Luoyang: a city museum lovers must visit

Without the addition of more cultural relics on display and without making any changes to their exhibition halls, the museums of Luoyang city in central China’s Henan province were able to attract a whopping 500,000 tourists in all during one seven-day stretch. What was their secret?

A visitor views pottery ware exhibits at the Erlitou Relic Museum in Luoyang, central China's Henan Province, Oct. 19, 2019. (Xinhua/Li An)

From Oct. 1 to 7 this year, the Luoyang Museum based in Luoyang selected 88 pieces and sets of artifacts to display the city’s historical past and present, guiding visitors into a world of cultural relics and artworks through the use of other complementary artistic elements, such as music, dance, architecture and fashion, according to Huang Chao, director of the museum’s exhibition department.

The Luoyang Museum of Folk Customs selected 29 pieces of cultural relics out of its total collection of more than 70,000, exhibiting artifacts such as ancient inscribed boards and contract documents. It also displayed pictures and characters depicting the favorable familial culture of proletarian revolutionists and outstanding Party members.

During the seven-day National Day holiday, museums in Luoyang rolled out more than 40 themed exhibition activities for young people and teenagers, actively exploring ways to expose these visitors to a variety of in-depth information while offering them a chance for some recreation.

The Erlitou Relic Museum, which exhibits the history of ancient China’s first recorded dynasty, the Xia dynasty (2070 – 1600 BCE), provided an immersive experience for visitors to appreciate the palaces, rituals, government-run workshops, and sacrificial ceremonies of ancient times through the use of advanced technologies such as digital technologies and projection technologies.

Inside Luoyang Museum, a digital exhibition venue displays the Heluo culture, one of the most advanced cultures of ancient China, where visitors could not only explore the exhibits, but also take advantage of an interactive experience to learn more about the ancient culture.

An official with the cultural relics bureau of Luoyang said that museums in the city will altogether host more than 30 high-quality exhibitions each year during weekends and holidays. Statistics indicate that Luoyang has 102 museums all told, 12 of which have been categorized as national third-level museums and above.