Harvest Altar

Beijing Shejitan

The harvest altar or altar of the god of the fields and god of the crops ( Chinese  北京 社稷 坛 , Pinyin Běijīng shèjìtán ) in the Beijing Imperial City (Huangcheng) is an altar that was built in 1421 in the Yongle era of the Ming period on the site of an older sacrificial site west of the Tian'anmen Tower opposite the Imperial Ancestral Temple (Taimiao) . It was used twice a year by the emperor in the Ming and Qing dynasties for sacrificial purposes to the god of the fields and the god of crops.

Lingxingmen 棂 星 门 of the Shejitan

Its square terrace was 15 meters long, one meter high, and the top platform was covered with earth of five colors. Its five-color painting represented the country's five cardinal points. The earth was yellow in the middle, red on the south, white on the west, black on the north, and green on the east.

After the Xinhai Revolution (1911), the area was released as a central park in 1914, and in 1928 the park was given its current name Sun Yat-sen Park (Zhongshan gongyuan).

The altar has been on the list of monuments of the People's Republic of China (3-81) since 1988 .

Footnotes

1. ↑ The name of the altar is given in several different translations.

Web links

Commons : Harvest Altar  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 39 ° 54 ′ 37.5 ″  N , 116 ° 23 ′ 19 ″  E