Tieling Museum

Tieling Museum

Tieling Museum is a national AAA-level tourist attraction.

Tieling Museum was established in August 1986. Its predecessor was the Cultural Relics Group of the Tieling Region. The main building of the new museum site was completed in 2000, and the basic exhibition was finished on July 6, 2001, when it officially opened to the public.

Tieling Museum is a non-profit public institution, with collection, research, and education as its core social functions. Its primary mission is: to meet the needs of socialist modernization, collect and preserve cultural relics and specimens, conduct scientific research, organize various exhibitions, improve the ideological, moral, scientific, and cultural standards of the entire Chinese nation, promote the construction of socialist spiritual culture, and serve the cause of socialist modernization.

Tieling Museum is a comprehensive municipal-level local history museum invested in and built by the state. The museum is located in the city center, on the east side of the road inside the south gate of the ancient city of Liao’s Yinzhou and Ming’s Tieling Wei. It covers an area of 7,000 square meters, with a building area of 6,800 square meters. The main structure is a three-and-a-half-story exhibition building (with half a floor underground), housing four exhibition halls covering approximately 4,000 square meters. The museum complex also includes an academic lecture hall, visitor service center, collections storage, and a security and alarm monitoring center.

The museum currently houses a collection of over 5,000 items, primarily unearthed artifacts from the northern Liaoning region, including many rare pieces. Examples include a bronze battle-axe from the Shang and Zhou periods; a pierced bronze plaque ornament from the Western Han Dynasty; and the epitaph of Xiao Yi, Northern Chancellor of the late Liao Dynasty.

Tieling Museum features two permanent thematic exhibitions: “Historical Relics of Northern Liaoning” and “Tieling Regional Exhibition.” “Historical Relics of Northern Liaoning” follows the timeline of the region’s historical development and is based on unearthed artifacts, recreating the local social production and daily life over the past ten thousand years, authentically reflecting the civilization achievements created by the people of Northern Liaoning in various historical periods. “Tieling Regional Exhibition” uses representative specimens, finished product samples and models, photographs, and statistical data to comprehensively and succinctly present Tieling’s natural environment, resources, cultural landscapes, notable historical figures, and the current state of material and spiritual civilization development. It showcases the creativity of the people of this black-soil region in building their homeland and reveals the promising prospects for sustainable local development. This exhibition is an attempt under new circumstances to expand museum functions, promote regional economic development, and enhance the social impact of the museum.

In addition, the temporary exhibition hall and commercial exhibition center can simultaneously host various thematic displays, accommodate touring exhibitions, and support commercial activities.

Currently, Tieling Museum is planning the “Ethnic Groups of Northern Liaoning” exhibition. Set against the backdrop of the flourishing Liao River shipping trade in the early 20th century and Tieling’s role as a distribution hub for northeastern agricultural and sideline products, the exhibition recreates the folk customs of Northern Liaoning at that time. Visitors walk through scenes and among exhibits, with novel presentation methods and modern audiovisual effects using sound, light, and electricity to enhance interest and engagement, attracting tourists.

Tieling Museum also undertakes archaeological and local history research tasks within the city. Building on the cultural relics survey conducted in the early 1980s, it has carried out numerous cultural relics investigations and archaeological operations in coordination with major national infrastructure projects, resulting in the preservation of a large number of relics. Over the years, it has conducted dozens of excavations and clean-ups of ancient sites and tombs, achieving significant results such as the Bronze Age site of Shunshantun in Kangping, the Western Han nomadic tomb site of Xichagou in Xifeng, and the Liao Dynasty tomb cluster of Yemotai in Faku. Some discoveries have filled gaps in local history and had a major impact both domestically and internationally. In recent years, the museum’s professionals have published dozens of monographs and papers that have drawn attention in academic circles.

Further Reading:

· National Third-Class Museum of China