Kaifeng Musuem

Kaifeng Musuem

Situated on the bank of Baogong Lake in the western part of Kaifeng city, Kaifeng Museum was first built in March, 1962 and then rebuilt in 1986. It covers an area of 16,000 square meters, while the main building covers over 5,000 square meters and includes 13 exhibition halls. There are as many as 50,000 pieces of ancient relics, paintings and crafts as well as another 50,000 different precious books in this museum.        

As long as people come into the main building on the first floor, they can easily observe a big piece of wood carving, which is actually one part of the famous painting --Qingming Riverside View , which vividly described the prosperity of Kaifeng city one thousand years ago when it served as the capital of China. The displays on the first floor are mainly about the history of Kaifeng city from the beginning of 20th century until 1950s. People can learn a lot about the famous people who have contributed a great deal in the past revolution from various precious pictures.

On the second floor are mainly displayed the materials about the history of Northern Song Dynasty, which existed from 960 to 1127 AD, during which Kaifeng served as the capital of China and had a population as large as 1.5 million. There are diverse displays here about the culture, science, economy, technology and so on of the Northern Song Dynasty.

While one of the most interesting and important part in the museum is the group of exhibitions about the Kaifeng Jewish Culture. There are three stone tablets here , which are original and from which we can learn so much about the customs , history and various other information about the Kaifeng Jewish community.