Discovering a visionary product with archaeological blind boxes

"It provides a kind of spiritual satisfaction in a way for young people, such as applying cartoon images and illustrations into the making of the blind boxes," says Zhang.

The warm welcome of archaeological dig boxes among young people has attracted lots of museums to enter into this field, making such kind of blind dig boxes in their own styles.

At a design competition of creative cultural products that more than 60 key museums across China participated in, which was held at Shenzhen Museum in June, various dig boxes were presented.

The Guangdong Museum in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, produces an underwater dig box to re-create the excavation of a ship lying in the ocean for hundreds of years, loaded full of porcelains that were being transported to the West. The Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan, Sichuan province, replicates its sacrificial pits and hides treasures that duplicate its exotic-looking bronze and gold artifacts.

"Blind dig boxes are a unique creation of museums in China. They combine the hot concept of the blind box economy with archaeology. They're interesting and full of uncertainty, and thus arouse people's curiosity," says Yang Mingyue, deputy director of the Beijing Institute of Culture Innovation and Communication with Beijing Normal University.

Yang says the blind dig box is a good example of a museum product to arouse people's passion to learn about archaeology, a subject that is often regarded as boring and hard to understand.