Tomb of Xu Xiake

Tomb of Xu Xiake

The Tomb of Xu Xiake is located in the backyard of the reconstructed Qingshan Hall in Nandangqi, Mashizhen, Jiangyin City. It was rebuilt in 1985 according to the tomb design diagram attached to the Wu cheng Xu Family Genealogy, and is a Ming-style replica burial mound.

Xu Xiake, a native of Mashizhen, Jiangyin, was an outstanding geographer and traveler of the Ming Dynasty. The tomb site covers an area of 754 square meters. The grave ring is built with bluestone, standing 1.5 meters high, with a perimeter of 7.93 meters. The earthen tomb mound is 0.37 meters high. The tomb faces east and is situated to the west. In front of the tomb stands an original granite stele from the early Qing Dynasty, which is 1.2 meters tall and 40 centimeters wide. The top of the stele bears the horizontally inscribed characters “Seventeenth Generation” in intaglio, while the center features the upright characters “Tomb of Xu Xiake, a Noble Scholar of the Ming Dynasty” in relief. In front of the stele is a sacrificial platform paved with blue bricks, measuring 6.2 meters long and 4.9 meters wide. In front of the platform stands a full-body statue of Xu Xiake, 2.7 meters tall. On either side of the statue are two horizontal memorial steles: the left one bears the inscription by Li Xiannian that reads “Love the motherland, dedicate to science, respect practice”; the right one is the stele text for the Xu Xiake statue, written by Zhou Ningxia and calligraphed by Pan Qi. Behind the tomb is a grey enclosure shaped like a grandmaster’s chair. The tomb compound is planted with various flowers and plants, and is surrounded by cobblestone paths.