Linyi’s Folk Museum Tells Stories of Wood Culture

Linyi Tianze Wood Culture Museum, located in Lanshan District of Linyi City, Shandong Province, China, is a folk museum that showcases nearly 600 specimens of wood from 46 countries and regions. The museum exudes the fragrance of world wood culture and has been carefully curated to provide visitors with a truly immersive experience.

In the museum, one can marvel at over a hundred species of ancient wood fossils dating back to billions of years ago with great scientific research value. The display includes the local fossils of ebony wood and silicified wood plus precious wood from other countries around the world, some weighing tens of tons and measuring twenty meters long.

In addition to wood specimen collection worldwide, the museum also displays over 230 ancient beds from different regions of China dating back to the Ming and Qing dynasties. The total collection is over 55,000 pieces (sets). These beds are from more than 20 provinces in China, and they are unique in terms of wood, carvings, porcelain inlays, and patterns, reflecting the richness of Chinese folk culture.

Jiang Kaifeng, the curator, stated that wood specimens are a crucial medium for preserving and promoting wood culture. Their significance lies not only on the age of the rarity of the wood or its structural form, but also on its archaeological value as “physical evidence” in tracing ancient human activities, climate and geological changes that occurred billions of years ago. 

Behind each cultural relic is a unique historical code telling the story of history, the rise and the fall of the human civilization, the origin and the development of a city. Through its unique means, Linyi’s Folk Museum preserves the cultural heritage of many cities around the world and serves as an important cultural emblem for itself, too.