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Amazing Murals in Yongle Palace
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Yongle Palace is located
in Ruicheng County, northern Shanxi
Province. |
Yongle Palace, located in Ruicheng County, northern Shanxi Province, is
China's most well-preserved Yuan-Dynasty architecture. The scale and artistic
achievement of its mural paintings are known as the top best among all existing
mural paintings of the same subject. But many may not know that this magnificent
Taoist temple structure was entirely moved from its former site in Yongle Town
to Ruicheng County between 1959 and 1964. UNESCO's nomination process stipulates
that moved historical buildings are not qualified for the World Heritage
nomination, but Yongle Palace was included on the tentative World Cultural
Heritage list in 1998. According to the senior expert from the World Heritage
Center who visited Yongle Palace in 2005, the whole movement project was
well-designed and conducted with superb skills, which retained integrity and
authenticity of this historical building to the largest possible extent. Thus,
it can be included on the tentative list as an exception.
Yongle Palace, with its full name as "Dachunyang Longevity Palace", was first
built in 1247 and completed in 1368. It is so named after the former site of the
Palace, which is Yongle Town. The Palace, built in honor of Lu Dongbin, an
ancestral master of Taoism, is known as the country's oldest, largest and most
well-preserved Taoist temple. It is also generally recognized as one of the
three main ancestral halls of Quanzhen Sect of Taoism.
Yongle Palace covers an area of 86,000 square meters. On its 500-meter-long
axis line stands four main halls whose walls are painted with exquisite murals
totaling some 1000 square meters.
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