Mausoleum stele
In a stone pavilion.
Gisling — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Siyuwj — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Siyuwj — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Siyuwj — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Siyuwj — CC BY-SA 4.0 · stone wu — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Siyuwj — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Gisling — CC BY-SA 3.0
A memorial site to Yu the Great, the legendary king whom Chinese tradition credits with taming the floods and founding the Xia dynasty, the earliest ruling house of China's traditional histories; tradition holds that he was buried here at the foot of Kuaiji Mountain, and the spot has long drawn people to honour his memory. Before the grave stands a pavilion with a stone stele inscribed «Mausoleum of Yu the Great», and beside it a complex of timber halls in imperial style first founded early in the Liang dynasty, in the sixth century, while the present great hall was rebuilt in 2007–2008. Among its oddest sights are the Goulou stele, carved with seventy-seven strange characters resembling tadpoles whose origin and reading scholars still dispute, and a conical stone two metres tall with a hole at the top, said to have been used in the burial, all set among woods, a pond and paths on the mountainside. Tickets cost CNY 60, or CNY 30 concession, and it opens from 8:00 to 17:00 with ticket sales ending at 16:30, per visitor guides.
In a stone pavilion.
Tadpole-like characters.
Woods and paths.
Yuling Road, at the foot of Kuaiji Mountain, about 8 km south-east of Shaoxing
A legendary king whom Chinese tradition credits with taming the floods and founding the Xia dynasty; tradition holds that he was buried here at the foot of Kuaiji Mountain.