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This museum of Shaanxi is known for its huge and interesting exposition dedicated mainly to the history of the Silk Road. It is remarkable that on the territory occupied by the present museum stood the Temple of Confucius, which in the early 20th century was made into museum.
Among the unique artifacts museum is Stele Forest - the heaviest collection books in the world — 2,300 big stone books written on steles. The earliest are dated the period of Han dynasty.
In 837 in order to avoid mistakes during ancient texts copying by the order of emperor Wang Zun 12 most valuable books of antiquity were cut in big stone slabs later followed by the 13th. A special building was constructed for storing those steles in 1090.
Every stele is a big polished parallelepiped boulder. All of them rest on stone turtles and are decorated with the images of dragons from above. The texts on the majority of them were written by outstanding Chinese calligraphers and consequently have not only historical but also artistic value.
Among the books there is a Christian one — Nestorian stele Daiqin - with a small cross on top. It was erected in 781 AD to commemorate the opening of the first Nestorian church in Chang’an.
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