Stele Forest 碑林博物馆

About Stele Forest

The Kaicheng Stone Classics turn canonical books into carved monuments, while later steles reveal the development of Chinese calligraphy. Religious inscriptions and sculpture broaden the story beyond Confucian learning. The museum’s expanded display includes celebrated objects such as the Jingyun Bell and the surviving Zhaoling horse reliefs; use the current gallery plan instead of older room-number descriptions.

The museum's collection developed around Tang-dynasty stone texts, chiefly the Kaicheng Stone Classics, twelve Confucian classics commissioned under Emperor Wenzong of Tang and engraved between 833 and 837 on 114 stones carrying more than 650,000 characters, first erected at the Imperial College in Chang'an. After the fall of the Tang the stones were moved several times within the reduced city, and their installation at the prefectural school in 1087 is generally treated as the foundation of the present Stele Forest. The site remained a Confucian temple and school through the imperial period, and most of its surviving buildings date from the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The museum holds nearly 3,000 steles and a large collection of carved stone. Calligraphic works include the Eastern Han Cao Quan Stele, a Song recarving of the Qin Mount Yi Stele that transmits a version of the small-seal script attributed to Li Si, and Tang works associated with Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing, Huaisu and Liu Gongquan, including Yan Zhenqing's original Yan Family Temple Stele. Also in the collection is the Xi'an Stele, erected in 781 with Chinese and Syriac text recording the Church of the East in Tang China; it was transferred to the museum in 1907 after a Danish visitor sought to remove it abroad.

What to look for

• The Kaicheng Stone Classics and major calligraphic steles, showing text preserved in stone.
• Religious inscriptions, including the eighth-century record of Christianity in Tang China.
• Stone sculpture and the museum’s Jingyun Bell collection.

Location & getting there

Getting to Stele Forest

Go to Beilin Museum at 15 Sanxue Street, just inside the southern city wall near Wenchang Gate.

• Use the current entrance and gallery map for the expanded museum; older guidebooks describe a previous display layout.