The 150-year-old building having thousands of antiques in Saigon

The 150-year-old building having thousands of antiques in Saigon

French architectural works are preserving about 2,000 antiques, open free for visitors.

The seminary of St. Joseph of Saigon (No. 6 Ton Duc Thang Street, District 1) was built in 1863. Since 2005, a building in the Grand Seminary has been used as a traditional house displaying antiques, statues Engravings, religious and folk art paintings ...

The building was one of the first French buildings in Saigon, still quite intact. Previously, this place was used as the living room of the Major Seminary. The corridors display many items of Vietnamese farmers hundreds of years ago such as horse carts, water wheels, rice mortars, plows, harrows ...

Inside are two galleries displaying 2,000 antiques from Vietnam and the world. "The antiquities I collected in the early 1990s, in addition to many dishes of churches, international guests, foreign organizations donated," said Rev. Nguyen Huu Triet, representative of the Major Seminary. 

The most famous are the items of Vietnamese people in Dong Son culture such as lamp, spoon, terracotta, jewelry ... A lamp made of Dong Son at the same time, around the 5th century BC showed that the Vietnamese already know how to use metal.

The traditional house also includes a collection of 650 ancient lights in Vietnam and other countries. The lamps are rich in designs, diverse in materials from terracotta, copper, ceramic, wood, iron, glass ...

Quite a lot of household items of the Vietnamese in the 19th century such as cabinets, tables, hills, screens, peaks ... are displayed.

The Book of Wisdom, the classic work of the Pentateuch as the foundation of Confucianism, was printed during the reign of Minh Mang, the Nguyen dynasty.

There are many antiques of other cultures that existed in Vietnam such as Cham Pa, Sa Huynh, Oc Eo ... At the entrance are two Sa Huynh land jars used for burial. dating back to the 5th century BCE.

The stone statues of the Khmer, dating back to the 12th century. This is a period of brilliant development of the Khmer kingdom with vast territory, strong development in Southeast Asia.

The artifacts of nations in Asia, Europe are kept in traditional homes. This bronze bell came from the Cantonese (China) region around the 18th century.

French clock in the 19th century with a height of nearly 2 m, carved sophisticated.

Many antique objects of the early 20th century Highland ethnic groups such as tombs, tombs, drums, gongs ... show the diversity of artifacts on display. Traditional houses are open daily for visitors.