Friends, have you noticed that museums have become increasingly popular "check-in spots" nowadays? According to the data previously released by the National Cutural Heritage Administration, the national museums will receive 304 million visitors in the summer of 2025, an increase of 7.96 million over the number of visitors received by the national museums in the summer of 2024 (296 million), a year-on-year increase of 2.6%, a record high. On social media platforms, it is common to see netizens sharing their experiences of visiting museums. Interestingly, some people wonder why it feels a bit cold to walk into a museum exhibition hall during the summer? Why do I feel like the lighting in the exhibition hall is dim? Regarding this, Ji Xiaofen, the director of the China Silk Museum, also gave her own answer in an interview with China News Service. Why is the exhibition hall so cool in summer? In summer, many people like to visit museums to see cultural relics and learn some knowledge. As soon as I entered the exhibition hall, I felt cool and comfortable. However, some people joked that the air conditioning in the hall was too cold, saying, 'It's freezing me into a mummy.'. Why is it so cool in the exhibition hall? Ji Xiaofen's answer is: to maintain a constant temperature and humidity state. Regardless of whether cultural relics are stored or exhibited, museums will strictly regulate temperature, humidity, and other factors to provide the best storage environment for cultural relics and achieve the goal of protecting them. So, on scorching summer days, when people walk into museum exhibition halls from outdoors, they naturally feel cool, even a little cold. Why is the lighting in the exhibition hall dim? After entering the exhibition hall and staying for a while, some people may notice that sometimes the light in the hall seems dim. Why is this? Ji Xiaofen introduced that those cultural relics, especially those that are over a thousand years old, are very precious. Over a long period of time, various complex environments may cause damage to them, making cultural relics themselves relatively fragile. For example, cultural relics buried underground may be eroded by groundwater. Taking some cultural relics preserved in the China Silk Museum as an example, silk is organic matter and has a certain life cycle in terms of time. ”She said. In addition, factors such as light, air temperature, and humidity can all have an impact on cultural relics. Especially light has a great influence on the color of silk. This principle can be proven through a simple experiment, such as taking two pieces of silk fabric with identical texture, color, size, etc., one piece can be polished for a long time, and the other piece can be stored in a cabinet. Over time, the colors of the two pieces of fabric will show color differences. She also noticed that many visitors had reported that the lighting in the museum was relatively dim, but this was actually to protect the exhibited cultural relics. Sometimes museums remind people not to use flash when taking photos, and there is also this reason. Why do cultural relics have different names? The appearance of cultural relics varies greatly, and their names also have their own characteristics: some are relatively short, while others are relatively long, even so long that they may not be remembered even after seeing them once. Why is that? Ji Xiaofen said that the main principles followed in naming cultural relics are scientific accuracy, conciseness, unique differences, and ease of memory. The naming format for most artifacts and cultural relics is to add characteristic modifiers of the era, as well as the material location and shape of the artifact, and some can be self named. For example, the "Southern Song Purple Brown Luo Yin Gold Painted Lace Single Clothes" in the collection of the China Silk Museum was unearthed from the tomb of Huang Sheng, a noblewoman of the Southern Song royal family. The name is a bit long, but the color, decorative features, and clothing types of the cultural relics are clear at a glance. (New Society)