Chengdu Sichuan Tapestry Woven and Embroidered Museum

This guide to the Chengdu Sichuan Tapestry Woven and Embroidered Museum traces a mystery that began in 2012, when archaeologists pulled four small wooden models from a waterlogged tomb pit at Laoguanshan, on Chengdu's edge, with no idea what they were for. It follows six years of engineers comparing the models to a Ming dynasty engineering text, building replicas that broke or misfired, before a research team with the China National Silk Museum finally got one working in 2018. You'll stand before its descendant, a six-meter tower loom worked by two weavers who cannot succeed alone.