Cultural tourism fever comes to Yinxu Museum: "Don't brag too much"

At six o'clock in the afternoon, around the bus stop at the entrance of the Yubei Cotton Textile Factory in Anyang City, there were some people waiting for the bus. The sun had just set, and when I looked west from here, the sunset reflected a large area of low-rise buildings to the west.

The bus didn't come for a long time. The Gaode map shows that the site is here, and more than 700 meters to the west from here is the new Yinxu Museum, which will officially open on February 26, 2024. People waiting here may not have had time to pay attention to an announcement made by Anyang Public Transport Group a few days ago: "Since March 14, the yarn factory bus station (two-way) has been moved west to about 220 meters, and the 'yarn factory' station has been renamed 'Yinxu Museum' station after the adjustment." ”

Just a few days before March 14th, the self-media blogger Bow Tearing Machine came to Anyang specifically for this newly opened museum, he took the No. 14 bus to get off at the "Yarn Factory" station, and the walk of more than 700 meters made him feel tired, so he complained: "From the train station to his most important attractions, there is no direct car." ”

The bronze hand-shaped ware in the new building of the Yinxu Museum. Photo by Southern Weekly reporter Wang Huazhen

The rapid change of bus stops is just one small aspect of the new museum's new look.

People from all walks of life across the country are rushing to Anyang, and cultural and museum enthusiasts, practitioners, and reporters all want to see the more than 4,000 Shang Dynasty cultural relics mentioned in the propaganda for the first time, of which more than 3,000 are on display for the first time. The museum and departments at all levels in Anyang City are "racing" with them, and they must discover those potential "slots" as soon as possible before the surging crowds arrive. In fact, before the arrival of the bow tearing machine, the Yinxu Museum was already coordinating with the Anyang Public Transport Group for the relocation of the bus station.

"We at Yinxu Museum are to be a model of open museums. Zhao Qingrong, deputy director of the Yinxu Museum, told Southern Weekend.

The bow tearer became the first audience to experience what an "open office" is. On March 7th, the bow tearing machine flew from Shenzhen to Anyang, and the next day, he was the first to enter the exhibition hall from 8:30 to 5:30 to close, two 27,000 mAh batteries were all used up, and more than 7,300 photos were taken. But the new museum brought him more regrets: "The transportation is inconvenient, the signs are not clear, the exhibition line is chaotic, the biggest problem is the backwardness of the display cabinets and lighting, such an important museum equipment and exhibition arrangement stay at the level of ten years ago, and the things that cannot be seen clearly in the past are still not clear today, and some are even not as good as the old museum." He wrote in a March 10 article.

For example, when it comes to the design of the exhibition, part of the exhibition with the same theme in the exhibition hall on the second floor is on one side and the other part is on the opposite side, so the audience can only walk in a zigzag shape if they look at it in order, "instead of letting you go in one direction all the way." This design is very time-consuming and interrupts the experience. Said the bow ripper.

The article quickly fermented in the cultural relics circle of Anyang. For the bow ripper, this article is the same as the articles he has written in the past to complain about other museums, and there is nothing special about it. He is a veteran of museums and museums, having walked through more than 500 museums and taken millions of photographs of the artifacts in them. After the article was issued, Chen Xingcan, director of the Yinxu Museum, forwarded the article that night, and the deputy mayor in charge of Anyang City held a meeting with the relevant leaders of the Cultural Relics Bureau overnight to study the next correction plan.

What is even more unexpected is that on March 11, the museum contacted the bow tearing machine and "immediately bought me a ticket and let me fly to Anyang again". Running to museums across the country, this is the first time he has had such an "experience". "It's very different, the average museum ignores you. He told Southern Weekly, "I rarely encounter a response from museums, and even if there is a response, their starting point is only to eliminate the impact, and most of them hope that I can delete the post." ”

But this time the situation is different. On March 12, Li Wenjing, director of the office of Yinxu Museum, received a bow tearing machine at Hongqiqu Airport in Anyang. As soon as they met, the bow ripper was a little embarrassed. "I didn't expect to get into such a big trouble!" he said.

