Xi'an stele forest museum

Xi'an stele forest was founded in 1087 ad, with a history of more than 900 years. In 1944, based on the "forest of Steles in Xi'an", an art museum was built by using the ancient buildings of Confucius Temple in Xi'an to collect, study and display ancient steles, epitaphs and stone sculptures. Formerly known as Shaanxi Provincial Museum, it was built in 1944. The museum area is composed of Confucius Temple, forest of Steles and stone carving art room, covering an area of 31900 square meters. There are more than 11000 pieces of cultural relics in the library, 11 exhibition rooms, and a display area of 4900 square meters.

Xi'an stele forest museum

The forest of Stone Steles Museum in Xi'an is the earliest Museum in Shaanxi Province. It mainly collects, displays and studies the inscriptions, epitaphs and stone carvings of the past dynasties. It has become a unique art museum in China. There are more than 11000 pieces of cultural relics in the collection, including 134 pieces of 19 national treasures and 535 pieces of first-class cultural relics. Four of the famous "six horses of Zhaoling" are stored in our museum. The exhibition consists of three parts: forest of Steles, stone carving art and other cultural relics exhibition, with a total of 12 exhibition rooms. There are 7 stele rooms, 8 stele corridors, 8 stele pavilions, plus stone carving art room and 4 cultural relics display, with an exhibition area of 4900 square meters.

Background of stele forest

Xi'an stele forest, founded in 1087, is the earliest and largest collection of ancient steles in China. There are more than 1000 steles and epitaphs from Han Dynasty to Qing Dynasty. There are a forest of Steles, so it is called the forest of steles. Xi'an stele forest is rich in content. It is not only a treasure house of ancient Chinese calligraphy, but also a collection of ancient literature and stone patterns. It describes some achievements of China's cultural development and reflects the historical facts of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, so it is famous at home and abroad. The forest of Steles in Xi'an was developed on the basis of preserving the stone scriptures of Tang Dynasty. The stone scriptures of the Tang Dynasty include those written by Li Longji, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, in 745 AD and those carved in 837 ad.

Exhibition rooms and collections

Stone Art Museum

With the theme of "Buddhist charm of Chang'an" as the exhibition theme, the new museum of stone carvings displays about 150 stone carvings from the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, representing the highest level of Buddhist art in the history of Chang'an. The exhibition is divided into statue stele area, statue area and large statue area, which comprehensively explains the typical style and artistic style of Buddhist statues under Chang'an mode. In 2011, "Changan Buddha rhyme" won the top ten national museum exhibitions, and the new stone carving art museum won the "Luban Award of China Construction Engineering".

The Stele Forest

Xi'an stele forest was built in the second year of Yuanyou (1087) of song zhezong. With the maintenance and construction of Jin, yuan, Ming, Qing and Republic dynasties, the scale of the stele forest has been expanding, and the number of stones and epitaphs has been increasing day by day. Now, more than 4000 steles and epitaphs have been collected since Han Dynasty, and the number is the largest in China. The collection has a complete series of times, with a time span of more than 2000 years.

Confucian Temple

Xi'an Confucius Temple was near Guozijian in the west of Shangshu Province in Tang Dynasty. After several relocations in Song Dynasty, Yu CE moved the Confucian temple and Fu Xue to the southeast corner of Fu City in 1103, which is the current site of Xi'an stele forest museum. Most of the preserved Zhaobi, Paifang, Lingxing gate, Huabiao, halberd gate, Beiting and two verandas were built in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

The 18th Xi'an stele forest International Book Fair

On November 16, "the 18th Xi'an stele forest international temporary Book Exhibition" was exhibited in the East West temporary exhibition of Xi'an stele forest museum. 97 pieces (groups) of Japanese calligraphy works are exhibited in this exhibition. They are excellent award-winning works selected from more than 500 calligraphy works, including various styles of zhencaoli seal.

Stone carving art room of Beilin

The stone carving art room of Xi'an Forest of Steles was built in 1963. The plaque was inscribed by Marshal Chen Yi. The exhibition contents are mainly tomb stone carvings from Han Dynasty to Ming and Qing Dynasty. Among them, the double beasts of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the stone bricks of the Han Dynasty, the stone coffin and epitaph of Li Shoushi of the Tang Dynasty, and the six horses of Zhaoling have various carving techniques and styles, which are the best stone carvings in different historical periods.

Exhibition room 1

The exhibition of Kaicheng Shijing includes 12 classics, including Zhouyi, Shangshu, Shijing, Liji, Chunqiu Zuoshi Zhuan, Analects of Confucius, Xiaojing and Erya, with more than 600000 words and 114 square stones. Mencius, a supplement of the Qing Dynasty, is also on display here, collectively known as the thirteen classics. These classics are the necessary books for intellectuals in feudal society. At that time, in order to avoid mistakes made by scholars in copying scriptures and to preserve them permanently, they carved scriptures on stone tablets as models and set them up in Guozijian of Chang'an City for proofreading. Kaicheng Shijing is the only complete set of stone scriptures.

