Epitaph of Yuan Shu

Epitaph of Yuan Shu

The Epitaph of Yuan Shu is a cultural tourism attraction.

The Epitaph of Yuan Shu was unearthed in the early 1980s in Dongwangzhuang Village, located at the foot of Mount Baideng, ten kilometers east of Datong City. This epitaph was carved in the first year of the Yongping era (508 AD) during the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty. The stele stands 0.74 meters tall (including the top section) and is 0.42 meters wide. The top section bears six seal script characters reading “Epitaph of Lord Yuan of Wei,” which are stylistically similar to the seal script on the memorial tablet of Sima Jinlong, though the calligraphy is slightly inferior. The main body of the epitaph is written in regular script, arranged in 24 vertical lines with 27 characters per line, totaling 511 characters. Each character grid measures two square centimeters. Except for the lower right and upper left sections, where over twenty characters have become illegible due to prolonged exposure to soil and wear, the majority of the characters are finely executed, with strokes still appearing sharp and clear. It is currently the Northern Wei stele unearthed in the Datong area with the largest number of surviving characters.