The Ancient Quarry of Lotus Mountain

The Ancient Quarry of Lotus Mountain

The Ancient Quarry of Lotus Mountain is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The Ancient Quarry of Lotus Mountain is located in Lotus Mountain Town in the eastern part of Panyu City, Guangdong Province. It is an ancient quarry site with a history of two thousand years in the Lingnan region.

The quarrying at Lotus Mountain Ancient Quarry began in the early Western Han Dynasty and continued until the Daoguang era of the Qing Dynasty. The stone materials used for the tomb of the Nanyue King of the Western Han were quarried from Lotus Mountain. It consists of over 40 hills of varying sizes, covering an area of more than 300,000 square meters. The Ancient Quarry of Lotus Mountain was mined using the cutting and chiseling method, leaving behind quarry faces with an average height of 25 meters, reaching up to 40 meters at the highest point, and extending as deep as 13 meters below ground level. The quarry still retains stone pillars, stone slabs, and a large amount of stone material that could not be transported away from ancient times.

According to the "Panyu County Annals," there were inscribed stone tablets prohibiting quarrying in the seventh year of the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty (1579) and the 29th year of the Qianlong era of the Qing Dynasty (1764). In 1983, Xia Nai, then Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, inspected the painted stone-chambered tomb of the Nanyue King discovered at Xianggang and visited the quarry for investigation, writing the inscription “Ancient Quarry Site of Lotus Mountain.” The Institute of Geological New Technology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences compared and identified the stone materials of the Nanyue King’s tomb in terms of lithological composition, petrological characteristics, degree of weathering, rock genesis, and age with those from ancient quarries and rocks in the suburbs of Guangzhou, Xiqiao Mountain in Nanhai, and Sanshui, concluding that the main stones of the Nanyue King’s tomb were quarried from Lotus Mountain. As a result, the quarrying period of this site has been traced back to the early Western Han Dynasty.

The Ancient Quarry of Lotus Mountain has a long history and a large scale. The quarried stones were transported as far as various parts of Guangdong, giving it high tourism and scientific research value. (National Cultural Heritage Administration)

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Further Reading:

· Fifth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units