Photo of memes produced by Gansu Provincial Museum. (Photo/Courtesy of Gansu Provincial Museum)
A series of memes of ancient relics produced by a museum in Northwest China's Gansu Province has been hailed by netizens, saying that they "make relics come alive."
The group of image macros includes wooden chess players of the Western Han Dynasty (206BC-AD25), wooden dancers from the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220) and a colored pottery man from the Tang Dynasty (618-907).
An employee of the Gansu Provincial Museum in Lanzhou told the Global Times on Tuesday that the museum decided to use wood, pottery and copper statues found along the Silk Road as characters of the image macros. "They are very interesting cultural relics and have distinct characteristics that can be used as creative materials," she said.
The memes' designers made the cultural relics move in the images to express certain emotions. For example, the colored pottery figurine waves one of his arms to cheer for users, where the line "please cheer up today" appears.
A face made of red pottery about 5,200 years ago is also turned into a laughing face.
The museum employee said that the image macros are available on China's instant messaging app WeChat.
Many Sina Weibo users consider the images adorable, with some saying they "make these relics come alive and popular."
The museum's deputy curator Ban Rui told the Lanzhou Morning News on Monday that the image macros used online not only bring the cultural relics closer to the public but also broaden the museum's influence.
An introduction on the website of the museum said the Gansu Provincial Museum has a rich collection of 355,364 cultural relics, fossils and specimens.
The nearly 600-year-old Palace Museum in Beijing is also trying to reform to attract more young visitors through creative products and special exhibitions such as lipsticks drawing on elements from its collections, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday.
