Cham Pa Museum

Cham Pa Museum, with official name of the Museum of Champa Sculpture, is located on Tran Phu Street, at the roundabout with Bach Dang and Duong 2/9 in Danang since the city is in the proximity of the former kingdom of Champa, Tra Kieu and My Son.  The kingdom of Champa, whose territories stretched from south of the Ngang Pass in Quang Binh Province to the delta area of the Dong Nai river belonging to Binh Thuan Province, existed approximately from 192 to 1697 AC. In the late 15th century, the kingdom started to fall and became a Vietnamese vassal state in 1697 and was finally dissolved in the early 19th century.

Photo by Phó Nháy

The Museum deserves your trip all the way from Hoi An for it alone since it houses the world’s largest collection of Cham artefacts and sculpture dating from the 7th to the 15th centuries, the period that was dominated by matriarchy. You can see the heavy impact of Cham architectural style in the construction of the Museum buildings, which employs thin, simple and gentle lines.

Cham Pa Museum was started out with the collection begun by French archaeologists and experts from the Ecole Francais d’Extreme-Orient (EFEO) and underwent an expansion in 1936, opening two new galleries providing display space for the objects added in the 1920s and 1930s. The museum features over 400 historic exhibits of sculpture and manuscripts spanning from the 5th  to 15th century, categorized and stored in ten rooms bearing the name of the district in which the relics were found.

The art of Champa bears a strong influence of Hindu themes of India and Southeast Asia, yet possesses many distinctive traits. Bricks are the main building materials of Champa temples. As a result, indigenous architectures faced the difficulty when decorating temples with bas-reliefs. They had to carve them separately and later incorporated the sculptures into their temple.  The carvings are classified into four main categories: Pediments, Fragments, Icons, Pedestals of architectural decorations on the ties or at the bases of the temples.

The most impressive exhibit is a huge stone headless Buddhist pedestal, sitting with his hands on his knees and his feet flat on the ground. The statue depicts the only Buddhist Champa king of Indrapura in an unusual chair-sitting pose. Under close examination, the huge artistic diary of Buddha’s life is revealed through images intricately carved onto the every available surface of the statue.

The admission fee is 40,000vnd and you can obtain for your own group of 5 or 6 people a free guide around the museum. It is strongly recommended that you visit Cham Pa museum in the early morning, especially in summer months from April to September since the building is not installed with air-conditioning and it can get pretty hot.

There are large laminated information posters in Vietnamese, French and English at the entrance to each exhibition room.

Bang An Tower is another destination packed with preserved example of Cham architecture that you can stop by on your way to My Son Holy Land.