The Palace Museum, founded in 1925, is a national museum housed inside the Forbidden City, the imperial palace of the Ming (1368-1683) and Qing (1644-1911) Dynasties and a World Heritage site since 1987.

Located at the center of Beijing, the Palace Museum holds over 1,807,558 artifacts, including paintings, pottery, inscribed wares, bronze wares, and court documents. There are over a million rare and valuable works of art in the museum's collection. Here is a list of the top ten treasures to be found at the museum.

 Yaxu Rectangular Vessel (亞方尊)

 Where to be found: the Bronzeware Hall of Chengqian Palace 承乾宮青銅器館

The bronze Xu Rectangular Vessel is a wine container popular from the Shang Dynasty (1556 BC – 1046 BC) to the Warring States period (475 BC -221 BC). It is 38 centimeters wide, 45.5 centimeters tall with a caliber measuring 33.6 * 33.4 centimeters. The vessel weighs 21.4 kilograms and has four handles on each side in the form of an elephant's head. Between the two handles are decorations of other unknown animals. The body is covered with motifs of dragons and animal masks against a thunder pattern.