"You must not say that, this is not a problem!" Li Wenjing said.

"Anyang Speed"

Huanhe River in the north of Anyang City made a big bend in the shape of "B", the ruins of Yinxu Palace District are located in the west of the word "B", looking at the east across the river, the new square of Yinxu Museum is like a copper tripod that has just been excavated from the loess. It's just that for this big ding, the speed of "digging" seems to be a little too fast.

The construction of the new building officially started in March 2021, and after the delay of the epidemic, the structural construction of the main project has been completed by May 2023. "This speed is considered the speed of Anyang, and it is very fast, and it usually takes five years for a museum to be built. The main reason is that the city asks for a bit more speed. Li Wenjing told Southern Weekend.

The original opening date of the museum was October 28, 2023, but the opening date was delayed by four months because the glass curtain wall and exterior wall were not fully in place at that time. On February 26, 2024, the museum will be opened without a trial run.

In March 2024, the multimedia exhibition hall of the new Yinxu Museum. Photo by Southern Weekly reporter Wang Huazhen

Even in March 2024, construction is still underway, and when you look north from the museum, you can still see construction workers laying the floor tiles outside the north gate. "With such a hasty opening, it is inevitable that there will be problems. In his article, Bow Ripper lists more than a dozen suggestions for improvement.

In addition to the rush of time, the staff of the Yinxu Museum also had to cope with a greater workload. Unlike other museums, it is open all year round, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., which is an hour longer than the average museum. Starting March 18, the museum will also be open for night tours, adding another three hours in the evening.

In the past few days of the opening of the museum, the number of visitors on weekdays is about 3,000 people, and when it comes to holidays, the number of people soars to 6,000 people, even if it is calculated according to an average of 3,000 people per day, the number of visitors in a year has exceeded 1 million, which is three or four times the number of people received by the old museum.

From the secretary of the municipal party committee to the deputy mayor in charge, and then to Li Xiaoyang, director of the Cultural Relics Bureau, they are all nervously staring at this new "Internet celebrity" in Anyang, and their reaction speed is also a kind of "Anyang speed". The daily reception volume of the museum, the sales situation in all aspects, and the problems reported by the audience should be directly reported to the city every day, such as the bus problem mentioned by the bow tearing machine, after the director reported to the deputy mayor in charge, the deputy mayor immediately began to coordinate the bus group.

On the large square in front of the museum, Southern Weekend reporters met Li Xiaoyang, director of the Anyang Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics. "Let's do our best," he said, "and the whole city is creating a good cultural and tourism environment, and doing our best to provide tourists with a good experience in terms of food, housing, transportation, travel, shopping and entertainment." ”

Anyang's approach is reminiscent of "Erbin" and "Zibo", which were popular all over the Internet some time ago. In December 2023, he went to the Anyang Museum, and after reading it, he also put forward some opinions, but he didn't expect that the other party's curator would immediately come to add him to WeChat and ask him for advice, "I feel that Anyang now wants to make efforts in cultural tourism."

After the bow tearer was invited back to the Yinxu Museum, Li Xiaoyang also met him, and Li Xiaoyang's evaluation of him was "quite professional, with in-depth research on bronzes from the Shang and Zhou dynasties". "It is a benefit for us that such a professional blogger gives us an opinion. There's no need to delete posts, and there's no need to be afraid. Li Xiaoyang said, "I sincerely hope that tourists who have visited or know the situation can give us advice." ”

