In 121 BC, Huo Qubing defeated the Xiongnu, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty established the four counties of Jiuzhou, Wuwei, Zhangye and Dunhuang in Hexi, and the Silk Road was opened. In the following millennia, Jiuzhou, as the intersection of the four major civilizations and three major religions of mankind, created a brilliant Silk Road civilization, leaving behind many valuable historical and cultural heritages for posterity. If you want to understand the past and present of Jiuzhou city, the city museum is a good choice.
The museum is located at No. 10, Panshuan West Road, Suzhou District. It houses over 8,000 cultural relics, including painted bricks, gold and silver ware, ceramics, stone tools, etc., introducing from ancient times to modern times. Among them, located on the first floor, the “Stone Chamber Treasure” Jiuzhou Grotto Art Exhibition features replicas of 25 caves in Yulin Grotto, allowing you to see murals and Buddha statues up close, which is quite impressive.
The replica of the attendant Bodhisattva in Cave 45 of Mogao Grottoes fully showcases the magnificence of the Tang Dynasty. This Bodhisattva statue has a round face, soft lines, and a graceful figure, which is an expression of the Tang Dynasty’s aesthetic concept of beauty with plumpness.
The Grotto Art Exhibition is divided into three parts: “Cultural Integration”, “Carving the Cliffs and Opening Caves”, and “Dunhuang Treasures”. Although most of them are replicas, they vividly restore the construction history of the grottoes, showcasing the essence of grotto art. The lifelike feeling emanating from the Buddha statues makes people linger.
Production and living tools and decorations made of bronze are delicate and small, easy to carry. Bronze plaques carved with animal patterns carry a strong Northern nomadic style.
Gansu is an important birthplace of Painted Pottery culture. Many Sibama cultural relics have been discovered in Jiuzhou, and with them, many rough and simple or exquisite and beautiful painted pottery objects have been unearthed. These pottery pieces, depending on the time, exhibit different textures and shapes. Looking at them one by one, it’s like watching a vivid segment of the development history of pottery.
Gansu is known as the “Land of Han Bamboo Slips”. Bamboo slips unearthed here account for more than half of the bamboo slips unearthed across the country. These Han bamboo slips contain rich records, from wars and turmoil to daily life, stories of the Han Dynasty frontier sealed away by time are displayed before people’s eyes.
The Tang Dynasty’s “Kaiyuan Shuibu Shi” was unearthed in Dunhuang. It is China’s oldest extant water conservancy law. Unfortunately, the original is kept in the National Library of France, while the one in the Jiuzhou City Museum is a replica.
If bamboo slips are a book for understanding the history of Jiuzhou and the entire Hexi Corridor, painted bricks are a vivid picture book. These painted bricks, once buried deep underground, showcase the social humanities and people’s way of life, food, clothing, housing, and transportation in the Hexi Corridor region. Many lifestyles and mindsets are still being passed down today, even after a thousand years.
Cultural relics are the most vivid cultural face of a city. As history fades away, the museum, like a time machine, takes people back to the ancient times of Jiuzhou.
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