Datong Museum locates at Taihe Road in Datong, which is a comprehensive museum, and also the landmark in Datong. It is also the second largest historical museum in Shanxi Province. The total investment of Datong Museum is 490 million RMB. As the National Second Class Museum, the museum collects more than 70,000 pieces of the cultural relics, the majority of which are locally found.
History of Datong Museum
The Datong Museum was the Datong City Cultural Relics Exhibition Hall in the past, which was firstly established in 1958. It was officially renamed as the Datong Museum in 1963. The Datong Museum has been put into use for more than half a century, and the site has been changed several times. The construction of the new site started from May 18, 2010, and was officially open since December 31, 2014.
Structures of Datong Museum
The architectural design of the Datong Museum has the dynamic building feature. It incorporates the historical cultures of Datong, combines with the culture of dragons and grottoes and reflcts the natural landscape of the Datong volcano groups. The whole architecture circle around the central hall to form a radial spiral space structure. The design also shows the urban landscape.
Datong Museum covers an area of 51,556 square meters, with the construction area of 32,821 square meters. It has three storeys above ground, and one storey underground, with inter-layers partially. The whole museum is divided into cultural relic exhibition area, public service area, multifunctional hall, storehouse area and office area.
The exhibition theme of Datong Museum is “Minhe Datong”, which focuses on reflecting the development process of the ethnic integration, and the political, economic, military, and cultural prosperity, promoting harmonious coexistence of all ethnic groups.
The collections of the relics are famous for highlighting the characteristics of the northern minority culture, the military culture and the religious culture of the border towns. In particular, the delicate cultural relics of the Northern Wei, Liao, and Jin dynasties enjoy high reputations among the tourists.
The collections from Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534) are the most famous and attractive, which show the gorgeousness of Datong as the capital during the Northern Wei Dynasty. These collections mainly include the screen paintings of the ceremonial troops, and five wooden lacquer prints unearthed from Sima Jinlong Tomb, the headstones of Song Shaozu's ancestors, Persian silver coins, Xianbei objects and accessories, and the ceramic wares from Northern Wei Dynasty. Among them, the stone carvings unearthed from the Northern Wei architectural ruins are rarely seen among the stone carvings in history .