Anyang has more cards in his hand than Harbin and Zibo. On one side are two national first-class museums that have been recognized - the Museum of Chinese Characters and the Anyang Museum, and on the other side are two new "Internet celebrities" - the new Yinxu Museum and the site of Cao Cao's Gaoling. Li Xiaoyang is noncommittal on this issue, "The practices of other cities, such as pet customers, provide tourists with all kinds of convenience, and there are things worth learning from, and we do the same." But at the same time, I also feel that we are not in pursuit of popularity, because Anyang has very good cultural resources, it can inherit culture, so that tourists in Anyang have a good experience of oracle bone inscriptions, Yinxu, Gaoling and other cultural heritage, which is our starting point and foothold. We don't go for a simple one-off tour, and that's not the temperament of our city. ”

While talking to a reporter from Southern Weekly, Li Xiaoyang saw a little boy climb a grassy slope on the edge of the square, a wedge-shaped grassy slope with a gentle ridge line, but very steep on both sides, three or four meters above the ground. Li Xiaoyang shouted: "What about the security guard!? What should I do if I fall down!" The staff hurriedly went to take the little boy away. Li Xiaoyang sometimes gets angry with the person on the other end of the phone, and when he hangs up the phone, he says with a wry smile: "Don't write about my anger in the manuscript." ”

How to reproduce "Che Gong Gong, Ma Xiao Xiao"

"We are working in a planned way in Xiaotun Beidi, Yinxu Key Conservation Area......" Walking into the largest exhibition hall on the first floor, the "Exploration of Shang Civilization" exhibition hall, Mr. Zheng Zhenxiang's manuscript of "1976 Xiaotun Tomb No. 5 Excavation Briefing" was solemnly placed in the glass display case.

On March 14, 2024, Zheng Zhenxiang, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a famous archaeologist, passed away in Beijing at the age of 95. From 1962 to 2002, Zheng Zhenxiang was engaged in archaeological excavation and research at the Yinxu site for a long time, and her most well-known archaeological achievement is the excavation of the Tomb of Nuhao, the only intact Shang Dynasty royal tomb in Yinxu.

The good woman owl was unearthed in 1976 in the tomb of the woman in Yinxu, Anyang, and appeared in the cultural program "National Treasure" in 2017. Visual China

The exhibition hall "Exploring Shang Civilization" tells the archaeological history of Yinxu for more than 100 years. Archaeology played a particularly important role in this dynasty, which was confirmed by archaeological excavations. In the exhibition hall, the audience can see the handwriting of many archaeologists, including Zheng Zhenxiang's manuscripts, which silently carry the sweat of archaeologists in Yinxu over the ages.

"We sent an invitation letter to Mr. Zheng Zhenxiang in 2023, hoping that she would come and see the museum when it opened, but at that time her health was not very good. Li Wenjing said regretfully.

For ordinary audiences, the most popular exhibition hall on the first floor is the Yinxu Chemakeng Exhibition Hall. The Cha Ma Keng Exhibition Hall is a huge space surrounded by a cloister for the audience to walk in, allowing the audience to observe the carriages of the Shang Dynasty from all angles.

"We wanted to show the whole carriage so that the audience could see the spectacular scene of 'chariots and horses' more than 3,000 years ago. Li Wenjing said. The carriage hall in the new museum displays a total of 23 carriages, as well as the martyrs and martyrs, all of which have been unearthed by archaeological excavations in different locations in Yinxu in recent years.

The new hall of Yinxu Museum and the exhibition hall of Yinxu Che Ma Keng. Photo by Southern Weekly reporter Wang Huazhen

The excavation of these carriage and horse pits, because they can not be preserved in situ, the archaeological team made a large wooden box, the large soil blocks buried in the carriage directly arbitraged, and then peeled off the original pit, just like the amber that seals the insects piece by piece, they are directly packed into boxes, transported to the appropriate location, and then the "insects" are slowly excavated from the amber.

When the design of the new museum began, an exhibition hall was reserved for the display of chariot and horse relics. It also took a lot of effort to transfer the large clods of earth wrapped around the carriages and horses into the exhibition hall. The largest square wooden box is wider than the door, and the boxes have to be divided before they can be transported into the museum and then reassembled. Li Cunxin, a retired veteran researcher from the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, spent months before the museum opened.

