At the northern edge of Black Dragon Pool Park, the Lijiang Municipal Museum climbs the western slopes of Elephant Mountain. Established in July 1984 as Yunnan's first county-level museum, the institution originally operated inside the historic Wufeng Tower. Today, the 7,000-square-meter complex sits where the cool waters of Jade Spring flow, its design mirroring the architectural evolution of the Naxi people.

Visitors walk a chronological path through human history. The journey begins with the cold, rough stone of ancient cave dwellings and nest dwellings. It transitions through semi-cave shelters, tents, stilted buildings, and log cabins, before ending in classical courtyards. These final structures display the traditional "three screens and one wall" and "four courtyards with five skywells" layouts. Nearby, the rising New Hall incorporates local stone, wood, and the matte sheen of traditional blue roof tiles, its folded roofs echoing the surrounding mountain ridges. This design honors the traditional Naxi worldview where the center dominates four directions.

Inside, the museum guards 12,607 cultural relics, including 423 precious national-grade items and 67 National First-Class relics. The collection holds nearly 3,000 artifacts from the Naxi Dongba culture. Among these are 1,000 volumes of ancient Dongba literature, written in the world's only active hieroglyphic writing system and inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in August 2003.

Human hands have left deep marks throughout these galleries. Visitors can see the brushwork of the Ming Dynasty chieftain Mu Zeng on preserved calligraphic scrolls. The collection also features modern paintings by Xu Beihong, Zhang Daqian, and Qi Baishi. The most profound human trace remains the scratch of natural inks on coarse, handmade paper, crafted by ancient Dongba priests to record sacred rituals of heaven and wind worship. These manuscripts carry the scent of aged wood, connecting modern observers directly to the ancestors who walked these mountain slopes centuries ago.