Linfen Museum

Linfen Museum
临汾市博物馆

Address: Inside Jiuzhou Park at the southern end of Jiuzhou square, Fenhe Ecological and Cultural scenic area, Linfen, Shanxi province
Hours: 9:00 am -5:00 pm (No entry after 4:00 pm)
Closed Mondays (Except for national holidays and summer holidays), Chinese New Year's Eve
General admission: Free
Tel: (+86-0357-3999116/3999118

The three floors above the ground of the main building of the Linfen Museum are its exhibition area, and the underground floor is its reserved area.

The museum is the city's cultural relics central library, and shows and protects Linfen's history and culture, and especially its bronze ware, ceramics, shuilu paintings(the paintings found in the Buddhist religion depicting grand religious rituals) and woodblock New Year paintings.

The display of cultural relics is based on a historical heritage and features thematic culture. The content is divided into four sections.

The first focuses on "Ancient Footprints", which displays "Dingcun Culture"(middle Old Stone Age) and "Shizitan Culture" (late Old Stone Age) and continues to "Zaoyuan Culture", which represents the Linfen Neolithic culture.

The second illustrates the topic of "The First China", showing the historical facts of the earliest China of Pingyang, the capital of Yao, which is mainly the "Tao Temple Site".

The third is centered around the ancient State of Jin (1024-369 BC), a major and influential state during the middle part of the Zhou Dynasty (c.11th century-256 BC), which at the peak of its power, covered the entire Shanxi province, part of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, and parts of Shaanxi, Hebei, and Shangdong provinces.

The fourth displays "A Thousand Years in Pingyang", outlining the major points of progress in civilization from the Qin (221-206 BC) and Han (206 BC-AD 220) dynasties to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). It illustrates the origin, prosperity and development of Pingyang iron smelting, interprets the historical heritage of the Pingyang opera and demonstrates the important status of Pingyang Jinyuan wood carving and the Pingyang woodblock New Year paintings culture during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties. It also fully demonstrates the inheritance and vitality of Buddhism throughout the region.