thumb|200px|remnants of the pagoda the daqin pagoda (å¤§ç§¦å¡) is a buddhist pagoda in zhouzhi county of xi'an (formerly chang'an), shaanxi province,daqin temple pagoda at china.org.cn china, located about two kilometres to the west of louguantai temple. the pagoda has been controversially claimed as a nestorian christian church from the tang dynasty.martin palmer, the jesus sutras: rediscovering the lost religion of taoist christianity, isbn 0-7499-2250-8, 2001 ==history== the daqin pagoda is first attested in 1064, when the chinese poet su shi visited it and wrote a well-known poem about it, "daqin temple". his younger brother su zhe also wrote an "echoing" poem referring to the monks at the temple. an earthquake severely damaged the pagoda in 1556 and it was finally abandoned. due to the earthquake, many of the underground chambers of the complex are no longer reachable. ==features== the seven-storeyed octagonal brick pagoda is about 32 meters high. each side of the first storey measures 4.3 meters. == is the pagoda a nestorian christian relic? == in 2001 the pagoda was claimed by martin palmer, the translator of several popular books on sinology, including zhuangzi and i ching, as a nestorian christian church from the tang dynasty, in his controversial book the jesus sutras. according to palmer, the church and the monastery were built in 640 by early nestorian missionaries. daqin is the name for the roman empire in the early chinese language documents of the 1st and 2nd centuries, by the mid-9th century it was also used to refer to the mission churches of the syriac christians. supporters of palmer's claims have drawn attention to details which suggest that the monastery was earlier a christian church, including a supposed depiction of jonah at the walls of nineveh, a nativity scene (depiction of the birth of jesus) and syriac graffiti. the east-facing orientation of the complex is also advanced as evidence of its christian origin since chinese daoist and buddhist temple complexes face north or south.{{cite journal | journal=touchstone journal | first=glen l | last=thompson |date=april 2007 | title=christ on the silk road: the evidences of nestorian c
7th-century_church_buildings Buildings_and_structures_in_Shaanxi Chinese_pagodas Nestorianism_in_China Tang_dynasty_architecture Tang_dynasty_art