The Shenfujun Watchtower is located at Yanjiachang of the Hanting Village of the Hanbei Town, 34 kilometers north to Qüxian County in Sichuan Province.
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The Shenfujun Watchtower is the only one with the twin towers that survived among the watchtowers in the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD). They were constructed during the Yanguang reign (122-125) in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Unfortunately, their sub-towers were destroyed. The twin watchtowers, with one in the east and the other in the west, are 21.62 meters from each other. The height of the towers is 4.84 meters each. Inside the east watchtower, there is a black dragon embossment. The dragon is snapping at the ribbon of a jade ring with his sharp teeth. A white tiger embossment is inside the west tower. The tiger is grand and stubby, four-footed and five-clawed, with a long and strong tail. He is also snapping at the ribbon of a jade ring with his mouth, itching to run.
All around the towers there are embossments of figures, animals and plants that depict the social production and life in the Han Dynasty. They include wheelbarrows, agricultural-commercial trades, hunting and shooting, rabbits, cows, sheep, horses and other animals, fruit trees, waterweeds and so on. The epigraph on the west tower is regarded as the treasure among the official script in the Han Dynasty due to its unique calligraphy.
Many people came to visit the watchtower in the past two thousand years. The rubbings spread overseas. The Shenfujun Watchtower is simple and unsophisticated in structure and features ingenious carving, lifelike depicting and vivid forming. It is not only a treasure of the structure art, but also a rare material for the research into the production, life, architecture, transportation tools as well as calligraphy, carving and painting art in the Han Dynasty.
(Source: chinaculture.org)
