Zigong Salt History Museum (Chinese: 自贡市盐业历史博物馆) is a museum in the salt town of Zigong (自贡) in Sichuan Province in western China. It was built in 1736 as the Xiqing Guildhall in the first year of emperor Qianlong, funded by the Shaanxi salt tradesmen, and used a meeting place for salt merchants from Shaanxi province the main conduit for the Zigong salt. Another building nearby on the banks of the Fuxi (pronounced "fu'shee") River was the Guild Hall for the salt merchants of the Sichuan province. The guild hall took sixteen years to complete and cost a lot. It has a splendid exterior and exquisite internal structure and decoration, including many delicate stone and wooden carvings. It represents the highest level of architecture technologies of its age and is a symbol of wealth of salt merchants. The interior contains a large courtyard with a stone centerpiece of a dragon and phoenix. The guild hall once often hosted Sichuan opera for salt merchants as well as local elites in festivals.
Read more about Zigong Salt History Museum: Exterior
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“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?”
—Bible: New Testament Jesus, in Matthew, 5:13.
From the Sermon on the Mount.
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
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I am the Visiting Poet: a real unicorn,
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People want to push the buttons and see me glow.”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)