Songpan Ancient Town

Songpan Ancient Town Wall

The Songpan Ancient Town Wall is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The Songpan Ancient Town Wall is located in Jincheng Town, Songpan County, Sichuan Province. The county has historically been a military stronghold of feudal dynasties in northwestern Sichuan. The existing wall was expanded with bricks in the 12th year of the Hongwu reign during the Ming Dynasty (1379 AD) on the foundation of the original Tang Dynasty Tucheng (earthen city) of Songzhou. During the Zhengtong era of the Ming Dynasty (1436–1449), the outer wall was added, forming a layout with both inner and outer walls.

Songpan Ancient Town is divided into an inner and an outer city. The inner city spans over the mountains, following the terrain to form an approximate triangle, while the valley section at the eastern foot of the mountains is rectangular. The outer city is adjacent to the valley and lower dam south of the inner city, connected to the inner city by gates, and is rectangular in shape. The total length of the walls is 6.2 kilometers. The wall body is constructed with locally fired blue bricks, with the interior made of earth and stones (the outer city wall is 1.37 kilometers long, built with strip stones as the wall body and filled with earth and stones), standing 12.5 meters high and over 12 meters thick. The joints are bonded with a mortar made from glutinous rice, lime, and tung oil, making the walls as solid as a copper bastion. There are seven gates in the ancient town: five on the inner city — the eastern gate called “Jinyang,” the southern gate “Yanxun,” the western gate “Weiyan,” the northern gate “Zhenqiang,” and the southwestern mountain-foot gate named “Xiaoximen” (Little West Gate); the outer city has two gates — the east-west oriented one called “Linjiang” (Riverside) and the north-facing one called “Anfu.”

Each gate is constructed solely with large, regularly shaped rectangular stone arches. Originally, there were barbicans outside each gate (only the barbican of the southern gate remains today). The gates were topped with double-eave hip-and-gable roofed gate towers, which have been destroyed. Field investigations show that on the exterior sides above the doorframes of each gate (including the barbicans), there are imitation wood-structured elements: high-relief lotus column bases on Sumeru pedestals, architraves, and column-top tie beams supporting seven-puzuo (a type of bracket set) cylindrical columns, with carved dougong (bracket arms), purlins, beams, and lion-head rafters. The tops of the columns feature densely engraved decorative patterns, while the center of the architraves is carved with a double-lotus diamond pattern. Below the dougong, shallow relief carvings depict “two deer eating leaves,” and the lintels above the gateways are adorned with diamond-patterned window grilles interspersed with cloud motifs.

In June 2001, the Songpan Ancient Town Wall was designated by the State Council as part of the fifth group of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units.

Protected area: 5 meters east of Jinyang Gate, 5 meters south of Yanxun Gate, 5 meters west of Ximen Top, and 5 meters north of Songzhou Main Gate.

Construction control zone: a perimeter of 20 meters beyond the protected area, with surrounding buildings not exceeding 10 meters in height and limited to two stories.

Further reading:

· Fifth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units