Qingzhou Museum

Qingzhou Museum
青州博物馆

Address: 1 West Fangongting Road, Qingzhou, Shandong Province
Hours: 9:00 - 16:30 (October to next April, last ticket: 16:00)
9:00 - 17:00 (May to September, last ticket: 16:30)
General admission: Free (passport required for entry, a max of 3000 admitted daily)

Receiving about 300,000 visitors each year the Qingzhou Museum is China's only county-housed top-level museum.

One of its most valuable collections is an exam paper belonging to Zhao Bingzhong, who in 1598 won the title of zhuangyuan during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), an honor given to the scholar who achieved the highest score at the highest level of the Chinese imperial examinations. It is the only original exam paper of a zhuangyuan preserved on the Chinese mainland. Zhao offered his suggestions to the emperor on how to improve the country’s statecraft.

The museum houses about 4,000 items from the Xiangshan tomb dated to the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), of which about 2,000 are on display in the museum's permanent exhibition "Unearthed Items from the Subordinate Pits of the Xiangshan Tomb of the Han Dynasty". The tomb was discovered by accident during a construction project in 2006.

Another permanent exhibition focuses on the hoarded Buddhist sculptures discovered at the site of the local Longxing Temple built around the fifth century and demolished some 800 years later. Some 400 Buddhist statues, lying in a neat order, were unearthed from a pit 8.7 meters long and 6.8 meters wide. Once excavated, the richness of the Qingzhou hoard of Buddhist statues shocked the country. The discovery was ranked among the top 10 archaeological findings of 1996.

The Buddhist statues span nearly five centuries with the earliest dated to AD 529. Many sculptures feature a high halo carved in relief with intricate patterns in the distinctive "Qingzhou style".