Mayi Museum

Mayi Museum

The Mayi Museum is a national third-grade comprehensive local museum located on the west side of Chongfu Square in Shuocheng District, Shuozhou City. The Mayi Museum displays a total of 745 precious cultural relics ranging from the Cretaceous period of ancient times to the 1940s, including 20 national first-grade relics and 189 second and third-grade national relics.

The museum adopts a fully wooden antique-style structure in the architectural style of the Liao and Jin dynasties. Its majestic and rustic form, along with the Grand Theater of Chongfu Square and the Temple of Duke Yuchi of the State of E, forms the three major ancient architectural complexes in Shuocheng District.

The museum’s treasure—the finial of the Northern Wei Dynasty’s Cao Tiandu Thousand-Buddha Stone Pagoda—is housed in the Sculpture Hall of the museum, while the main body of the pagoda is currently preserved at the National Museum of History in Taipei. Originally, the stone pagoda was composed of a base, body, and finial, standing about 3 meters tall in total, with the body alone being 2.5 meters high and consisting of nine tiers. The body features over 1,400 carved Buddha statues in relief. Notably, the standing bodhisattva statue is 1.81 meters tall, nearly life-sized. Sadly, the pagoda was looted after the Japanese occupation of Shuozhou County in 1937. Today, although the finial is severely eroded, its exquisitely fine carvings remain vividly lifelike.

The Mayi Museum is divided into seven major exhibition halls: the Preface Hall, the Sculpture Hall, the Calligraphy and Painting Hall, the Ceramics Hall, the Bronze Hall, the Stone Carving Hall, and the Miscellaneous Hall.

The Calligraphy and Painting Hall is the museum’s third exhibition hall, featuring calligraphy works by four top imperial examination scholars of the Qing Dynasty: Lu Runxiang, Wang Renkan, Cao Hongxun, and Huang Siyong. Among them, Lu Runxiang’s work is a pair of ink-on-paper running script couplets in seven-character lines. The brushwork is square and clean, with an essence reminiscent of Ouyang Xun’s style. The most astonishing piece is Cao Hongxun’s twelve-panel screen, written on golden-yellow silk with multicolored brocade borders. It is meticulously mounted, with round, graceful, and dignified regular script strokes, making it a masterpiece of regular script calligraphy. Complementing the four scholars’ works are calligraphy and paintings by several top-ranking imperial examination candidates from the Qing Dynasty.

In the fourth hall, the Ceramics Hall, there is a Fa-hua porcelain sculpture fired during the Ming Dynasty at the Ding Kiln. It is a flat-bottomed white-glazed printed plate with a shallow, slightly curved belly. The body is fine and sturdy, with a peony floral pattern printed at the center that is dazzlingly beautiful. This piece is a national first-grade relic.

The fifth hall is the Bronze Hall, which houses a replica of a painted bronze wild goose and fish lamp from the Western Han Dynasty (the original is in the Palace Museum). The painted bronze wild goose and fish lamp stands 53 centimeters tall and was unearthed in 1985 in Zhaoshiba Village, Shuoxian. The bronze lamp is covered with black, white, red, and green colored patterns. Its lamp tray and shade can rotate and open or close to block wind and adjust the light intensity and direction. Additionally, the fish body, goose neck, and goose body are hollow and interconnected, allowing smoke to be drawn into the goose’s belly where it dissolves in water, thus purifying the air. Each part can also be disassembled for easy cleaning.

The sixth hall, the Stone Carving Hall, contains two over one-meter-tall sutra pillars that document the development of Esoteric Buddhism in the Shuozhou area during the Liao Dynasty. There is also a Liao Dynasty Qian Tong 7th Year (1107 AD) stele from Hangfang Garden, measuring 180 cm in height, 93 cm in width, and 18 cm in thickness. This stele details the grandeur of the residence of Marshal Wu Xiang of the Liao Dynasty before it was converted into Qiling Temple. The stele text is written in running regular script, with bold yet graceful brushwork and deep artistic charm, comprising approximately 1,100 characters. This stele was originally erected in Qiling Temple southeast of Xiyin Village in Shuocheng District and was moved in the third year of the Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty to serve as the stone lintel of Shuozhou’s North Gate. In the summer of 1972, the stone lintel of the North Gate fell and broke into two pieces, after which it was transported back to Chongfu Temple.

The final hall, the Miscellaneous Hall, displays a large bamboo-jointed iron cannon excavated in the 1980s at the foot of the Ming Dynasty’s Great Wall. The cannon has a larger bore than base diameter, and below the rim is cast the inscription “Auspicious Day of the 22nd Year of the Wanli Era.” On one side of the cannon body is cast the inscription “Shenchibu Middle Route, Shenchi Fort.” The hall also exhibits a large iron sword over two meters tall, with both blade and handle made of iron. Research suggests it was used for martial arts practice and military examinations during the Ming Dynasty. Folklore also claims it was used by Yu Chengong (Yuchi Gong) in his youth for martial training.

Honors and Awards

After expert review and verification organized by the National Museum Evaluation Committee, the National Cultural Heritage Administration designated the Mayi Museum as a national third-grade museum.

The Mayi Museum has also been named a Provincial Patriotic Education Base by the Provincial Party Committee Propaganda Department.

Visiting Information

Opening Hours: Summer — 8:00 AM – 12:00 PM, 2:30 PM – 6:00 PM; Winter — 8:00 AM – 12:00 PM, 2:00 PM – 5:30 PM

Further Reading:

· China’s National Third-Grade Museums