Tomb of Cangjie

Tomb of Cangjie

The Tomb of Cangjie is a cultural tourism attraction.

The Tomb of Cangjie is located 1.5 kilometers southeast of Wangzongtang Village, Tongcheng Office, Dong'e County, Shandong Province. The 1596 edition of the "Yanzhou Prefecture Records," compiled under the editorship of Yu Shenxing, records: “The former residence of Cangjie is thirty li to the northwest of the city (the former seat of Dong'e County, now Dong'e Town in Pingyin County). There is a tomb and a temple there.” The Qing-era "Dong'e County Records · Historical Sites Volume" states: “The Tomb of Cangjie is thirty li to the northwest of the county (now Dong'e Town in Pingyin County), with a shrine in front of the tomb that had long collapsed. In the fifth year of the Daoguang reign, Magistrate Li Xianshu donated his salary to rebuild it.” “Thirty li to the northwest of the county” refers to present-day Wangzongtang Village in Tongcheng Office. Originally, there was a large earthen mound tomb of Cangjie, locally known as “Cangwang’s Tomb.” In front of the tomb stood a two-story hard-roofed brick structure with three bays, commonly called by locals as “Cangwang Temple,” “Zangwang Temple,” or “South Tower.”

In the magnificent tapestry of Chinese history, Cangjie is a figure straddling the line between myth and legend. Whether examined from the perspectives of mythology, ethnology, or folklore, he is regarded as an ancient sage. Historical texts describe him as having a “dragon-like face with four eyes” and a “voice of great virtue” ("Lunheng" and "Lüshi Chunqiu"). His most illustrious achievement was “creating writing to replace the system of knotted cords.” The invention of this human “secret weapon” reportedly caused “grains to rain from the sky, ghosts to cry at night, and dragons to hide” ("Huainanzi"), marking a heroic feat that shook heaven and earth and moved both gods and spirits.

In 2000, then-National People's Congress deputy Song Yiqiao submitted a proposal during the Third Session of the Ninth NPC titled “On the Excavation of Cultural Relics at Cangjie’s Hometown and the Reconstruction of the Sacred Temple of Cangjie.” The NPC General Office forwarded the proposal to the National Cultural Heritage Administration for handling. The administration instructed the Shandong Provincial Cultural Heritage Bureau to immediately organize an archaeological team to investigate and survey the Tomb of Cangjie site in Wangzongtang Village, Dong'e County, as well as any relics potentially related to Cangjie. It was discovered that the Tomb of Cangjie site in Wangzongtang Village was originally a large-scale Longshan culture site covering approximately 10,000 square meters, corresponding in time to the legendary period of the Yellow Emperor. Therefore, it is highly possible that this was a place where the Cangjie tribe lived or was active during the time of the Yellow Emperor, leaving behind a wealth of Cangjie-related relics and historical information. In accordance with the National Cultural Heritage Administration’s directive to “provide appropriate protection for the Cangjie Tomb site,” from 2002 to 2003, local government and residents carried out planned construction at the site. They rebuilt the Tomb of Cangjie, covering an area of nearly 500 square meters and standing 9 meters high, erected over ten commemorative stone tablets in front of the tomb, and planted more than 400 trees including pines, cypresses, and pagodas. The existing Tomb of Cangjie is square-shaped, with a base side length of 17 meters and a height of 9 meters, standing majestically like a pyramid on the plains. In front of the tomb stands a memorial stele inscribed with “Tomb of Ancient Cangjie,” which is 4.72 meters high, 1.2 meters wide, and 0.4 meters thick. There are also over ten other stelae recording the historical repairs of the tomb and the development of writing. Notably, the writing development stele chronicles the evolution of Chinese script starting from Cangjie’s invention, featuring inscriptions in various scripts such as oracle bone script, seal script (both large and small), clerical script, regular script, and others by historical figures. Today’s Tomb of Cangjie, with its forest of stelae and rows of verdant cypresses, has become a beautiful site for people to reflect on the past and cherish ancient history.