The audience walked around the carriage and horse pit with the visiting route, and could see Li Cunxin and his assistants busy. Since the opening of the museum, there are still some "insects" that have not been dug out of the "amber", and Li Cunxin has been cleaning up the carriage pit, "It will be implemented until July and August this year." Li Cunxin told Southern Weekend.

The audience was very close to the staff through the guardrail, and some of the audience members could communicate directly with them, "What are you spraying the clods of soil?" and "It's water." The staff replied. The bow tearing machine once complained that the lights in the exhibition hall were not bright enough, and the next day, the lights in the exhibition hall of the carriage pit were turned on.

For the museum, opening up such a small archaeological site and allowing archaeologists to directly face audiences from all over the world is a decision that needs to be repeatedly demonstrated. On the one hand, it is true that the volume of the clods is too large for other sites to accommodate, and on the other hand, there is also a certain "openness" in it.

3,000 years ago "Imperial Garden"

These ancient events more than 3,000 years ago have a threshold of understanding for any non-professional audience, and the docents in the museum have naturally become "sought-after goods". Xu Hejian, deputy director of the Yinxu Museum, observed that early every morning, the first batch of visitors to enter the museum had already booked out the 36 paid docents in the museum.

70 volunteer docents came to reinforce them. Ma Xuemei, a citizen of Anyang, is one of them, and when she met a reporter from Southern Weekend, she still had a thick stack of explanatory words to memorize in her hand. Unlike many museums, in the Yinxu Museum, you will often see these volunteer docents actively communicating with the audience and asking each other what they need to explain. "I will also take the initiative to go up and explain to others. Ma Xuemei said.

Yin people are still white. As soon as you enter the museum, the white granite decoration symbolizes this tradition of the Yin people. Looking up, there is a phoenix flying on the high ceiling, and the image is taken from a jade phoenix unearthed from the tomb of the woman.

She was one of the spouses of the Shang king Wuding, who led the army to fight and is considered to be the earliest known female general. Simu Wu Dafangding, who once shocked China and foreign countries, was the funeral object of Wu Ding's other spouse and concubine. Like the woman, the woman also has her own generous ding. Walking into the "Great Shang Civilization" exhibition hall on the second floor, two Simu Xin Dafang Ding were displayed in front of the audience.

On the second floor of the new Yinxu Museum, Simu Xin Dafangding. The replica next to it is available for viewers to touch. Photo by Southern Weekly reporter Wang Huazhen

Simu Xin is a good woman, these two Fang Ding are true and one fake, really covered in patina, unearthed in the tomb of the woman, the replica is golden, it is a one-to-one copper tripod cast by archaeologists in later generations according to the copper-lead ratio of the Shang Dynasty. "A lot of spectators touched the replica with their hands. We encourage everyone to touch it so that they can experience what it was like when the bronze was first cast. Xu Hejian told Southern Weekly.

There is no shortage of "heavy weapons" like Simu Xin Dafangding in the exhibition hall of "Great Shang Civilization". But for the bow ripper, "the purpose of the existence of archaeological museums and site museums is not to show you how beautiful the cultural relics are." This view coincides with Yue Zhanwei, the executive director of the Yinxu Museum.

"We're an archaeological museum, a site museum, so we're not trying to use all the best. All aspects must be present, especially the combination of utensils is very important. Yue Zhanwei said.

As the curator of the exhibition hall "The Great Shang Civilization", Yue Zhanwei focuses not on individual objects, but on the combination of bronzes to allow the audience to perceive the different classes of the Shang Dynasty. From commoners, to low-class nobles, high-ranking nobles, and then to the royal family, different tombs have typical cases in Yinxu. One of the cores of the funeral ritual system at each level is the combination of bronze objects.

