page_title: Bixi
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bixi / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A stele, built on top of a magnificently wrought bixi (stone tortoise), commemorating Qianlong Emperor's rebuilding Lugou Bridge (a.k.a. Marco Polo Bridge) in the 50th year of his reign (ca. 1785). It is located near the western end of the bridge, and is much less eroded than the other bixi-supported stele (at the opposite end of the bridge). 中文（简体）‎: 乾隆重葺卢沟桥碑
context_page_description: Bixi, or Bi Xi, is a figure from Chinese mythology. One of the 9 sons of the Dragon King, he is depicted as a dragon with the shell of a turtle. Stone sculptures of Bixi have been used in Chinese culture for centuries as a decorative plinth for commemorative steles and tablets, particularly in the funerary complexes of its later emperors and to commemorate important events, such as an imperial visit or the anniversary of a World War II victory. They are also used at the bases of bridges and archways. Sculptures of Bixi are traditionally rubbed for good luck, which can cause conservation issues. They can be found throughout East Asia in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia, and even the Russian Far East.
context_section_description: The tradition of tortoise-mounted stelae originated no later than early 3rd century (late Han dynasty).
  According to the 1957 survey by Chêng Tê-k'un (鄭徳坤), 
  the earliest extant tortoise-borne stele is thought to be the one at the tomb of Fan Min (樊敏), in Lushan County, Ya'an, Sichuan. Victor Segalen had earlier identified the stele as a Han dynasty monument; present-day authors agree, usually giving it the date of 205 AD.
  The stele has a rounded top with a dragon design in low relief - a precursor to the "two intertwined dragons" design that was very common on such steles even in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, over a thousand years later.
  In the collection of the Nanjing Museum there is a hunping funerary jar, dating to 272 AD, with a miniature architectural composition on top, depicting, among other objects, a tortoise carrying a stele erected by the Jin dynasty governor of Changsha in honor of a local dignitary.
  Perhaps the best known extant early example of the genre is the set of four stele-bearing tortoises at the mausoleum of Xiao Xiu (475-518), who was the younger brother of the first Liang dynasty emperor Wu (Xiao Yan), near Nanjing.
  The bixi tradition flourished during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Ming founder, the Hongwu Emperor, in the first year after the dynasty had been proclaimed (1368), adopted regulations, allowing tortoise-based funerary tablets to the higher ranks of the nobility and the mandarinate. He tightened the rules in 1396, leaving only the highest nobility (those of the gong and hou ranks) and the officials of the top 3 ranks eligible for bixi-based stelae. The type of dragons crowning the tortoise-born stele, and the type and number of other statuary at the tomb site, were prescribed by the same regulations as well.
  At the Hongwu Emperor's own mausoleum, a huge bixi holding the so-called Shengde stele welcomes visitors at the Sifangcheng pavilion at the entrance of the mausoleum complex. Three centuries later (1699), the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty visited Nanjing and contributed another tortoise, with a stele praising the founder of the Ming, comparing him to the founders of the great Tang and Song dynasties of the past.
  The Hongwu Emperor's tortoise tradition was continued by the later Ming and Qing emperors, whose mausoleums are usually decorated by bixi-born steles as well.
  Even the self-declared emperor Yuan Shikai was posthumously honored with a bixi-based stele in Anyang, as was the Republic of China Premier Tan Yankai (1880–1930), whose stele near Nanjing's Linggu Temple had its inscription erased after the Communist Revolution.
  Occasionally, a foreign head of state was honored with a bixi as well, as it happened to the sultan of Brunei Abdul Majid Hassan, who died during his visit to China in 1408. The sultan's grave, with a suitably royal bixi-based monument, was discovered in Yuhuatai District south of Nanjing in 1958.
  After an ancient Christian stele was unearthed in Xi'an in 1625, it, too, was put on the back of a tortoise. In 1907, this so-called Nestorian Stele was moved to the Stele Forest Museum along with its tortoise.
  These days, long-lost bixi continue to be unearthed during archaeological excavations and construction work. Among the most remarkable finds is the discovery of a huge 1200-year-old in Zhengding (Hebei Province) in June 2006. The stone turtle is 8.4 m long, 3.2 m wide, and 2.6 m tall, and weighs 107 tons. It has since been moved to Zhengding's Kaiyuan Temple.
caption: A dragon-headed bixi with a stele in memory of the Qianlong Emperor's rebuilding of the Marco Polo Bridge, Beijing, c. 1785
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