Discovering a City Through a Single Museum

Culture is the soul of a city, and museums serve as windows through which we can perceive its essence. Museums not only narrate the city's past but also bridge its present and future. Through them, we can vividly feel the city's pulse, its heartbeat, and its emotions.

Chengdu is truly a city of museums, boasting over a hundred museums of varying sizes. In terms of quantity, quality, and diversity, it ranks among the top in the country. These museums strive to showcase Chengdu from various perspectives, with the new Chengdu Museum, located on the west side of Tianfu Square, undoubtedly capturing the most attention.

Opened in 2016, the new museum has already been rated as a national first-class museum. It stands as the largest urban museum in western China, situated at Tianfu Square, a landmark of Chengdu.

The Chengdu Museum houses over 200,000 artifacts, spanning bronze vessels, gold and silverware, brick reliefs, stone carvings, ceramics, calligraphy and paintings, shadow puppets, puppets, and more. However, only about 5,000 pieces are currently on display. The museum's collection is incredibly rich, spanning different eras, making it challenging to single out the "treasures of the museum." Among them, the bronze "Lei" vessel from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the bronze dagger-axe adorned with silkworm patterns, the stone rhinoceros, the Han Dynasty loom, the Zengjiabao stone carvings, the Han Dynasty pottery figurines, the painted lacquer figure with marked meridians and acupuncture points, the lacquered ear cups, stone carvings from the Six Dynasties period, Tang Dynasty Buddhist statues, pottery musicians from the Five Dynasties period, Song Dynasty porcelain pillows, gold ingots, Ming Dynasty porcelain figurine groups, and Qing Dynasty snuff bottles are all extremely precious. However, if I were to highlight the "treasures of the museum," I might describe them as "one big, one small, and a basketful." The "one big" refers to the 8.5-ton stone rhinoceros, the "one small" is the 14-centimeter-tall Han Dynasty "small lacquer figure" intricately carved with meridians and acupuncture points, and the "basketful" encompasses those iconic artifacts that bear witness to each era of Chengdu's history. Perhaps, as our understanding deepens, new "treasures of the museum" will continue to emerge.