There are also two imaginary reconstructions hanging on the walls of the exhibition hall. One is an imaginary restoration of the Zongmiao area of the Yinxu Palace, and the other is a restoration of the settlement area of a nobleman in Yinxu, imagining the typical living environment of the Shang royal family and the nobles of the Shang Dynasty. Although these reconstructions are not as eye-catching as the beautifully shaped bronzes, they represent the latest advances in the archaeology of Yin Ruins.

In the imaginary restoration map of the Zongmiao area of the Yinxu Palace, a large area of water appears in the western part of the palace area, much like the imperial garden in the palace in later generations.

Yue Hongbin and Yue Zhanwei, researchers at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, have been doing archaeological excavations in this area in recent years, and this "pond garden" is a new result of archaeological excavations in Yinxu in recent years. The pond area is nearly 50,000 square meters, and the water depth was often maintained at more than 7 meters in the late Shang period. When the merchants were building the palace, they needed to take a large amount of soil and ram it into a high platform of the palace, and the "pond garden" was probably a deep pit left by the soil, which was built into a garden surrounded by water.

The palace of the Shang royal family is in the form of a courtyard house, and the drainage system in the palace is connected with this pond garden, and the pond garden is connected with the Huanhe River around the city, so that the drainage problem of the palace area is perfectly solved.

Archaeologists also found two small islands in the water, one North Island and one South Island, the North Island is the highest place in the palace area, higher than the palace altitude. "We suspect that there may be something more important on the North Island, because a very high-grade dragon stone chime was unearthed here many years ago. The stone chime itself is a high-level tomb that can only be produced. Yue Zhanwei told a reporter from Southern Weekend.

In the new building of the Yinxu Museum, the imaginary restoration of the Zongmiao area of the Yinxu Palace presents the "Imperial Garden" (i.e., "Pond Garden") 3,000 years ago. Photo by Southern Weekly reporter Wang Huazhen

Archaeologists found that not only the Shang family gathered around the palace area, but also other aristocratic families also had similar living patterns, forming a "clan town".

The restoration map of the settlement area of a nobleman in Yinxu is based on the Yi people in the north of Liujiazhuang, plus the characteristics of other ethnic towns. Compared with the palace area of the Shang king, the scale of these clans will be smaller, and the courtyard buildings will be smaller, but they also have their own ponds, burial areas, ash pit areas, and wells, just like a small self-sufficient "palace area". There are hundreds of such clans in Yinxu, and they are arranged in this large city without walls, surrounding the palace area of the Shang king like a moon of stars.

"Reading a Prince's Diary of the Shang Dynasty"

Many visitors spend the whole day in the museum. The restaurant on the first floor is open to the public, and the "Oracle Bone Noodles" developed by the restaurant itself sometimes have to wait for an hour. The Bow Ripper had proposed a multi-day ticket, which the museum is currently working on.

The "Oracle Bone Noodles" in the restaurant of the new Yinxu Museum. Photo by Southern Weekly reporter Wang Huazhen

If you visit the first and second floors and the museum is not closed, you might as well go to the third floor to see more in-depth content. The style of the oracle exhibition hall on the third floor has changed, and the audience comes up from the second floor, which is extremely dense in information, and suddenly bumps into the elegant and quiet oracle exhibition board, and the fatigue seems to have been reduced a lot.

The exhibition hall has undergone a major adjustment. In May 2023, curator Yu Jackie Chan's team's original exhibition plan was an idea that everyone could imagine—how oracle bones were discovered, the history of oracle bone collection, the history of decipherment, and how to use oracle bones for divination...... But after working for more than a month, they found that if they set up the exhibition in this way, they would "collide face" with the Chinese Character Museum in Anyang.

On the one hand, the time is urgent, and on the other hand, there is the anxiety of showing innovation, Yu Jackie Chan decided to temporarily change his style of play.

