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Located inside the Confucian Temple of Taiyuan City, is a local comprehensive museum of China. It was prepared in 1918 and opened to the public in 1919. Its initial name was the Educational Book Museum of Shanxi Province. Then it was changed successively into the People's Education Hall of Shanxi Province in 1933, the Book Museum of Shanxi Province in 1949, and was finalized as the Shanxi Provincial Museum when combined with the Relics Hall of Taiyuan City in 1953.
The museum is divided into two parts.
The original site where part 1 now lies used to be occupied by the Confucius Temple that was built in the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234 AD). The exhibition halls here all still retain there original names, with rooms such as the Hall of Great Success and the Memorial Hall now housing an array of artifacts. Part 1 concentrates more on the provinces early history as one of the cradles of the Chinese civilisation, although there are a number of photographs and artifacts highlighting Shanxi's more recent history. The older objects (some neolithic) were mostly excavated or removed from ancient tombs and ruins.
The second part of the museum, probably the more interesting of the two, used to be called Chunyang Palace and was a temple where people offered sacrifice and paid tribute to the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) Taoist priest, Lu Dongbin. Housed in the halls here are collections of historical literature, as well as all kinds of ancient cultural relics, including Shang Dynasty bronzes, ceramics, carvings & embroidery, that were unearthed in the province. The palace itself was built by the early 1600s, but was renovated and restored a number of times in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD).
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