The Stele Forest (Xi'an Beilin Museum) is a museum for steles and stone sculptures which is located in Xi'an, China. Founded in 1944, it was the principal museum for Shaanxi province on the site of what was formerly an 11th-century Confucius Temple.   It is a treasure house of the most famous and the earliest calligraphy in China. It was first constructed in 1087 to preserve Kaiyuan Stone Scriptures of the Tang Dynasty. And in order to preserve these works well and pass them down to later generations, the rulers ordered them to be carved on these stones. Through the extensive collection work in all the dynasties from the Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing, the scale of the stele collection gradually expanded, so in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) it got the name of Bei Lin (Stele Forest). All together, there are 3,000 steles in the museum, which is divided into seven exhibitions halls, which mainly display works of calligraphy, painting and historical record.   Stone Classics of Kaicheng is the most completely conserved stone-carved book. All the 650,252 characters were carved on 114 big stones. These classics were the must read for Chinese intellectuals.   The Shitai Xiaojing Steles is the biggest steles in the museum with 6 m height. This stele was inscribed with “Classics on Filial Piety”, which is a Confucius's thought focusing on the filial piety, by Xuanzong Li Longji in Tang Dynasty