Alxa is located in the westernmost part of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and is an ancient and thick land. This place is not only picturesque and blessed with treasures, but also the birthplace of human civilization and an important passage on the grassland Silk Road. Grassland civilization and agricultural civilization, Eastern civilization and Western civilization collide and blend here, forming a unique regional culture.

In Alxa, both ancient rock paintings and the renowned Juyan Han bamboo slips are engraved with precious historical materials that cannot be reproduced.

Rock paintings, an ancient artistic symbol engraved on rocks, can be said to be the origin of human's earliest artistic forms. The primitive ancestors used flint as a pen to carve ancient lines on the cliffs of Alxa, leaving behind animals and plants, hunting scenes, mysterious totems, written symbols, etc., revealing the production, life, and religious beliefs of that time.

The Juyan Han bamboo slips are an important historical witness of the Great Wall frontier culture and are known as one of the four major discoveries in the Chinese literary world of the 20th century. The bamboo slips and documents of the border guards were rediscovered under the Juyan beacon tower, and the iron paintings and silver hooks recorded the garrison activities and rise and fall history of the Han Dynasty's borderlands.

Although rock paintings and Juyan Han bamboo slips are two civilization carriers separated by thousands of years, they both once resided in the land of Alxa. Rock paintings are the embryonic form of Chinese characters, while Chinese characters are the continuation of rock paintings. Together, they carry the profound meaning of grassland culture and depict the long history of humanity's transition from ignorance to civilization.

This exhibition selects 25 rock paintings, 6 stone statues, 27 rock rubbings, and 30 Han bamboo slips, and presents the unique aesthetic, artistic, and historical values of Alxa rock paintings and Juyan Han bamboo slips to the audience through four chapters: "Looking up and down, exploring the mountains and seas".

Exhibition site