Pingliang Museum

The Pingliang Museum is housed inside the Longyin Temple Park and holds around 14,500 artefacts covering the region's history from the Stone Age to the modern period. The collection's strengths are in painted pottery and bronzeware, reflecting the long sequence of cultures that occupied the Jing River valley before and during the Zhou Dynasty.

The museum is better than its obscure location might suggest — the artefacts are well-displayed and the historical narrative is coherent. The bronzeware section includes pieces from the Zhou period that reflect Pingliang's importance as a frontier zone between the Central Plains and the pastoral cultures to the north and west. The park surrounding the museum is pleasant for walking and has a small lake. Admission to the museum is free.

things to do museum
A story
The museum's painted pottery collection includes pieces from the Majiayao culture (c. 3300–2000 BC) that were excavated from sites in the Jing River valley — some of the most sophisticated ceramic work produced anywhere in the world at that date. The swirling geometric patterns on these pots, fired in kilns without the wheel, represent an artistic tradition that flourished in the Chinese northwest for over a thousand years and then essentially vanished when the populations that created it dispersed or were absorbed.