Baiya Mountain Red Stone Quarry Site

Baiya Mountain Red Stone Quarry Site

The Baiya Mountain Red Stone Quarry Site is a cultural heritage protection unit of Jiangxi Province.

The Baiya Mountain Red Stone Quarry Site is located to the north of Baiya Mountain Village, under the jurisdiction of Xin Qiang Village Committee, Sanli Township, Jinxian County, Jiangxi Province. The villagers of Baiya Mountain Village have historically mined red stone, and in the 1980s, the entire village largely relied on red stone quarrying for their livelihood. In March 2010, during the third national cultural relics survey which uncovered 900,000 new findings, it was rated by the National Cultural Heritage Administration as one of 165 significant discoveries.

Close to the village, there are three paths leading to the red stone pond formed by the quarrying activities, which locals call the "Old Pond." The Baiya Mountain Red Stone Quarry Site generally stretches from southwest to northeast, measuring 1,900 meters in length and varying between 100 to 700 meters in width. It consists of over 60 quarries from different periods, connected together to form a stony pond covering thousands of acres. Within the pond area, there are stone walls and gullies left from historical quarrying, forming several small islands. The depth of the Baiya Mountain Red Stone Quarry Site mostly ranges from ten to twenty or thirty meters, with the deepest parts in the northeast and northern areas reaching up to a hundred meters. There is a local saying: “Even four taels of yellow silk can’t touch the bottom.” The pond is rich in fish.

The Baiya Mountain Red Stone Quarry Site is located in a transitional zone from red soil hills to lakeside areas, and is a rare Danxia landform region within the Poyang Lake area. Preliminary surveys indicate that the surrounding area covers about 3,000 acres, with an estimated reserve of 200 to 300 million cubic meters of red stone beneath the red soil layer, extending to depths of 100 to 200 meters. The upper layer of the site is covered with a 3 to 5-meter-thick red soil stratum. The upper part of the red stone is powdery and brittle, but becomes hard and tough below 10 meters. Below 20 meters, the stone quality is the best, with some stones even containing golden specks, making it suitable for carving and architectural elements.

All the caves at the Baiya Mountain Red Stone Quarry Site are steep, showing clear signs of quarrying from the top down. Ten meters below the surface on the northern side of the site, mining extends beneath the Baiya Mountain Village, forming deep, flat “concave” shapes. Currently, there are three active quarry caves at the site, covering an area of 20 acres and reaching depths of over 30 meters.

With a quarrying history spanning thousands of years, a mining area of thousands of acres, and a quarrying volume of tens of millions of cubic meters, the Baiya Mountain Red Stone Quarry Site has become a typical example in Jiangxi Province where natural Danxia landform features blend with significant human heritage value. The site lies at the tail end of the Xin River basin, where it flows into Poyang Lake, making it the largest and most representative thousand-year-old quarry in the Poyang Lake area. Its quarrying volume is rare among red sandstone extraction sites in Jiangxi Province and even across China. The historical development of the Baiya Mountain Red Stone Quarry Site is clear, and it is linked to the renowned “Style Lei” architectural family of the Jinxian area, giving it rich cultural value. The continuous quarrying activity over the past thousand years, which continues to this day, serves as a testament to the enduring craftsmanship of the quarrying industry.

In March 2018, it was designated as a Provincial-Level Cultural Heritage Protection Unit in the sixth batch of Jiangxi Province.

Xin Qiang Village: Xin Qiang Village…… More details about Xin Qiang Village++

Further Reading:

· Sixth Batch of Jiangxi Provincial Cultural Heritage Protection Units