Magnificent jade sceptres, precious terracotta mythical creatures, gigantic bronze drums. The special exhibition “Treasures of Vietnamese Archaeology” shows these and other spectacular finds in Europa for the very first time. They come from historically significant sites, such as the temple city of My Son in the central Vietnamese jungle and the imperial palace of Thang Long in the capital, Hanoi, both of them UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites. The exhibition attempts for the first time in Germany to provide an overall picture of the historical and cultural riches of this country, this Far Eastern world and its life between the delta of the Red River in the north and the Mekong in the south.

This exhibition project marks the 40^th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Germany and Vietnam. The German Foreign Minister, Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the Vietnamese Minister of Culture, Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Thien, have assumed the patronage of the exhibition. This unique exhibition will be shown from 2016 to 2018 at three German museums, first of all at the LWL-Museum of Archaeology in Herne, then at the State Museum of Archaeology Chemnitz and the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums in Mannheim.