With an area of 40,000 square meters (430,556 square feet), Guyuan Museum is a provincial-level comprehensive museum which combines historical relic collections, scientific research, exhibitions and education, and has been opened to the public since September 1988.It is where the bronze wares of the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC-476 BC) and Warring States Period (475 BC-221 BC), and the Silk Road cultural relics from the Northern Wei(386-557), the Northern Zhou(557-581), the Sui (581-618) and the Tang (618-907) dynasties are collected.
Highlights of Guyuan Museum
Guyuan Museum is home to over 12,000 pieces of cultural relics, 123 of which are Grade One cultural relics of the state. Guyuan Museum has an elegant style, and it's composed of three areas: the Exhibit Area, the Office Area and the Living Area. The Exhibit Area consists of the Exhibit Building, the Bell Pavilion, the Ancient Tombs Restoration Hall and the Stone Inscription Hall.
The Exhibit Building is divided into a basic exhibition of Guyuan Historical Relics and a themed exhibition called Silk Road in Guyuan, where over 1,000 pieces of cultural relics are exhibited together, fully displaying the 6,000-year history and culture of Guyuan.
The exhibition of Guyuan Historical Relics highlights the folk and historical relics of the Western Zhou (1046 BC-771 BC), the Qin (221 BC-206 BC) and Han (206 BC-220) dynasties, the Southern and Northern Dynasties(420-589), the Sui (581-618), the Tang (618-907), the Song(960-1279), the Liao (916-1125), the Jin (265-420), the Yuan (1271-1368), the Ming (1368-1644) and the Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, fully displaying the changes of cultural and commercial communication and social development.
As the Silk Road opened, Buddhism was introduced to Guyuan from the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-557)to the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Guyuan played an important part in the north-west of the Silk Road, from which many historical relics and grave murals were unearthed, including stone and bronze statues of Buddha and jade statues of KwanYin.
The tombs of the Western Zhou (1046 BC-771 BC) and Eastern Zhou (770 BC-256 BC)dynasties, the Tomb of Li Xian (of the Northern Zhou Dynasty), the Tomb of Shi Shewu (of the Sui Dynasty) and the Tomb of Liang Yuanzhen (of the Tang Dynasty) were restored in the Ancient Tombs Restoration Hall to a scale of 1:1, from which you can see the characteristics of tombs of various classes in ancient times.
Over 100 tombstones and steles ranging from the Northern Zhou Dynasty (557-581) to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) are collected in the Stone Inscription Hall, from which you can seethe calligraphic styles of various dynasties.
- Exhibition of Guyuan Historical Relics
- Silk Road in Guyuan
- Ancient Tombs Restoration Hall
- Stone Inscription Hall
- Location: 133, Xicheng Road, Yuanzhou District, Guyuan, Ningxia Province
- Bus routes: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 22, 23 and 24
- Opening hours: 9:00 am-5:30 pm
