Shaanxi Provincial History Museum

Shaanxi Provincial History Museum, which located in the northwest of the Dayan Pagoda of ancient city Xi'an, is the first huge state museum with modern facilities in China, and given the reputation of "bright pearl of ancient city, treasure house of China."

Exhibited in the main exhibition hall are 2,700 works of art, with an exhibition line that extends 2,300 meters. The exhibition space is divided into an introductory hall, permanent exhibitions, special exhibitions, and temporary exhibitions, as well as one that has been named the National Painting Hall.

Since the open of the museum, it held on the rules of combination of collecting, conservation, propagandizing, education, and scientific research, exerted the advantage of many historical relics, and conducted relics displays of various styles. Those all posted the rich meaning of relics from different degrees, and displayed the rich cultural achievements of China.

With best display, excellent order, high quality service, elegant surrounding, and special charm, Shaanxi Provincial History Museum attracted tourists home and abroad. After the opening, the museum accepted thousands of tourists and became the important window to propagandize Chinese excellent culture, carry out patriotism instruction, and international exchange.

The Museum's permanent exhibition primarily displays Shaanxi's ancient history. Representative pieces from all periods have been selected to show the development of civilization in this region. The exhibition space of this display is 4,600 square meters. It includes three exhibition rooms, divided into seven parts (Prehistory, Zhou, Qin, Han, Wei-Jin-North and South dynasties, Sui-Tang, and Song-Yuan-Ming-Qing). The superlative 2,000 selected objects include: painted Neolithic ceramics reflecting early people's living conditions and their pursuit of vibrant art forms, bronzes reflecting the rise of Zhou people, bronze weapons including swords, and statuary of horses and soldiers, reflecting the way in which Qin unified all under heaven, Tang-dynasty gold and silver objects and Tang tri-color ceramics, reflecting the most flourishing period of feudal glory. All of this is accompanied by models of archaeological sites, and drawings, and photographs.

These works systematically exhibit the ancient history of Shaanxi from 150,000 years ago to the year 1840. Since several historical periods all based their capitals on Shaanxi territory, such as Zhou, Qin, Western Han, Sui and Tang, the exhibits emphasize these periods and these places. This not only expresses the extent of culture in ancient Shaanxi, it also displays the highest level of cultural development of China's social economy.

The temporary exhibits hall, located on the east side of the museum, has had a variety of exhibitions including Tang-tomb wall paintings, that is to say 39 of the actual paintings. Shaanxi's wall murals of this kind rank first in the entire country. They are fluid in concept and line, they have marvelous details, and they both depict Tang customs and are superb works of art.

The special exhibition hall is located on the west side of the museum. Its first two exhibitions were a Shaanxi bronzes exhibit (260 were on display) and a Shaanxi-through-the-dynasties terracotta masterpieces exhibit (341 objects were exhibited). The area of this hall is around 2,600 square meters.

The Shaanxi Provincial History Museum contains 115,000 objects in its collections. The more representative of these include bronzes, Tang-dynasty tomb wall paintings, terracotta statuary, ceramics (pottery and porcelain), construction materials through the dynasties, Han and Tang bronze mirrors, and coins and currency, calligraphy, rubbings, scrolls, woven articles, bone articles, wooden and lacquer and iron and stone objects, seals, as well as some contemporary cultural relics and ethnic objects.