Visitors are swarming to the newly completed museum where some 600 pieces of movable relics are on display from Yin Ruins, dubbed as the root of Chinese culture, in Anyang, a city in northern Henan Province.

Information from the Yin Ruins Museum said there were 5,000 visitors on the first day of opening and over 10,000 people had visited the museum since it was formally opened to the public on Sunday.

The museum, costing 28 million yuan (US$3.45 million), is one of the many projects designed by Anyang to enter its Yin Ruins into the world culture heritage of UNESCO.

The most precious item being exhibited at the museum this time is Simuwu Ding, a four-legged bronze cauldron, which was transported on Sept.19 from Beijing to Anyang for exhibition undera three-month lease from the China National Museum in Beijing.

Simuwu Ding, measuring 133 cm high and weighing 875 kg, is the world's biggest bronzeware item that have ever been excavated. Its appearance helps drive up ticket prices, from 30 yuan (about US$3.7) to 50 yuan (US$6.17), which has not held back visitors, according to one administrative worker with the museum.

The ruins of Yin (Yinxu) were discovered an 1899 in Anyang, capital of the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC-1100 BC). Yin was the ancient name for the Shang Dynasty.

Excavations at Yinxu ruins have revealed tombs, foundations of palaces and temples, bronzes, jade carvings, lacquer, white carvedceramics, and high-fired, green-glazed ware, and oracle bones. Oneof the major discoveries of Yinxu is the inscribed animal bones and tortoise shells, known as the oracle bones. The bones and shells, used for divination by Shang kings, carry the earliest known examples of Chinese characters.

Simuwu Ding was discovered in 1939 in the Yin Ruins. It had been kept by the China National Museum in Beijing until its recent journey back home.
 
(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2005)