieces along the Red River to contribute to the museum.

Nhung said that the current Kim Lan Community Museum is built up by the effort of the entire village, the local government, the archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Museum of Vietnamese History and particularly Japanese archaeologist Nishimura, who died recently in a traffic accident in Vietnam and was laid to rest in Kim Lan village.

Nhung said: "Dr. Nishimura came to our village with Vietnamese experts in 2000 to conduct an excavation. Nishimura also helped us to classify collected artifacts. He also called for organizations to contribute funding to build this museum. He also made a layout and wrote captions for the artifacts. We considered Nishimura as a villager. This museum is imbued with Nishimura’s stamps and we will never forget his labor."

Stimulating young people to get rich

Many locals said entering the museum is like entering into a fairy house. The museum is the treasures of local people before standing in front of exhibits; everyone can find a story about the origin of the village, from the first residence to the flourishing today.

Mr. Nguyen Le - former Vice Chairman of Cau Giay District, a native of Kim Lan, said: "The museum likes a history book of the village that no village in the country has."

"The first commune-level museum in Vietnam is very meaningful. It marks the ancestors’ imprints and reminds local people of the village’s history and traditional craft and the effort of their ancestors through ceramic products. This will be a place of historical and archaeological values for researchers. It can help the future generations understand the origin and the starting point of Vietnam's ceramics in general and of the village of Kim Lan in particular," he said.

For Mr. Nguyen Van Nhung, the ceramic pieces which are seemingly not worthy are the pieces of the village’s soul.

He said cheerfully: "We believe that through the Kim Lan Community Museum, the village’s young generations will know about and promote the work of the museum. From the thirteenth and fourteen century, Kim Lan was the top ceramic producing village in Vietnam with state-of-the-art techniques and wealthy people. Our ancestors could enrich themselves at that time so we - with higher level of development – cannot get rich? Kim Lan Museum will be the driving force for local young people to enrich their homeland."

Tien Phong