Timber brackets
Interlocking joints.
Patrick Streule — CC BY 2.0 · 林高志 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Zhangzhugang — CC BY-SA 3.0 · ScareCriterion12 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · 林高志 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · 林高志 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Zhangzhugang — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Gisling — CC BY 3.0
An all-timber pagoda in Ying County south of Datong, built in 1056 under the Liao dynasty on the site of the family home of Emperor Daozong's grandmother and enlarged in 1195 under the Jin. It is the oldest fully wooden pagoda still standing in China, so famous that people simply call it «the Wooden Pagoda». It rises 67.31 m including its 4 m stone platform and 10 m metal spire, and it has survived several large earthquakes over the centuries thanks to an intricate system of interlocking timber brackets; from afar it looks like a beacon of stacked storeys over the Shanxi plain. Tickets cost CNY 60 from April to October and 30 in winter, and it is open from 8 am to 6 pm; to protect the building, visitors may enter the ground floor only, per visitor guides. It lies about 70 km south of Datong.
Interlocking joints.
A plain's beacon.
Through earthquakes.
Fogong Temple, Jincheng Town, Ying County, Shuozhou, Shanxi
No, to protect the old building visitors may enter the ground floor only; tickets cost CNY 60 from April to October, per visitor guides.