China | Shaanxi | Xian City Wall

While in town to see the Nestorian Stele, I thought I might as well check out the rest of Xian, which as you no doubt know was the eastern terminus of the Silk Road and during the Tang Dynasty probably the largest and most developed city in the world. It is still now probably the last large walled city in the world. The wall surrounding the inner city is a total of 7.3 miles long, forty-nine feet high, and fifty-nine feet wide at the top.

The immense Southern Gate to the city

Just inside the Southern Gate

Stairs lead up to the top of the City Wall

The southern side of the City Wall

The top of the City Wall

The 7.3 mile-long top of the wall provides a nice walking and biking path. Notice the bicycle-built-for-two.

Biker on top of the Wall

Belly button of Biker on top of the Wall

Inside of the east side of the City Wall

Outside of the east side of the City Wall

A green strip and hiking path extends all around the outside of the wall

Path along the outside of the wallOuter rampart of the City Wall

Green strip and park along the outside of the City WallRestored Qing Dynasty houses just inside the City Wall

China | Shaanxi | Xian | Nestorian Stele

I have a big stack of books I have been dipping into, but when my mind wearies and I need a little light reading I turn to The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia--and How It Died (also Kindle Edition). Although not a Christian myself, I do find the advance of Nestorian Christianity into Asia via the Silk Road fascinating from an historical point of view. A few years ago I wandered down to Xian, the Eastern Terminous of the Silk Road, specifically to see the famous Nestorian Stele on display in the city’s Belian Museum.

Grounds of the Belian Museum

Erected in 781 AD, the stele gives a brief description of the introduction of Nestorian Christianity into China in the 8th Century.

At the top of stele is a Nestorian Cross; beneath the cross is the heading “Memorial of the Propagation in China of the Luminous Religion from Daqin”. Beneath the heading—not really visible in the photo—is The History Itself in 1,756 Chinese characters plus a few lines in the Syriac language.

Christianity, along with Islam, was one of the many imports that trodded eastward on the Silk Road. For more on this see the wonderfully informative Religions of the Silk Road. Also see The Great Mosque in Xian.

Of course there is much else in the Belian Museum, including many swoon-inducing Buddhist art works. Here are just two samples:

A Tang Dynasty Buddha

A Tang Dynasty rendering of Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, unearthed in Xian in 1952.