Site of Liucheng Temple Ruins

Site of Liucheng Temple Ruins

The Site of Liucheng Temple Ruins is a cultural heritage protection unit of Nanchang County.

Era: Shang and Zhou Dynasties

Type: Ancient Ruins

Address: North of Min Village, Maqiu Town, High-Tech Development Zone, Nanchang City

Introduction:

The Site of Liucheng Temple Ruins is located approximately one kilometer northwest of the Maqiu Town government, bordering the Nanchang Outer Ring Road to the east, Min Village of Maqiu to the south, and adjacent to Yao Lake on the west and north.

Originally a temple surrounded by an earthen wall, Liucheng Temple is said to have been a military encampment established by Liu Yao, the Governor of Yangzhou during the Han Dynasty, hence the name. The temple no longer exists, but a section of Ming Dynasty earthen city wall remains, running north–south with a length of about 100 meters. The base of the wall is about 10 meters wide, the wall face is 7 meters wide, and the height is 8 meters.

The overall shape of the Liucheng Temple Ruins is irregularly square, higher in the east and lower in the west. The western part extends in a strip along the shore of Yao Lake for about one kilometer, with much of it submerged in the lake. At the lakeside section, a gray soil layer is visible, and along the water’s edge, there are many accumulations and fragments of red pottery, gray pottery, and stamped pottery from the Shang–Zhou period. No intact artifacts have been found, though a small number of stone tools are present.

According to records from the first cultural relics survey, the stone tools unearthed at the Liucheng Temple Ruins mainly include axes, adzes, and arrowheads. Most of the pottery items are daily utensils, often high-necked jars or other jar-shaped vessels. Tripod leg styles are predominantly goat-horn shaped, while li tripod legs are almost never seen. Mixed sandy red pottery has significantly decreased at this site, with more common appearances of hard gray pottery. Pottery decorations mainly consist of linked cloud-thunder patterns, variant cloud-thunder patterns, banana-leaf patterns, mat patterns, wavy patterns, crescent and loop patterns, and combinations of diagonal grid patterns, among others. Simpler decorative patterns such as spaced rope patterns, string patterns, grid patterns, and cloud-thunder patterns can also be observed.

During the 2005 cultural relics protection unit re-inspection, the total area of the site was visually estimated to be around 15,000 square meters.