The history of Yecheng can be traced to the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC). Tong says these works underwent restoration after being unearthed, and are now displayed for public viewing mostly for the first time. It has more than 120 Buddhist statues, mostly dated between the fifth and sixth centuries, according to Tong Chunyan, a curator from the National Museum of China. Today, people can have a glimpse of Yecheng's heyday, when it was a political and cultural center in northern China, by visiting Peaceful Coexistence, an exhibition at the National Museum of China that runs through Oct 6. READ MORE: Reveling in global legacy of the silk road
In 16 days, archaeologists excavated nearly 3,000 pieces, both intact and broken, making the pit a discovery with the most buried Buddhist figures in China since 1949. Yecheng's splendor was then forgotten, but in 2012 archaeologists working at its relics site found a pit where Buddhist statues were buried. Temples were demolished so that the land could be used for other purposes, monks were asked to leave, and Buddhist statues were smashed into pieces and buried underground.īuddhism saw a revival in the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties. Yecheng became part of Northern Zhou territory, with Chang'an (now Xi'an in Northwest China's Shaanxi province) as the capital, and the old city then saw persecution of Buddhists. The Northern Qi rulers were defeated by the rival Northern Zhou Dynasty (557-581), both from the Northern Dynasty (386-581) period. The booming landscape raised the profile of Yecheng, an imperial city of the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577), as a Buddhist center in northern China. On the mountains that surrounded Yecheng there were more temples and caves with Buddhist statues. Hundreds of temples scattered in and around the planned city, once played host to a great number of eminent monks from India and across China, as well as other sutra translators and ordinary practitioners of Buddhism.
Its glorious past less well-known today, the city of Yecheng in present-day Linzhang county in North China's Hebei province, was a sacred land for Buddhists in the sixth century. It displays more than 120 Buddhist statues excavated from Yecheng, an imperial city of the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577). A visitor at the ongoing show, Peaceful Coexistence, at the National Museum of China in Beijing.
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