Xixia Song Cliff Inscription

　　The Xixia Song Cliff Inscription stone stands 2.2 meters tall and 3.4 meters wide. The top of the stele features four seal characters reading “Huian Xi Biao” (A Record of Benefiting the West). The main body is inscribed in 12 lines of 385 clerical script characters, each character about 9 to 10 centimeters square, presented in the form of a memorial. It primarily recounts the life of Li Xi, his outstanding political achievements during multiple terms as a local administrative official, and his virtuous governance in leading the people to construct the ancient Xixia Road for public benefit. Both the text and the calligraphy hold high research value for historians and are prized for copying and appreciation. Before the main text, there are intaglio carvings depicting a yellow dragon, white deer, sweet dew, auspicious grain, interconnected trees, and a dew-catching figure. The surrounding area of the stele features over 30 inscriptions from scholars and officials dating back to the Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing dynasties, as well as the Republican era, including one by the modern master painter Li Keran that reads “Eastern Han Cliff Inscription” and “Xixia Song.” Below and to the left of the Xixia Song, there is another Eastern Han clerical script cliff inscription, commonly called the “Peach Blossom Stele.” Approximately 1 kilometer to the east lies the “Geng Xun Stele,” an Eastern Han cliff inscription from the third year of the Xiping era (173 AD), which records the achievements of Governor Geng Xun of Wudu.

　　The Xixia Song Cliff Inscription is one of only three surviving major “Song” steles from the Han Dynasty in China—the others being the “Shimen Song” and the “Fuge Song”—and is the best preserved. It combines literature, painting, calligraphy, Confucian thought, and local governance systems, serving as a crucial material evidence for the study of Eastern Han memorial-style writing and the broader social, political, economic, and transportation conditions of the time.