陕西历史博物馆讲解材料.

Interpretation of New Exhibitions (Electronic Version)

1. Distinguished guests, welcome to Shaanxi History Museum!

Shaanxi History Museum is the first large modern museum in our country, and it was open to public visitors on June 20th, 1991. This museum has a total space of 70,000 square meters, including a construction space of 56,000 square meters. With the bronze wares, pottery figures, and mural paintings in Tang tombs as its distinctive collections, it boasts 370,000 pieces of cultural relics unearthed in Shanxi Province, including nearly 20,000 pieces of rare and precious ones, and 18 pieces of cultural relics of state. Since the opening of the museum, it has exerted the advantage of the Tang style agriculture, many historical relics, and conducted relic’s displays of various styles. With the best display, excellent order, high quality service, elegant surrounding, and special charm, the museum has attracted tourists home and abroad and meanwhile gained the reputation of "bright pearl of ancient city, treasure house of China."

Shaanxi History Museum has three exhibition halls in a space of 11,000 square meters, including the Main Exhibition Hall, the Monograph Exhibition Hall and the Temporary Exhibition Hall. In the Main Exhibition Hall, there is the excellent exhibition of “the Ancient Culture of Shan x i”, which was developed on March 26, 2008 after our gallery’s 17-year development. It exhibits over 3,000 precious cultural relics, including previous treasures and recent acquisitions unearthed in the significant archaeological discovery, systematically displaying the fruitful achievement of Shanx i’s ancient civilization as well as its contribution to China. The exhibition is divided into seven parts: Prehistoric, Zhou dynasty, Qin Dynasty, Han dynasty, the Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Sui and Tang dynasties, and the dynasties after Tang.

The Monograph Exhibition Hall is the exhibition of special topic held irregularly. Our gallery has held a dozen of these exhibitions, by which the advantage of Shanxi cultural relics is represented comprehensively. Therefore, they are well received by visitors and experts home and abroad. Now, Exhibition of the Bronze Mirrors of all Dynasties and Exhibition of Ancient Sports and Amusements in Shanxi' are showing.

The Temporary Exhibition Hall is the supplement to the Main Exhibition Hall and the Monograph Exhibition Hall. The abundant content, distinctive design and useful

information included here help to produce an influential display system at home.

Now please follow me and let’s see the part of preface.

Please look around and you will find there is no written preface in this spacious and bright hall. Instead, it’s composed of a giant relief and a stone lion with no words. What the giant relief portrays is the surging Yellow River Hukou Waterfall. Yellow River, known as Chinese nation's mother river, is one of the birthplaces of ancient Chinese civilization. This walking stone lion was originally located in front of the tomb of Empress Wu Zetian in Tang Dynasty. It reaches as high as 3.5 meters, and weighs approximately 15 tons. Being the largest one in china’s h istory, it is honored as the Chinese First lion or the East First. The lion is native to Africa and western Asia. As Zhang Qian, a famous Chinese envoy, went to western region, the lion and the craft of carving lions spread to Shanxi along the Silk Road. The Tang Dynasty's walking stone lion in front of us, massive and powerful, is the integration of both Chinese and foreign cultures, reflecting the breadth and the standard of the history and culture of Shanxi. Dear visitors, speaking of it, I have one question for all you. Do you think it is a kind of preface, the one with no words? Well, after reading the preface part, we will read the main body of this “book”.

Please enter the first Exhibition Hall with me, the Shaanxi Ancient Civilization Exhibition, to savor this immortal works that records the progress of human culture.

2. Prehistoric Inhabitants-- Restored Lantian People’s Fossil Skulls

The first part of Shaanxi Ancient Civilization Exhibition is prehistoric civilization, which represents the history of humankind in the period before recorded history. The unearthing of the Lantian people’s fossil skulls is of great significance for the exploration and study of human origins. Based on the Lant ian people’s fossil skulls, paleoanthropologist restored this head statue. According to scientific testing, it is an around 30-year-old woman’s head. From the outlook of the Lantian people, we can see that they have facial features as primitive, the low flat forehead, the wide eyebrow bone and the large mouth with projecting jaw. Their brains are no more than 780 ml in volume, about half of modern humans’. The Lantian people lived about 115 million years ago, and they are the ever known earliest Homo erectus that lived in China.