Dongba Museum
Dongba Museum, also called Dongba Culture Museum, is a museum which was designed to display the splendid Dongba culture of the Naxi (Nakhi) people. The museum now houses more than 12,000 cultural relics, including 43 national first-class cultural relics and more than 2,500 Dongba cultural relics. It is the museum with the largest collection of Dongba cultural relics in the world.
The Dongba culture, mainly referring to the language and scriptures, is a special culture term because the people of Naxi are less modernized and the people ever developed a writing system, a music style, and a religion different than the majority of Chinese. In 2003, the Dongba classical literature was accepted as a written world heritage by UNESCO, which is by now the only living hieroglyph in the world and is regarded as a precious cultural relic of mankind.
Dongba Museum was built at the Black Dragon Pool of Lijiang in 1984 for better protection, research and development of the Dongba Culture. It is built logically according to the site topography and landforms, forming the traditional Naxi architectural complex, with the Xiangshan Mountain as the natural background. Dongba Museum is a great place to admire the famous hieroglyphs and other ritual articles of Naxi. Visitors will have an opportunity to explore the rich Naxi minority culture, learn more about the ancient but still extinct Naxi culture, writing system and belief system that is called Dongba from the old teachers or the other people there. Dongba Culture Museum is really worth to be listed in your Lijiang tour schedule if you are interested in the Dongba culture, such as Dongba characters and Dongba religion.
Dongba Museum Facts
Chinese Name: 东巴博物馆
Location: The junction of Yanyuan County in Sichuan and Ninglang County in Yunnan, China. 云南省丽江市古城区教育路黑龙潭公园北门
Opening Hours: 09:00-17:00.
The museum is closed on the first and third Monday every month.
Entry Ticket price: Free of charge for those tourists who already buy entry ticket for the Lijiang Ancient Town.
Time needed for visiting the Dongba Museum: 1-2 hours.
What will you see here in Dongba Museum?
Covering an area of 30 acres, the Dongba Museum has more than 10,000 precious cultural relics, including unearthed cultural relics, paintings and calligraphy of past dynasties, revolutionary cultural relics, Dongba scriptures, religious articles, and 52 of which are national-level cultural relics. There are several exhibition halls such as Cultural Museum, Rare Goods Museum and Dongba Culture & Ethnic Customs photography Hall.
The museum mainly has four exhibition halls. The first exhibition hall mainly displays the origin of Naxi people, including unearthed cultural relics, three parallel rivers and ancient tea-horse road and Lijiang ethnic costumes. The second exhibition hall mainly displays Dongba religion-related ritual instruments, Dongba sacred villages, Dongba divination methods, and the display of traditional Naxi wooden corrugated houses. The third exhibition hall mainly displays Dongba hieroglyphs, the process of Dongba papermaking, the collection and distribution of Dongba holy books around the world, and the content and form of the Naxi Dongba worship style. The fourth exhibition hall previously exhibited the Dongba religious tools and art. Now, it exhibits the traditional festival clothing.
How to get to the Dongba Museum?
1. When you are in the Lijiang ancient town, you can reach the main entrance of the Black Dragon Pool Park firstly, and then walk to the back entrance of Black Dragon Pool Park. You will see the Lijiang Dongba Museum.
2. When you are not in the Lijiang Ancient Town, you can take public bus No. 20 and get off at Xiangshan lukou Station(象山路口站), and walk for 300 meters to reach the Dongba Museum.
