Twenty-Eight Constellations Wells – Immortal’s Well on Songtai Mountain

Twenty-Eight Constellations Wells – Immortal’s Well on Songtai Mountain

Twenty-Eight Constellations Wells – Immortal’s Well on Songtai Mountain is a cultural relic protection unit of Wenzhou City.

The upper and lower wells on Songtai Mountain — namely the Immortal’s Well at the mountaintop, the Octagonal Well at the eastern foot, and the ancient well at Sanpailang — are three of the “Twenty-Eight Wells Representing the Constellations” dug when the city was founded during the Tai Ning era of the Jin Dynasty. Upper well: the Immortal’s Well. The well curb is circular, hewn from a large block of granite, with an inscription on the curb wall reading “Carved by Mei Quan in the winter of the Ji Si year of the Daoguang reign at the Immortal’s Well on Songtai,” with an inner diameter of 0.94 meters and a depth of about 4.5 meters. Mei Quan, styled Jian Ting, was a native of Yongjia during the Qianlong and Jiaqing eras and the grandnephew of Mei Ji. Skilled in calligraphy and painting, he, along with Mei Ji, Mei Daxian, and Mei Chaoying, was known as one of the “Four Meis of Yongjia.” The three wells on Songtai Mountain (including the Sanpailang Well) are three of Wenzhou’s “Twenty-Eight Wells” and hold significant importance. In April 2000, they were designated as part of the fourth batch of cultural relic protection units of Wenzhou City by the Wenzhou Municipal People’s Government.