Ming Tombs

One of my students offered to take me to the Spirit Way-- a historic road leading to the tombs of 13 of the 16 emperors who reigned during the Ming Dynasty. The first gate of the road is actually only a few hundred yards from the bed I sleep in every night; the more impressive Dahongmen (Great Red Gate) is about a kilometer. I met my student at 6:30 one morning and we walked over to Dahongmen before my 9 am class.

Dahongmen- during the Ming Dynasty this gate could only be passed through if the emperor's body was being carried through it.
Inside the gate sits this colossal tortoise with stele rising out of his shell. The stele is about 15 feet high and is covered in Chinese text.

After passing through the gate, you come to a roadway lined with ancient carvings of mythical creatures, animals, and then men. All of these carvings date to the 15th century. The age of things in China is remarkable for this US American whose country's earliest relics date a little over 200 years. As my friend Chris once told me while describing a similar feeling in Scotland, "You see something and think, 'Wow, my hometown was inhabited by Cherokees when this was built-- and they still had no idea they would be getting a free trip to Oklahoma.'"

Me, next to the mythical feline (or maybe just extinct?) Xiechi.

Standing camel, followed by sitting elephant, and then standing elephant.

There are always 4 statues of the animals. First, a pair sitting, and then a pair standing. These are all carved to life-size and the symmetry is perfect-- not only on a single animal but also when compared to the one across the road.

And of course, nothing is complete without a photo of the Chairman Mao.

Me, doing my best impression of the Chairman.

The human figures.

I think this is a priest of some sort. Weeping willows in the background.

And a soldier with fantastic detail.

While the animal statuary were all carved to actual size, the humans were much larger than life. It makes me think that one of these reasons they even carved the animals was to give a scale reference to future intruders (like myself) so that we might think the Ming Court was larger than life.