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Three strange stones in the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City

Three strange stones in the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City

Three strange stones in the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City

Zhou Qian

The Imperial Garden is located in the north of the central axis of the Forbidden City, and is a resting place for the emperors and queens of the Ming and Qing dynasties. One of the characteristics of its landscape is the strange stones dotted in the garden. These strange stones originate from nature, but they have a close connection with the historical and cultural atmosphere, and are an important part of the ancient stone appreciation culture in the mainland. The strange stones in the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City are typical representatives of wood stone, texture stone and coral stone.

In the courtyard in front of the Imperial Garden, there is a wood-to-stone (Fig. 1). The stone is about 1.30 meters high and 0.18 meters wide, and sits on a basin-shaped stone pedestal about 1.10 meters high. Its appearance resembles a cut tree trunk, with a flat front and a curved back. The surface texture of the stone is clear, and it is cleverly integrated with the small patches around it. The middle and lower side of the front of the stone is carved with the imperial poem "Yongmu Turning Stone" of Emperor Qianlong, which makes the naturally formed wood and stone full of humanistic artistic conception.

Three strange stones in the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City

Fig.1. Wood to stone

The formation of wood-to-stone is mainly due to the metasomatism between trees and sediment. "Metabolism" is the process of chemical change and displacement, that is, the decomposition of original minerals and the simultaneous formation of new minerals. Trees are bulldozed due to geological or climatic changes and enter the sediment of rivers and lakes. Over thousands of years of geological time, trees sealed in sediment have used water as a medium to metasomatize with surrounding minerals, making silica (SiO

2

) and other substances that replace the tissue structure of the tree. In this way, the trees gradually turn into wood-to-stone. It should be noted that some elements of minerals can give the wood to different colors. There is a large area of black-brown on the surface of the wood stone in the Royal Garden, which can reflect that it contains more iron, manganese and other elements.

This piece of wood in the imperial garden is a gift from the rich monk A Jin, a general of Heilongjiang, to Emperor Qianlong. The stone evolved from the larch in the Kanggan River (near the Great Khingan Mountains). Emperor Qianlong ordered it to be placed in the Imperial Garden, and in the first month of the 31st year (1766), he engraved a poem on the front façade of the stone block (Fig. 2): "If you don't remember the day of throwing into the river, it is like the year of changing stones." Knocking on the sonor, the joints are still there. The side branches are thanks, and the straight and long are self-reliant. Although Kanggan is a tribute, it is inferior to this peak." Emperor Qianlong specially explained in the poem: Turpan, Hami and other places officials almost every year to pay tribute to the wood stone, but the size of each piece of wood stone is very small (less than one foot), can only be used as a whetstone;

Three strange stones in the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City

Fig.2 Qianlong's imperial pen on wood to stone

On the west side of the courtyard in front of Tianyimen (located in the middle of the garden), there is a textured stone, which is shaped like an ancient person looking at the Big Dipper, so it is also called the "Zhuge Bai Beidou" stone (Figure 3). Textured stone belongs to a kind of rock with a textured structure, and its texture is formed under the geological action of internal and external forces. "Zhuge Bai Beidou" stone belongs to metamorphic quartzite, with a quartz content of more than 85%, which is formed by geological action of quartz sandstone or siliceous rock. Under the action of high temperature and high pressure and the mixing of minerals, metamorphic rocks can migrate or recrystallize the material components. In this process, the external morphology and arrangement of the minerals are characterized by the different textures of the rocks. The texture pattern is often eye-catching in color, or for the rhythmic shape, or for the image of animals and plants, or for the shape of the person, etc., which is an important ornamental part of the garden stone appreciation. For the "Zhuge Bai Beidou" stone, affected by the uneven distribution of iron oxide, its surface presents different shades of color, and correspondingly forms this characteristic pattern.

Three strange stones in the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City

Fig.3 The "Zhuge Bai Beidou" stone of the texture stone

"Zhuge Bai Beidou" stone is large and small as a whole, in the shape of a monk's hat, about 0.70 meters high (including rockery-shaped bottom support), the widest point is about 0.66 meters, and is located on the rectangular Sumeru seat of about 0.45 meters high. The color of the front of the rock is predominantly brown and gray. The brown area is located on the right side of the front of the rock, and it is in the shape of a vertical and wide strip, which seems to divide the rock into three parts: "gray-brown-gray" from left to right. In the lower part of the brown area in the middle, there are a number of small gray circles that form a shape similar to the Big Dipper, and in the lower part of the gray area on the left, there are brown shapes that the ancients arched their hands and faced the Big Dipper. The shape formed by the above-mentioned natural texture is similar to the story of Zhuge Liang worshipping the Big Dipper to continue his life in "Three Kingdoms". Zhuge Liang has been fighting for many years, and he knows that his life is exhausted, so he sets up a seven-star lantern array to pray for longevity every day. It should be noted that in the ancient astrological beliefs of the mainland, the "Big Dipper" is in charge of human death. "Zhuge Bai Beidou" is a naturally formed texture, but it has a coincidence with ancient history, thus adding to the humanistic characteristics of this stone.

On the west side of the courtyard in front of Tianmen, opposite the textured stone, there is a coral stone (Fig. 4). Because its appearance is like hundreds of sea cucumbers condensed, it is also called "sea cucumber stone". The main component of coral stone is calcium carbonate (CaCO

3

)

, which is shaped by the secretions of the polyps after digesting their food, or by the accumulation of bones of the polyps themselves.

Polyps belong to a group of coelenterates that live in the ocean, feed on small planktonic organisms and ingest calcium oxide (CaO) from seawater

and carbon dioxide

(CO

2

)

, which synthesizes calcium carbonate in the body and then secretes it to shape its own shell.

Individual polyps are as small as a grain of rice, but polyps tend to live in groups and tend to form large colonies, and the larvae attach to the bones of dead polyps and grow, constantly secreting calcium carbonate, thus forming larger coral stones.

Three strange stones in the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City

Fig.4 "Sea cucumber stone" of coral stone

This "sea cucumber stone" is about 0.65 meters high, about 0.75 meters wide at its widest point, and about 0.15 meters at the thickest point at the bottom, and sits on a rectangular Sumeru seat about 0.45 meters high. Viewed from the outside of the monolith, each coral stone is similar in length, the body shape is thick in the middle, thin at both ends, slightly curved tubes, and the surface is densely covered with particles the size of rice grains, which is extremely similar to the shape of sea cucumbers, which can not help but sigh at the wonder of natural creation. From the point of view of composition, "sea cucumber stone" is formed by the adhesion of coral stone monomers, its number is numerous, the color is distinct, and it is intertwined with each other, and it is scattered, giving people a sense of visual agility. From the overall shape, the outer outline of the "sea cucumber stone" is approximately fan-shaped, and it is like an interstitial screen composed of a large number of sea cucumbers, forming a unique landscape in the imperial garden. Because the coral monomers are naturally formed, they are not dense everywhere, and some of the corals are formed in the accumulation of holes, which correspondingly adds to the visual pleasure of appreciation.

(Published in the 7th edition of Science and Technology Daily on November 23, 2023, with amendments)

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