Sacred Way

This is the Shendao (spirit way) of 13 mausoleums of the Ming Dynasty. We did not look at the mausoleums here, we just enjoyed the walking path.

There were statues all along the path - officials from the court and beasties, both real and imaginary. Half are standing and half are sitting to show that they are on guard both day and night. Notice that the elephant legs bend the wrong way when they are sitting down. This is particularly confusing as there were elephants at court, so the artists should have known how to correctly sit an elephant.


The horse-ish body with the lion or maybe a wolf head and a single horn is a unicorn. (I didn't recognize it either.) The scaly creature with the 2 horns is a qilin or kylin, I think. There are conflicting accounts of what these things are.


There were also statues of officials from the court. They are very solemn.

Joy and Harvey from Florida were in town. They let me join them on the day's excursion with their tour group. This was the last stop for the day.

If you want some more details you can read this plaque.