'Three Teachings' Cradle Leaves Us Suspended

Another mystic Chinese temple? Certainly, but one with some interesting engineering, dating back almost 1500 years, and perched some 75 m above the base of the cliff into which it has been built.

First there's the technique used to support many of the smaller structures against the cliff face. Back at the end of the Northern Wei dynasty there were no pneumatic drills or percussion equipment, but it appears that it was not uncommon for wooden access roads to be built on steep rock faces in much the same way as the walkways associated with this monastery.

Initially, holes were excavated directly into the face, by hammer and chisel. The workers must have been queuing up for this job! Well not only were the holes slowly and no doubt painfully developed, but it was discovered, when repair works were recently carried out, that these holes were belled at their distal ends.

Oak beams were them driven into the holes as primary cantilever support for the timber deck and structure above them. But the clever thing was that the beams had a timber wedge first inserted against their inside tip, so that, as the beam and wedge were driven against the far end of the chiseled hole, the distal end of the beam was splayed out by the wedge, thus securing it tightly against pull-out - brilliant!

The photo on the left also shows poles providing a prop to the cantilever beams, although it appears that these are a secondary support mechanism, with some reportedly only making contact with the rock beneath, when the platform above is live loaded by human traffic.

Then there's the apparent slow rate of decay of this potentially fragile yet amazingly robust structure. The concave shape of the rock face behind the monastery acts to shield its aging guest against both the effects of rain and sun. the elevation and cool aspect also assist in this respect while keeping it well above the seasonal flooding of the river beneath. 

Engineering aside, there is another unique aspect to this site, which may also have played an important part in its longevity. It is claimed to be the only existing temple combining all three Chinese traditional religions: Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism.

The site is located approximately 65 km south-east of Datong City in Shanxi Provence, China.

For more information try Googling or searching on YouTube for Hanging Temple, Hanging Monastery, or Xuankong Temple.  There are plenty of articles and videos on this amazing structure. Or you can start at this summary on 'Interesting Engineering' at the following link:

http://interestingengineering.com/chinas-hanging-monastery-looms-edge-cliff/

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When not researching the weird or the wonderful, the comical or the cultured, the sinful or the serious, I chase my creative side, the results of which can be seen as selected photographs of my travels on my website at:

http://ken-boddie.squarespace.com

The author of the above, Ken Boddie, besides being a sometime poet and occasional writer, is an enthusiastic photographer, rarely leisure-travelling without his Canon, and loves to interact with other like-minded people with diverse interests.

Ken's three day work week (part time commitment) as a consulting engineer allows him to follow his photography interests, and to plan trips to an ever increasing list of countries and places of scenic beauty and cultural diversity.