Shanxi Museum 山西博物院

About Shanxi Museum

The Jin Soul displays connect archaeology with later religious and commercial life. Look for the bird-shaped bronze zun associated with the rulers of Jin, then compare the scale and modelling of Buddhist sculpture. These objects make a visit to the province's scattered monuments easier to read, rather than leaving each temple as an isolated building.

The museum originated as the Shanxi Education Library and Museum (山西教育图书博物馆), founded in 1919 in Taiyuan's Confucian Temple. It was renamed several times over the following decades, and its collections were damaged during the Cultural Revolution beginning in 1966. In 1953 it merged with the Taiyuan Cultural Relics Hall to become the Shanxi Provincial Museum, opening to the public in 1956; a new building completed in 2004 was named the Shanxi Museum, and a branch, the Shanxi Bronze Museum, opened in 2019.

The museum complex covers 168 mu (亩), with a total floor area of 51,000 square metres comprising a main building and four corner annexes for temporary exhibitions, a lecture hall, research and administration. Its permanent exhibition, themed 'Jin Soul' (晋魂), is organised into seven historical sections and five art sections.

The collection totals close to 660,000 items, with about 400,000 pieces considered especially significant, including Neolithic material from the Taosi site (陶寺遗址), Shang-era regional-state artefacts, Jin-state and other Three Jin (三晋) artefacts from the Western Zhou through Warring States periods, and Northern dynasties stone Buddhist carvings. It is one of the first group of national first-grade museums (国家一级博物馆), with a library holding over 160,000 volumes, including more than 110,000 old editions.

What to look for

• The bird-shaped bronze zun, whose turning head and animal-shaped support combine sculpture with a ritual vessel.
• Buddhist stone sculpture and the Jin Soul displays connecting the province's archaeological and later cultural history.

The surrounding area

Provincial city base for Jinci, museums and the Zhonglou Street food-and-walking district.

Location & getting there

Getting to Shanxi Museum

The museum is at 13 Binhe West Road, on the Fen River's western side in Taiyuan.

• Use the museum's official visitor information to arrange admission, and check the gallery plan for the current location of key objects.