Ancient Tea & Horse Road Museum
Ming-dynasty chieftain's palace with rare frescoes blending Taoist, Buddhist and Naxi deities, now a tea-caravan history museum.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Ancient Tea & Horse Road Museum in Lijiang starts inside Dajue Palace, where murals painted during chieftain Mu Zeng's reign in the late 1500s mix Taoist immortals, Buddhas, Tibetan protector deities, and Naxi spirits on the same wall. It follows the Mu clan's rule over Lijiang for the Ming court, and the tea trade that funded them, mule caravans hauling bricks of tea north across the mountains since the Tang dynasty. Merchant houses like Yuchunhe and Renhechang ran those caravans while their wives kept households running back in Lijiang.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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