Stele Forest

The Stele Forest (Beilin Museum) in Xi’an, Shaanxi is a museum and repository famous for its large collection of inscribed stone steles and tablets. The collection preserves inscriptions, calligraphy, and historical texts from across Chinese history and is a key centre for the study of epigraphy and calligraphy.

Displays include an outdoor area where many large steles stand like a ‘forest’ and indoor galleries that organise steles by period and script style, with examples from Northern dynasties through the Tang, Song and later periods. The museum holds several thousand pieces and is particularly important for students of Chinese writing and textual transmission.

The core collection grew from imperial and academy holdings that were gathered and preserved in Xi’an, and the site has been a museum destination for visitors interested in Chinese history and calligraphy for many decades. The museum sits within the old city area of Xi’an and is accessible from the historic centre.

• Scale of the collection: The collection comprises several thousand steles and stone inscriptions spanning multiple dynasties, making it one of the largest such collections in China.
• Calligraphy importance: Many of the steles display celebrated works of Chinese calligraphy and have been used for rubbings that preserved texts and scripts for scholars and collectors.

What to See #

• Main courtyard: A central open courtyard where many of the larger imperial steles are displayed, forming the museum's most recognisable outdoor 'forest' of stone tablets.
• Calligraphy galleries: Indoor galleries dedicated to calligraphy and inscriptions, containing thousands of steles and rubbings that illustrate the development of Chinese script from Han through Qing dynasties.