The Stele Forest or Beilin Museum is a museum for

stele A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

s and stone sculptures in Beilin District in

Xi'an Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

Northwest China Northwestern China () is a region in the People's Republic of China. It consists of five provincial administrative regions, namely Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Xinjiang. The region is characterized by a (semi-)arid continental climate. ...

. The museum, which is housed in a former

Confucian Temple A temple of Confucius or Confucian temple is a temple for the veneration of Confucius and the sages and philosophers of Confucianism in Chinese folk religion and other East Asian religions. They were formerly the site of the administration of ...

, has housed a growing collection of Steles since 1087. By 1944 it was the principal museum for

Shaanxi province Shaanxi is a province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to the west. Shaanxi ...

. Due to the large number of steles, it was officially renamed the Forest of Stone Steles in 1992. Altogether, there are 3,000 steles in the museum, which is divided into seven exhibitions halls that display works of

Chinese calligraphy Chinese calligraphy is the writing of Chinese characters as an art form, combining purely Visual arts, visual art and interpretation of the literary meaning. This type of expression has been widely practiced in China and has been generally held ...

, painting and historical records.

History

The Stele Forest began with the ''Kaicheng Shi Jing Steles'' () and ''Shitai Xiao Jing Steles'' (), two groups of steles both carved in the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

and displayed in the temple to

Confucius Confucius (; pinyin: ; ; ), born Kong Qiu (), was a Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Much of the shared cultural heritage of the Sinosphere originates in the phil ...

and the

Imperial College Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a cultural district in South Kensington that included museums ...

Chang'an Chang'an (; zh, t=長安, s=长安, p=Cháng'ān, first=t) is the traditional name of the city now named Xi'an and was the capital of several Chinese dynasties, ranging from 202 BCE to 907 CE. The site has been inhabited since Neolithic time ...

, capital of the empire. In 904, a rebel army sacked

, and the steles were evacuated to the inner city. In 962, they were returned to the rebuilt temple. In the

Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

, a special hall with attached facilities was built to house and display the two stele groups. It was damaged in the

1556 Shaanxi earthquake The 1556 Shaanxi earthquake ( Postal romanization: ''Shensi''), known in Chinese colloquially by its regnal year as the Jiajing Great Earthquake "" ('' Jiājìng Dàdìzhèn'') or officially by its epicenter as the Hua County Earthquake "" ('' ...

during the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

. In 1936, famous Chinese calligrapher Yu Youren donated his entire collection of more than three hundred rubbings from steles to the Xian Forest of Stele Museum. It became a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level in 1961 and thus survived the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

Steles

It houses nearly 3,000 steles and it is the biggest collection of steles in China. Most of its exhibits are steles of the

. Ink rubbings of the steles are available for sale. Among the unusual examples is an 18th-century stele depicting a

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

flood control Flood management or flood control are methods used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters. Flooding can be caused by a mix of both natural processes, such as extreme weather upstream, and human changes to waterbodies and ru ...

project. Another appears to be a bamboo forest, but on examination the leaves and branches form a poem. The famous

Xi'an Stele The Xi'an Stele or the Stele ( zh, c=景教碑, p= Jǐngjiào bēi), sometimes translated as the "Nestorian Stele," is a Tang Chinese stele erected in 781 that documents 150 years of early Christianity in China. It is a limestone block high wit ...

was moved to the Stele Forest in 1907, after the local authorities learned that the Danish adventurer Frits Holm was in town, trying to "obtain" the ancient monument and take it out of the country. * Cao Quan Stele (曹全碑,

Han dynasty The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...

) * Sima Fang Stele (司马芳碑,

Jin dynasty Jin may refer to: States Jìn 晉 * Jin (Chinese state) (晉國), major state of the Zhou dynasty, existing from the 11th century BC to 376 BC * Jin dynasty (266–420) (晉朝), also known as Liang Jin and Sima Jin * Jin (Later Tang precursor) ...

) * Kaicheng Shi Jing Stele (开成石经碑, Tang dynasty) *

(大秦景教流行中国碑, Tang dynasty)

Stone sculptures

* Four Steeds of Zhao Mausoleum (Tang dynasty) The collections of the Beilin Museum are far more extensive than suggested by this inadequate thumbnail stub. To give but one example, artifacts produced by the ancient buddhasasansangha of part of China are well represented: Buddhist Sculpture from China: Selections from the Xi'an Beilin Museum Fifth through Ninth Centuries (China Institute Gallery, New York, 2007).

References

External links

Xi'an Stele Forest Museum
{{Coord, 34.252459, 108.952809, display=title Chinese steles Museums in Shaanxi Buildings and structures in Xi'an Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Shaanxi Confucian temples in China Beilin District, Xi'an