Forest Of Steles Museum

I just went here today. I live only a few blocks away from it but I’d never gone to see it before because my brother said it was really boring. (He’s said that about every museum he’s been to except for the one with the IMAX and The Hockey Hall of Fame.) I wasn’t expecting much when I went but I really loved it. (I’m a museum person.) I went with a friend of mine who had been there before and I think we stayed there for about two hours; it would have been longer but it was really bad weather out.

It’s called the heaviest library on earth because all the books are written on tablets. :D They had 1500 year old written stones that you could touch and feel with your hands, it felt really cool. The Nestorian Christian tablet is there, after being taken from the mountain, stored in the museum, taken from the museum, buried, dug up, and then taken back to the museum again. There are scriptures copied from the scrolls that Xuanzang brought from the west. (Like in the book Journey to the West) and they have writings from The Analects by Confucius as well as many gravestones of emperors and empresses. There are also some beautiful works of calligraphy, including seal script and sanscrit (sp?) and many beautiful carvings engraved in the stone.

There are also three national treasures of China there: four of the six valiant steed carvings, (the other two were smuggled to America,) a buddhist statue carved out of marble, and a really big bell. (I didn’t stay to see it.) They also had a tomb and coffin of some emperor there. (I don’t know if the guy was still in it or not.)

This is definitely a must-see for anyone who goes to Xi’an. I have no complaints, only that the price for the rubbings seemed to be too much, but that’s so typical for buying things from a museum. Also, the signs by the tablets were really good in that they told who inscribed it, when it was inscribed, what kind of writing it is, etc., but they don’t tell you what the tablets actually say. I guess that’s because most of the people who go there can read them for themselves. I could only pick out some of the more basic characters. I’m going again soon with my mother.