One of the best museums in northwest China, with an exceptional Silk Road collection. The star exhibit is the Flying Horse of Gansu (also called the Galloping Horse Treading on a Swallow), a small Han Dynasty bronze horse in mid-gallop with one hoof resting on a flying swallow — an object of extraordinary elegance and confidence. The Neolithic painted pottery from Dadiwan and the Han Dynasty wooden documents are also well worth your time. Xijin Dong Lu, near the Friendship Hotel. Open Tuesday–Sunday.
Gansu Provincial Museum
A story
The Flying Horse of Gansu — a bronze horse caught in mid-gallop with one hoof balanced impossibly on a flying swallow — was excavated in 1969 from the tomb of a Han Dynasty general. It had been buried for nearly two thousand years. When it was first exhibited internationally in the 1970s, it became an iconic image of ancient China. The original is small enough to hold in two hands, which makes its ambition — and the skill of the craftsman who made it — all the more extraordinary.