The city wall bricks of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) displayed at the Nanjing City Wall Museum in east China's Jiangsu Province have attracted numerous visitors to explore the history.
The Nanjing City Wall, first built in 1366, has withstood the test of time for over six centuries. Thousands of bricks on the city wall still clearly bear the inscribed names of their original makers. At the museum's exhibition hall, visitors can closely observe these precious inscriptions and learn the stories behind each brick.
"The Nanjing City Wall serves as a remarkably rich 'open-air archive' from the early Ming Dynasty. Historically valuable information is recorded on each small brick. Under the brick-making responsibility system, each brick bore names and titles. If a brick was found to be defective, the responsible individual could be held accountable. From supervising officials to brickmakers, people inscribed their names and titles onto each brick," said Shi Yi, a staff member of the museum.
When looking at these ancient bricks, visitors often make surprising discoveries. The countless names inscribed on the bricks offer invaluable historical records of surnames in ancient China.
"During the construction of the Nanjing City Wall, nearly a million craftsmen and over 100 million bricks were involved in building the four layers of fortifications. As a result, it's quite common to find inscriptions with names identical to modern ones. For example, we can see a brickmaker named Liu Dehua, and the character 'Liu' is written in a simplified form. This suggests that simplified characters were already being used in a limited scope during the Ming Dynasty. Each brick's inscription, the method of stamping, and the calligraphic style are all unique," Shi said.
The exhibition hall also features an interactive roller that displays orgins of the bricks. Visitors can turn the roller to see where the bricks were made.
The Nanjing City Wall, built over 28 years and with 25.1 kilometers still standing today, is one of the world's longest, largest, and best-preserved ancient city walls.
High-tech approaches have been applied in preservation efforts nowadays, with over 1,700 sensors installed along the wall structure to monitor potential subsidence and water damage.
The preservation, which goes beyond maintaining the existing structure, also includes efforts to recover scattered bricks.
During urban development in the 1950s, parts of the wall were dismantled, and many bricks were either buried or reused for construction.
Local authorities launched a campaign in November 2016 to gather clues about scattered bricks. Thanks to the enthusiastic support of local residents, more than 500,000 bricks have been recovered so far.
Nanjing City Wall Museum attracts visitors with historical treasures