The composition of the curatorial team is "experts with newcomers". Curator Yu Jackie Chan is already in the field of archaeology, having previously worked at the National Museum of China, where he curated many exhibitions of Shang and Zhou bronzes during his 15 years at the National Museum. Wang Xinbian, an assistant librarian in the team, is a newcomer to the museum in 2020, majoring in archaeology as an undergraduate and majoring in cultural relics and museums as a graduate student, but he told Southern Weekend that he really followed Jackie Chan into the actual operation of museum curation, so that he understood what it means to be "shallow on paper".

The focus of the curatorial team this time is nearly 700 carved oracle bones that have never been publicly displayed. In the history of the discovery of oracle bones, there are three concentrated unearthing of carved oracle bones, known as the three major discoveries of the Yinxu oracle bones, this batch of oracle bones is one of them, excavated by the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in the east of Yinxu Garden. At that time, in October 1991, 1,583 pieces of tortoise shells and animal bones were unearthed, of which 689 oracle bones were engraved with more than 2,250 divination records of the Shang King Wuding period. More than thirty years have passed, and the stories in these ancient texts are still waiting for their tellers.

The entire curatorial team quickly entered a state of continuous work, with almost no weekends and no rest days, and assistant librarian Wang Xin remembers that he was sorting out materials every day, often leaving work until more than 10 o'clock in the evening.

Through the oracle bones that travel through three thousand years, a Shang Dynasty prince named "Zi" was sketched out by the curatorial team. Yu Chenglong wants to create the image of "Zi" in the exhibition, and he wants to take the audience to "read a prince diary of the Shang Dynasty".

The oracle bone exhibition hall on the third floor of the new Yinxu Museum. In order to avoid the monotony of the exhibits, the curators arranged the oracles in a wavy shape. Photo by Southern Weekly reporter Wang Huazhen

"Zi" is the soothsayer who used the oracle bones in the east of Huayuanzhuang, the child of Wu Ding and Nuhao, and a figure in the late Shang Dynasty that Yu Chenglong began to study since his doctoral stage.

From the oracle bone inscriptions, it can be seen that Zi's life is full of all kinds of divination: sacrifices, military affairs, field hunting, gonna, feasts, weather, and even if he is sick, he has to divinate whether to go to school - Yu Chenglong called this divination a "leave note" 3,000 years ago. "What I show is not oracle bones, but oracle bones to show a Shang Dynasty prince, I am a figure exhibition rather than an artifact exhibition, and I see people through things. Yu Chenglong told a reporter from Southern Weekend.

The exhibition he finally presented to the audience was called "Who is the Son - Special Exhibition of Oracle Bones in the East of Yinxu Garden". The main color of the exhibition hall has been carefully considered. The background color of the display panel is a gray-blue with a fog, which is used in Jackie Chan's words as a kind of "oriental white", when the sky is just bright, there is a little blue, and there is also a little white, creating a quiet, slightly sentimental atmosphere, "because this is a prince who died young".

The process of sorting out the materials of the "sub" is also an opportunity for the young assistant librarians to re-learn. "From an oracle 'little white', to a basic entry. Wang Xin said that this exhibition strategy has brought him into contact with the cutting-edge issues of Oracle research. More importantly, he has a more intuitive understanding of "curation" itself.

Not all opinions will be absorbed

Bow Ripper was invited to revisit the museum, where he spent three days, photographing the artifacts from cover to cover.

Originally, when he received the invitation to go to Yinxu again, he felt that it was nothing more than to let him come out for a trip, "public relations, and in the end, everyone tacitly agreed". But in the past few days of contact with the museum, he found that things were different from what he thought. "It's visible to the naked eye that the issues I'm asking are changing. Every day you can find your opinion in helping this museum get better and better. "Except for the ones that won't be changed for a while, like the lightbox, that change is happening at an hourly rate." ”

"It's okay to have a positive story, but don't brag too much. The establishment of this museum is definitely positive, but you can't talk too much, otherwise it won't end up in the end. Yu Chenglong told a reporter from Southern Weekend.

