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 Forest
of Tablets is situated in the old location of Confucian temple
on San Xue Street, Xi'an City. It is the gathering place of tablet
stone relics of China and the protected unit of important relics
of the whole country.
The history of setting up the Forest of Tablets
can be traced up to the Five Dynasties of final Tang stage. It
was started from preserving the Tang Dynasty sculpture, "Stone
Platform of the Classic of Filial Piety" and "Kaicheng
Stone Sutra". During the fifth year of Emperor Zhe Zhong's
reign of the Sung Dynasty (1090), houses, galleries and pavillions
etc. were built in the place of today's Forest of Tablets to exhibit
and protect the tablet stones, thus starting the establishment
of Xi'an Forest of Tablets. Later on repairs on the Forest of
Tablets were continuously done. Due to the collection and supplementary
sculpture of large quantity of tablet stones, its scale was getting
bigger and bigger. Because tablet stones stood like forest, therefore
it began to  be called Forest of Tablets in the beginning of the
Qing Dynasty.
In the Forest of Tablets, more than 2300 tablets
from the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty have been kept and more
than 1000 pieces are displayed. At present, there are 7 show rooms,
6 galleries and one tablet pavilion. The tablet records have blended
politics, history, culture and calligraphy arts together in harmony,
rich in content and great in historic and art values.
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