Posted on 10/19/2004 7:46:57 PM PDT by blam
Ancient pillboxes in Dainba
In Dainba County of Garze Prefecture, there are many ¡°skyscraping¡± pillboxes. Dainba County is situated to the east of Khamba. It lies between Gonggar Mountain and Four-Girl Mountain, and is adjacent to Aba Prefecture¡¯s Xiaojin County and Jinchuan County.
On both sides of the Dadu River, there are lots of towering ancient pillboxes facing the boundless mountains and the tremendous strong winds by standing on those steep mountain slopes near to beautiful Tibetan villages. There are now nearly a thousand pillboxes still existing in Dainba County and more than 280 of them are the most intact in all of China. These ancient pillboxes were mostly built during the years of Emperor Kangxi and Emperor Qianlong, and are subject to protection by the Sichuan Cultural Relics Bureau.
Ancient pillbox of the Chang village in Lixian County.
YANG WENJIAN
It seems that the tips of these ancient pillboxes extend beyond the clouds, forming a delightful contrast with the Tibetan villages and the green fields below.
Some ancient pillboxes are scattered in the wilderness, but most are built in Tibetan villages.
These ancient pillboxes are in a variety of forms with such as four corners, five corners, six corners, eight corners, 12 corners and even 13 corners. The four cornered ones are the most prolific. Their heights range from over ten meters to forty or fifty meters. The pillboxes with 12 or 13 corners can only be found in Dainba County. They are bulky and rare masterpieces of ancient construction art.
The internal structure of pillboxes consists of 4-5 layers, but can be up to more than ten layers at most.
The pillboxes include village pillboxes, household pillboxes, boundary pillboxes and watch pillboxes, the most two being most common.
The ancient pillboxes built in strategic passes are called boundary pillboxes. They are primarily used for defense and blockade by being built mostly on crossings or rock outcrops. Watch pillboxes are built on tops of mountains and used for lighting beacon-fire alarms and for defense in battle. Village pillboxes are built on higher places at the entry to the village to protect against aggressors. Household pillboxes are generally small and connected with Tibetan houses. They are used as storage rooms in peacetime and for defense against bandits.
Eight-corner pillboxes
MOZI
Dainba ancient boxes are straightly formed. Their walls are made of stones, which are painted red or white. These walls are bulky and solid, with rugged surfaces. Almost every family or household in Dainba had an ancient pillbox. There are 84 ancient pillboxes in Suopo, 21 in Zhonglu and 29 in Pujiaoding.
Dainba ancient pillboxes are historical buildings made of yellow mud and stone pieces. Manpower was needed to move 50-100 kg stones up to the forty to fifty meter high ancient pillboxes. Builders used their eyes and experience without plumbing lines, making drawings and building frameworks. With irregular-shaped stone pieces, gravel and yellow mud, they have stood firm against numerous earthquakes and strong winds for several hundreds of years.
Today, the families of the ancient pillboxes open their doors to welcome tourists from anywhere. The most beautiful girls of the villages become tourist guides. The delicious leg pork, sour vegetables and flour dough, qingke barley wine, buttered tea, monk dumpling and meat eaten with the fingers, which are produced locally in Tibetan villages, have become the most popular foods.
Headman¡¯s pillbox in Songgang.
ZHUANG CHUNHUI
In Tibetan villages scattered here and there in Dainba County, Gyigyu is a Tibetan village famed as ¡°a world of fairy tales¡±. Gyigyu Tibetan Village is totally wooden-structured. It is a civilian building group of four-story pillbox-style houses with household pillboxes as the backbone. The building group is in the form of a square with a flat roof. The planes slightly change their positions to form dagoba connections between body blocks. Each side is based on a box of bulky square blocks, which extend upward and are reduced in size in each layer. The ground floor is used as pen for raising mainly domestic animals; the first floor consists of storage room and living rooms; the second floor is a sutra hall; the third floor is exposed to air as a balcony. There are small towers on the four sides of a house, where sutra streamers bearing sutras and pictures of sheep, horses and cattle carrying treasure flutter in the wind. The external walls of a house are generally painted white, brown and black in strips, in addition to a painted sun, moon and stars as well as various auspicious patterns of Tibetan Buddhism to make them more attractive.
A case in point is Gyigyu Tibetan Village, which is a natural village of Nygar Township of Dainba County, 20 km from the Dainba county seat. It constitutes a beautiful village scene with surrounding dense forests, clear streams and white snow-capped peaks. The pillbox-style buildings here are well arranged in height. The golden corn drying on the balconies glitter under the sun; bunches of red peppers create a pleasant atmosphere.
GGG Ping.
Very interesting. Thanks for posting.
Old Observation Tower, Vicksburg National Military Park, Vicksburg, Mississippi
I remember seeing them as a kid.
Hope you made it thru the hurricanes o.k.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Okay, I give! WHY are they called "pillboxes"?
At first, I thought it was going to be, like you allude, small boxes for medicines or similar.
Then I saw buildings, and thought they meant the small, bunkerish looking structures sunk into the hillsides, a-la machinegun nest or small artillary "pillboxes" of WWI & II fame.
Now I am simply confused.
"The internal structure of pillboxes consists of 4-5 layers, but can be up to more than ten layers at most."
Is this a translation by some of the people that write "assembly instructions" for imported Chinese product that have "some assembly required"?
The article attributes them to the reigns of Emperor Kangxi and Emperor Qianlong, yet calls them "ancient". Are these the same two that reigned circa 1700? Or, did the named emperors rebuild and restore them, from an older age?
In any case, very interesting architecture.
Yeah, I wondered about that. I suppose the application of that name is due to their resemblance of structures from the artillery era. :')
Yum! Recipes would be nice. What is buttered tea I wonder? Do they put butter in the tea?
Rancid butter in tea.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.