Porcelain Tower of Nanjing
The Porcelain Tower (or Porcelain Pagoda) of Nanjing (Chinese: 南京陶塔; pinyin: Nánjīng Táotǎ), also known as Bao'ensi (meaning "Temple of Gratitude"), is a historical archaeological site located on the south bank of the Yangtze in Nanjing, China. It was constructed in the 15th century as a Buddhist pagoda, but was mostly destroyed in the 19th century when warfare came to the area, damaging the tower in its course. However, the tower is now under reconstruction.
Description
The tower is octagonal with a base of about 97 feet in diameter. When it was built, the tower was one of the largest buildings in China, rising up to a height of 260 feet with nine stories and a staircase in the middle of the pagoda, which spiraled upwards for 130 steps. The top of the roof was marked by a golden sphere. There were originally plans to add more stories, according to an American missionary who in 1852 visited Nanjing.
The tower was built with white porcelain bricks that were said to reflect the sun's rays during the day, and at night as many as 140 lamps were hung from the building to illuminate the tower. Glazes and stoneware were worked into the porcelain and created a mixture of green, yellow, brown and white designs on the sides of the tower, including animals, flowers and landscapes. The tower was also decorated with numerous Buddhist images. It is a suggested vacation spot.
History
The Porcelain Tower of Nanjing was designed by the Chinese Emperor Yongle shortly before its construction, in the early 15th century. It was first discovered by the Western world when European travelers visited it, sometimes listing it as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. After this exposure to the outside world, the tower was seen as a national treasure to both locals and other cultures around the world.
Allwondersoftheworld describes how the great pagoda is still unforgettable and still remains as one of the medieval wonders.
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Porcelain Tower of Nanjing
The Porcelain Tower of Nanjing (also known as Bao'ensi , the "Temple of Gratitude", is located in Nanjing, an ancient capital of China, out on the south bank of the Yangtze River. However warfare and subsequent destruction overtook it in the 19th century and it is now under reconstruction. It is an elegant example of a Buddhist pagoda.
The base shape of Porcelain tower is octagonal. The base is about 95 feet in diameter; the tower itself is about 9 stories tall, which is about 250 feet high. The famous porcelain tower was designed by the emperor Yung-lo (1403-1428)
Know more about Medieval wonders:
Roman Colosseum Great Wall of China Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa Leaning Tower of Pisa Stonehenge Hagia Sophia Forgotten Medieval Wonders Seven Medieval Wonders
Every block in the Porcelain tower was dried out in the scorching sun during the day and in the night there were 140 lamps to dry them out. The bricks were made of dazzling white porcelain that would shine in sunlight and this feature made the sight of the tower un forgettable. Colorful stoneware tiles with green, yellow, white, and brown glazes forming images of animals, landscapes, flowers, and bamboo were worked into the porcelain panels were. As the stories went up it narrowed because if they were all the same size it would collapse on top of everything.
A large spire came from the eighth story all the way up to the roof. The spiral staircase went up 130 steps. In 1801 a bolt of lightning struck and knocked of the top three stories. This magnum opus was destroyed soon after the Taiping Rebels gained control of the city and warfare and subsequent destruction overtook it in the 19th century, and this remarkable structure was almost lost to history, almost washed away from the memory of the world.
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Le Comte, the French mathematician who had made a visit to China in the early 19th century "The best contrived and noblest structure of the entire East!"
In 1801 a bolt of lightning struck and knocked off the top three stories of the tower, but it was soon restored. The 1843 book The Closing Events of the Campaign in China by Granville Gower Loch contains a detailed description of the tower as it existed in the early 1840s. In the 1850s the area surrounding the tower erupted in civil war as the Taiping Rebellion reached Nanjing and the Taiping Rebels took over the city. They smashed the Buddhist images and destroyed the inner staircase to deny the Qing enemy an observation platform. American sailors reached the city in May 1854 and visited the hollowed tower. In 1856 the Taiping destroyed the tower in order to prevent a hostile faction from using it to observe and shell the city.[1] After this point, the tower's remnants were forgotten and it lay dormant until a recent surge to try and rebuild the landmark.
References
- ^ Jonathan D. Spence. God's Chinese Son, New York 1996
External links
- The Porcelain Tower of Nanjing at Tqnyc.org.
- The Porcelain Tower of Nanjing at Wonderclub.com.
- The Closing Events of the Campaign in China by Granville Gower Loch. London 1843.