Heshan Stone Carvings

Last Update: 2008-8-26 4:12:00; By swakl

Accessibity: 5-star

Natural Scenery: 5-star

Culture & history: 5-star

Edition HistoryEdit Introduction:

View 2 photos, or upload your photo.

Rock carving is one of the oldest fashions of painting; it was a spontaneous way for the ancients to depict the surrounding environment. The Heshan Stone Carvings are one of the kinds. They are a few meters elevated from the hillside of the valley. Although vary in magnitude, they generally stretch out from 0.2 to 2.4 meters long and 0.3 to 3.0 meters wide.

The carvings are incredibly simple yet vivid and intensively expressive. The carvings that centered on humans revealed ancient lives from dancing to hunting, from shooting to horse-riding, from military training to camel riding. The ones pivoting animals portrayed lively scenes such as tigers chasing after cows and sheep.
Among all, the carving of dancing scenes was the most impressive work with amazingly vivid characters radiating emotions, dynamics, passion, joy and even musical rhythm of the time. People were dancing in lines or circles surrounding their herds and animal accompaniers.

No scenes of farming or weapons of swords or spears were found in these carvings indicating that these ancients had a very high probability of being nomads who had no permanent residence and moved from places to places following weather and the seasonal changes in search for food, water and gazing lands. They wore robes and hats with feathers.

According to some anthropological investigation, these carvings to some extend revealed strong desires and passion of the ancient herdsmen for spiritual living and development. They dated back to the times of the ancient Qiang, and they are extremely valuable for archeological and anthropological research.

top

Help us improve our web site by Editing This Article.

Edition HistoryAddLocation:

Edition HistoryAddTicket Price:

Edition HistoryEdit Opening Time:
8：00-18：00 (8:00-20:00 in summer).

Edition HistoryEdit How to get there:

This spot is near to the city, but bus service is not available. So tourists have to take taxi to get there.

Edition HistoryEdit Tips:
Tipes The Heshan Stone Carvings is near to the city, so visitor can go there and return to the city within one day.

13people have added this page to their favorites. Click here to add this page to your favorites.

There are 1 comments about Heshan Stone Carvings:

5-star aliceshu Says:2008-8-8 3:37:00
Well, these carvings are very interesting. When I saw them at the first sight, I think I really felt the musical rhythm of the dances from them. People in the most carvings are seemed to try everything to feed themselves. They hunted animals for food, and did exercises against enemies and dangers. I think that from these carvings we could see that how clever are Chinese people even though in ancient times. Chinese people are so great.