"In the past, when there was no museum fever, the service awareness of the museum was relatively weak, and the communication ability in the face of tourists was also weak. If we still follow the previous model of public institutions, if we like to watch but not watch, and leave without watching, it will not be able to meet the requirements of the public for the development of museums. Li Xiaoyang said, "Whether it is a sharp or moderate opinion, we are happy when we hear it, and we will rectify it as soon as possible." We don't delete posts, and we don't use other methods to undo the impact. ”

The staff of all departments in the museum take turns to be on duty at the front desk every day to have direct contact with the audience. The museum implements the "first question responsibility system", and after the audience encounters a problem, the first staff member to be found will be responsible for the problem to the end.

The Southern Weekend reporter also made a suggestion to the museum as a viewer: most of the exhibition signs do not have English translations, which is an obvious shortcoming for a cultural heritage with global influence.

Not all opinions will be absorbed. For example, in response to the problem that the light of the bow tearing machine is too dim, the museum believes that some places can indeed be brightened, while some places need to be re-demonstrated by the expert team.

Like many audiences, the bow ripper has complained that the 80 yuan ticket price of the new museum is too expensive, but behind the ticket price is a heavy debt.

The old hall of the Yinxu Museum is a sunken museum on the edge of the Huan River. In 2005, when Yinxu was declared a world cultural heritage, many viewers reported that there was nothing to see when they arrived in Yinxu. At that time, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Anyang Municipal Government jointly built the old museum in the Yinxu site, and the cultural relics displayed in the old museum are the fine cultural relics excavated by the Anyang workstation of the Institute of Archaeology since 1950, and there are thousands of pieces.

Entrance to the Yinxu Museum (Old Hall) in 2018. Visual China

This model is known as "central and local co-construction", and now the new museum adopts this model, which is also jointly built by the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Anyang Municipal Government, and Chen Xingcan, the director of the Institute of Archaeology, is also the director. However, the economic situation in Anyang is difficult to bear the construction funds of the new museum, "Our museum has taken a special debt, and we have to repay the debt." Li Wenjing said that the special debt was borne by Anyang Cultural Tourism Group.

This also leads to the relationship between the Yinxu Museum and the Yinxu Scenic Area is quite complicated, the scenic spot to operate, to charge, but the specific management by the museum is responsible for the internal responsibility, because the museum belongs to the public institution, can not open an account to charge. The scenic spot belongs to Anyang Cultural Tourism Group.

If we list the "institutions" in the Yinxu site, we can see that their relationship is more complicated: the Anyang Workstation of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is responsible for the excavation within the protection of Yinxu; the Anyang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology is responsible for the excavation outside the protection of Yinxu; the Anyang Cultural Tourism Group operates the entire Yinxu Scenic Area; the Yinxu Museum is a subordinate unit of the Anyang Cultural Relics Bureau, and it is the Anyang Cultural Tourism Group that operates it; the Yinxu Management Committee coordinates the monitoring, security, and security between the Yinxu Scenic Area and the Yinxu Protection Area. The cultural and creative products in the Yinxu Museum are operated by the Tri-Stack Company under the Anyang Cultural Relics Bureau......

In March 2024, the exterior of the new Yinxu Museum. Photo by Southern Weekly reporter Wang Huazhen

A person close to the museum told Southern Weekend: "There are too many institutions in Yinxu now, and there are still some problems with the mechanism, and many units have overlapping work authority, so sometimes it is difficult to find several units, which is more troublesome." Therefore, can we refer to the model of Dunhuang Academy and Yungang Academy to set up a high-standard institution to coordinate management. ”

"Having said that, everyone worked hard, but the results were not satisfactory, and this situation itself is worth reflecting on what went wrong. Said the bow ripper.

Southern Weekly reporter Wang Huazhen

Editor-in-charge: Liu Youxiang