About 4 kilometers away from the city seat, the Taishi Watchtower are located at 500 meters in front of the Zhongyue Temple at the south foot of the Songshan Mountain in Dengfeng County, Henan Province.

The Tashi Watchtower, first built in the fifth year (118) of the Andi Yuanchu reign in the East Han Period (25-220), was the tomb passage watchtower for the Taishi Mountain Temple in the Han Dynasty (206BC- 200AD). Together with the Shaoshi Watchtower and the Qimu Watchtower, they are collectively called as the Three Watchtowers of the Han Dynasty in the Central Sacred Mountain.

Taishi Mountain is a part of the Songshan Mountain Range of the Zhongyue (the Central Sacred Mountain). As early as in the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC), a temple was set up to fete the Mountain God. The temple was extended during the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD) and it achieved a great prosperity in the early Tang Dynasty (618-907). However, by the time of the 14^th year (1641) of Emperor Chongzhen's reign in the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), it was entirely destroyed in a fire in March. The temple was rebuilt in the 10^th year (1653) of the Shunzhi reign in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and basically restored the layout and scale in the Song (960-1279) and Jin (1115-1234) dynasties.

About 500 meters in front of the Zhongyue Temple, the twin Tashi Watchtower stands on the both sides of the central axis, facing each other. The Tashi Watchtower consists of two watchtowers -- the east and the west and 6.75 meters from each other. The east watchtower is 3.92 meters in height and the west 3.96 meters in height. The two watchtowers are exactly the same in terms of structure, consisting of the base, body and top. Each watchtower can be separated into the main watchtower and the sub-watchtower with the bodies in connection. Looking at the vertical plane, the main watchtower is higher and the sub-watchtower lower. The main watchtower is inside and the sub-watchtower outside. On the stone surface of the body, except for the carved epigraph, there are carved figures on each single stone.

The body was built of piled rectangular stones in 8 layers, with the carved huge rocks forming a square roof. On the south side of the body, it was carved with the seal script of the Zhongyue Taishi Yangcheng. On the west watchtower, the epigraph carved partly in official script and partly in the seal script records and narrates the course of the construction. Characters in it indicate that the watchtower was built in April of the 5^th year of the Yuanchu reign, and so on. Around the body, there are over 50 carved pictures, depicting figures, traveling vehicles and horses, circus, dancing with swords, animals and others. The pictures reproduce the life scenarios of the nobility in the Han Dynasty and provide very good material for related research.