The Lu Clan Ancestral Hall in Lujia Zhou

The Lu Clan Ancestral Hall in Lujia Zhou

The Lu Clan Ancestral Hall in Lujia Zhou is a cultural relic protection unit of Jiangxi Province.

Lujia Zhou Village is situated on an oasis formed by the confluence of the Lu River and the He River. The village preserves 63 architectural relics from the Ming and Qing dynasties, including 5 ancestral halls, 4 academies, 4 temples, and 50 ancient residences. The Lu Clan Ancestral Hall covers an area of one acre, with its door frame, threshold, and steps all built from white marble. The middle step of the main hall’s central platform is paved with a 5-meter-long piece of white marble — a rarity even across the nation.

The lintel of the ancestral hall’s grand gate, carved from white marble, features delicate reliefs of the legendary Eight Immortals and the Jade Emperor’s Star Official (Tai Bai Jin Xing). Though small in size, the figures are vividly expressive and lifelike, adding a sense of solemn dignity to the hall. The white marble threshold and door blocks beneath the gate are engraved with auspicious animals such as dragons, bats, qilins, and magpies — symbols believed to bring blessings and ward off disasters. At the center of the threshold is carved a “money measure,” filled with decorative patterns representing wealth, symbolizing the hope that every member of the Lu clan who passes through will prosper daily. The exquisite craftsmanship and profound symbolism of the jade carvings are truly breathtaking.

The Lu Clan Ancestral Hall has a total of 8 gates, including the main gate, side gates, and rear hall gates. Their lintels, thresholds, door blocks, pillars, bases, socket stones, corner stones, 16 column bases inside the hall, and the step stones of the three-bay front hall are all made from single pieces of white marble. Among them, the central hall step stone is nearly 6 meters long, 0.48 meters wide, and 0.30 meters thick — more than 1 meter longer than the longest white marble slab used in the Forbidden City. In addition, there are 8 large white marble drum stones inside the hall. The use of such a large quantity of sizable white marble stones in the Lu Clan Ancestral Hall not only made the construction extremely expensive, but some of the stones are even larger than those reserved for imperial use in the Forbidden City. In the rigidly hierarchical society of feudal China, such usage could have led to the extermination of the entire clan. Yet, the Lu family not only used these materials but also did so without incurring any disaster — a true mystery.

Further Reading:

· Fifth Batch of Cultural Relic Protection Units in Jiangxi Province