Bronze Relics: China's largest bronze museum opens in Shanxi

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A new bronze ware museum recently opened in northern China's Shanxi Province. It's home to a large number of cultural relics, some of which have never been seen before. CGTN reporter Hu Chao takes a look.

A bronze plate 2,600 years old.

Shaped like a shallow basin, it has vivid sculptures of water animals, including turtles, frogs and fish.

And each of these animal sculptures are able to spin 360 degrees, looking like a small bronze aquarium.

It's one of more than 2,000 items now on display in the newly opened Shanxi Bronze Museum in the provincial capital of Taiyuan.

The museum covers a floor space of 11,000 square meters. Many relics here are under national protection.

PROFESSOR CHEN XIAOSAN COLLEGE OF HISTORY & CULTURE, SHANXI UNIVERSITY "The museum integrally shows the cultural features of every important stage of China's Bronze Age. The exhibited items here were from China's first dynasty of Xia to the Han Dynasty, stretching thousands of years. They also represent high techniques of bronze ware making."

Many of the exhibited items have just been unearthed in recent years.

Professor Chen says the stunning relics have also brought some new discoveries.

PROFESSOR CHEN XIAOSAN COLLEGE OF HISTORY & CULTURE, SHANXI UNIVERSITY "They have given us a lot of new information that hasn't been written in any documents. For example, we found some new kingdoms in the Western Zhou Dynasty, including the Peng Kingdom and Ba Kingdom, which we never knew of before."

HU CHAO TAIYUAN, SHANXI PROVINCE "Among all the bronze ware exhibited here, one third was recovered by local police. Some were even recovered from overseas, which involved a lot of effort by the police."

More than 700 items on display were turned over by local police.

They are among over 25,000 stolen relics that recovered by local police since last year amid a campaign against gang crimes.

Local officials say the authorities have cracked down upon 170 gang crimes on cultural relics in the last year.

They have arrested nearly 1,500 suspects. Hu Chao, CGTN, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province.