Exhibition room 2

Famous calligraphy steles are mainly displayed in the Tang Dynasty. In terms of content, the stele of spreading Nestorianism in China and the stele of Bukong monk are valuable materials for studying the cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries in Tang Dynasty. In terms of calligraphy value, Yu Shinan's Confucius Temple stele, Chu suiliang's Tongzhou holy religion preface stele, Ouyang Xun's Huangfu birthday stele, Ouyang Tong's Daoyin master stele, Zhang Xu's duanqian Zi Wen, Liu Gongquan's xuanmi pagoda stele, as well as monk Huairen's Wang Xizhi's Tang Sanzang holy religion Preface stele, Yan Zhenqing's Duobao pagoda stele and Yan Jiamiao stele, all of them have been from ancient times to modern times This is a model for calligraphy lovers to learn. Among them, monk Huairen spent 24 years of painstaking efforts to carve the preface stele of Shengjiao from Wang Xizhi's ink collected in neifu, which reproduces Wang Xizhi's elegant style of calligraphy. In addition, the inscriptions were written by Emperor Taizong and Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty, praising the outstanding Buddhist Xuanzang, as well as his Xie Biao and Xinjing, which are known as "three unique steles".

Exhibition room 3

The exhibition is a variety of calligraphy steles from Han Dynasty to Song Dynasty. Seal script includes Tang Meiyuan Shenquan poem preface, official script includes Han caoquan stele, regular script includes Tang Zang huaike stele, running script includes Tang Huijian Zen master stele, cursive script includes Sui Zhiyong thousand character stele, Tang huaisu thousand character stele, Zhang Xu's stomach pain tie, etc., all of which are well-known calligraphy treasures at home and abroad.

Exhibition room 4

On display are the poems and writings of famous calligraphers Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, Mi Fu, Zhao Mengfu, etc. from the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, as well as steles with precious historical value in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. There are also a number of line depictions from Song Dynasty to Qing Dynasty, such as "Tang Taiji palace remnant map", "Tang Xingqing palace map", Qing Dynasty "Taihua mountain complete map" and "Guanzhong eight sceneries", which have reference value for the study of ancient architecture and tourist attractions.

Exhibition room 5

Most of the local historical materials and steles in song, yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties are displayed in Qing Dynasty. Many of the steles record the contents of temple building, merit recording, farmland allocation, school support, canal building, etc. they are the materials for the study of the society and local history at that time, and also have certain value in the art of calligraphy.

Exhibition room 6

Most of the steles on display are poems of the Qing Dynasty, except for a few poems of the yuan and Ming Dynasties. Among them, the steles written by Zhao Mengfu of Yuan Dynasty, Dong Qichang of Ming Dynasty, Emperor Kangxi of Qing Dynasty and Lin Zexu are rare treasures.

Exhibition room 7

On display are 145 steles re engraved in the Qing Dynasty with Chunhua secret Pavilion calligraphy. On both sides of the stone carvings, there are various fonts of feudal emperors, famous officials and calligraphers, as well as the cursive characters of Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi. It's a rare inscription.

Memorabilia of the forest of steles

World cultural heritage memorabilia of Xi'an Forest of steles

In 1987, Xi'an stele forest was selected into the preliminary list of China's world cultural heritage projects.

How far is Xi'an stele forest from the "world cultural heritage"

On March 7, 2000, Shaanxi daily published the article "if Xi'an stele forest wants to be named, it is the key to harness the surrounding environment"

In September 2000, he was invited to participate in the "China World Heritage Exhibition" held in the Chinese history museum

China's World Heritage in the new millennium (Tourism Education Press)

In 2000, Cheng JianZheng wrote "Xi'an Forest of Steles and world cultural heritage" (published in "forest of Steles collection" (6), Shaanxi people's Fine Arts Publishing House)

In August 2002, he was invited to participate in the "2002 Chinese and foreign world heritage" Customs exhibition held at the China Century Monument in Beijing

In June 2003, Xi'an Forest of Steles was re submitted to the preparatory list of world cultural heritage

In June 2003, "Xi'an stele forest protection and management regulations (discussion draft)" was issued

On August 23, 2003, Dr. Henry, world heritage consultant of the State Administration of cultural relics, Mr. Jing Feng and Mr. AORs, officials of the World Heritage Center, visited the stele forest in Xi'an, and highly appraised the unique collection system and overall environmental features of the stele forest in Xi'an

In March 2004, member Cheng JianZheng put forward the proposal of "actively applying for world cultural heritage and showing the style of famous ancient capital" at the Xi'an Political Consultative Conference

On April 26, 2004, Xinhua News Agency published the article "Declaration of Xi'an stele forest for world cultural heritage", which was forwarded by various media

In May 2004, he was invited to participate in the "World Heritage forum" held in Lijiang, Yunnan

In June 2004, he was invited to participate in the 28th World Heritage conference "natural and cultural landscape (China) Expo" (Suzhou)

In October 2018, it was rated as the "national primary and secondary school students' research and learning center" in 2018

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