Counting the Palace Museum Artifacts Hidden in Luoyang Museum, Still Exquisite: Their Stories

Visiting a city's museum is like bridging the distance between you and that city.

The span of time doesn't really matter in a museum, from prehistoric upheavals to modern civilization—concentrated essence is clearly and orderly displayed.

Besides breaking the limits of time, sometimes even spatial boundaries are greatly relaxed. For example, with traveling exhibitions, you can see artifacts that don't originally belong to the local area.

Of course, such exhibitions are usually random and hard to come by. I think that's the greatest charm of museums—surprises everywhere.

While visiting the Luoyang Museum, I discovered some even more curious artifacts. Their original 'home' wasn't Luoyang, yet these artifacts were not borrowed either—isn't that interesting?

Next, let me talk about the Palace Artifacts Hall on the second floor of the Luoyang Museum.

The Palace Artifacts Hall is not a temporary exhibition but a permanent one. At the time, my thought was: Luoyang, after all, is a millennia-old ancient capital, with many dynasties establishing their capitals here. But even counting the latest founding year, it's been over a thousand years.

How could the 'palace artifacts' here all belong to Luoyang?

With this question, I entered the exhibition hall. Then I understood—these artifacts were once collections of the Palace Museum. Someone might ask: How can artifacts from the Palace Museum appear in Luoyang, thousands of miles away, and on such a large scale?

In the 1970s, news came that Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia would visit Luoyang. For various considerations at the time, and following higher-level instructions, it was decided that the Palace Museum would allocate a special batch of artifacts to Luoyang.

These artifacts were originally stored in the Great Buddha Hall of the Forbidden City. If you've watched Qing dynasty palace dramas, you may know that the Great Buddha Hall is the commonly used name for the rear hall of the Cining Palace. As the name suggests, the Great Buddha Hall was where the empress dowagers or imperial consorts of the Qing dynasty worshipped Buddha.

It inevitably contained fine goods tributed from all over the country to the royal family, undoubtedly precious.

And so, nearly 3,000 artifacts traveled from Beijing to Luoyang. What was transported wasn't poultry like chickens or ducks, but priceless antiques. This operation was truly rare.

However, many may not know that in the end, the Cambodian king never came, and these artifacts—after parting from Beijing—have been away for half a century.

The reasons are complicated. I won't go into detail about how these artifacts moved between the White Horse Temple and the Luoyang Museum.

Since there's no need to go to Beijing to admire these splendid treasures in Luoyang, it's still thrilling.

The most eye-catching piece in the entire exhibition hall is a wooden pagoda standing 6 meters tall.

This is a Qing dynasty golden nanmu pagoda, three stories high. Its proportions are harmonious, looking exceptionally pleasing. The pagoda body features openwork carving, with hundreds of small niches arranged neatly, each housing a small Buddha statue, appearing solemn and sacred.

It is often said that ancient craftsmanship was superb—from small details one can see the whole. This entire pagoda, weighing 4 tons, is purely constructed with mortise-and-tenon joints, not a single nail used. It's truly a masterpiece that makes you applaud.

Let's talk about golden nanmu wood. It's an extremely expensive wood, firm and giving off a strange fragrance that keeps insects away. In ancient times, golden nanmu was sought after by imperial families—from building palaces to making personal items, they preferred to use this kind of wood.

These two nine-story sandalwood pagodas are equally outstanding. Sandalwood has a serene and graceful beauty, and like nanmu, was deeply loved by royalty and high officials.

Of course, both are very rare and precious. Therefore, these three pagodas made of top-quality wood surviving to this day are indeed treasures.

Actually, visiting museums is full of joys. If conditions allow, I strongly suggest you set aside more time for appreciation.

Whether local or out-of-town museums, they are greatly beneficial for understanding local customs.

I am Ci Ye Wu Wei, a self-media enthusiast who loves traveling and life. Little hedgehog takes you to see the big world. Follow me, and you'll never worry about food and fun!