Mountain WuYi

Cultural Resources

From the perspectives of history and science, Wuyi Mountain, of outstanding universal value, not only bears unique testimony to the ancient civilization and cultural traditions which have disappeared, but also has direct and essential relationship with neo-Confucianism, meeting criteria (iii) and (v) for world cultural heritage.

The cultural remains of the ancient kingdom and people of Minyue in Wuyi Mountain bear a unique testimony to the ancient civilization which has disappeared.

Wuyi Mountain boasts rich historical and cultural remains. As early as over 4,000 years ago, our ancestors settled down here, and gradually created the ancient Min culture which later developed into the Minyue culture. With a history of over 2,000 years, this unique culture existing in a corner of the vast territory of China had left a great wealth of cultural remains, and the typical examples mirroring the cultural features at the time mainly include the boat-shaped coffins in the caves, the wooden planks supporting the coffins, and the 480,000-square-meter Han-dynasty city site inhabited by the king of Minyue.

The boat-shaped coffins in the caves and the wooden planks supporting the coffins on the steep cliffs in the east of Wuyi Mountain are funeral remains left by ancient ancestors and have had a history of more than 3,000 years. The cotton cloth fragments in the coffins are the earliest physical cotton textiles so far discovered in China, and the boat-shaped coffins in Wuyi Mountain are the earliest hanging coffins ever found in the country. For this reason, archaeologists believe that Wuyi Mountain was the birthplace of hanging-coffin funeral tradition, and the physical remains provide valuable materials for the study of pre-Qin history and the ancient Min culture in China.

The Han-dynasty city site covering 480,000 square meters is of high historical and cultural values for research. As China’s best-preserved historic city site of the Han Dynasty in the south of the Yangtze River, it features unique site-selection technique, architectural methods and style, and is a typical representative of southern cities in ancient China, hence occupying an important position in the architectural history of China and the world. By far a large number of precious cultural relics have been excavated, including pottery wares for daily use, pottery materials for building, tile ends with characters, iron and bronze items, etc. They represent the advanced productivity and reflect the highest level of Chinese civilization at the time, providing important physical materials for the study of the development history of Minyue people in the Han Dynasty and the history of economic and cultural development in areas south of the Yangtze River.

Zhu Xi (1130-1200) was the greatest thinker, philosopher and educator after Confucius in the history of China. Absorbing the merits of ideological thoughts of Confucius and later generations, he developed the neo-Confucianism which is considered an outstanding representative of Confucian culture and was imperially made the orthodox philosophy. In more than 700 years from China’s Song to Qing dynasties (13th – 20th centuries), neo-Confucianism had been the dominant philosophy and exerted influence on counties in East Asia, Europe and America as a reflection of the typical national traditions and spirits and representative of the East Asian culture. Today Japan and DPRK have retained their schools to study Zhu Xi’s theory, which have attracted experts and scholars from different countries to come and dedicate themselves to the research of neo-Confucianism. Besides, the Universität Trier of Germany, Universiteit Leiden of the Netherlands, and other universities in Stockholm of Sweden, and Colombia, Harvard and Hawaii of the US set up a doctoral program on Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucian philosophy. Since 1982, four international seminars on Zhu Xi's neo-Confucianism have been organized in Hawaii, Xiamen, Wuyi Mountain and Taipei to discuss the relationship between neo-Confucianism and Confucian thoughts, the development process of neo-Confucianism and its influence on current society.

The bond between Wuyi Mountain and Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucian theory is inseparable. Wuyi Mountain is where Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucian thoughts were generated and developed. Zhu Xi came to Wuyi Mountain at the age of 14, and had spent more than 50 years studying, writing, teaching and living in the place until he passed away at the age of 71. He improved and spread neo-Confucianism in the mountain. Wuyi Jingshe Academy of Classical Learning founded by Zhu Xi was the most popular one of the kind at the time. The number of scholars who received instructions from Zhu Xi directly in Wuyi Mountain reached more than 200, and many of them became renowned neo-Confucians and formed an influential school of the philosophy. Under the influence of Zhu Xi, his followers took spreading the neo-Confucian thoughts as their mission, built academies in hills along the river of Wuyi Mountain, wrote books and taught disciples. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, a total of 43 scholars founded academies of classical learning in Wuyi Mountain, making it a popular place for studying neo-Confucianism. Professor Cai Shangsi, a renowned historian in China, praised it in this way: “Eastern Zhou gave birth to Confucius, and Southern Song, to Zhu Xi. China's ancient culture is represented by Taishan and Wuyi Mountains.” Zhu Xi and his disciples as well as later followers had left precious cultural remains in Wuyi Mountain, for example, Wuyi Jingshe Academy, insightful inscriptions by Zhu Xi and other neo-Confucians, the Tablet of Wuyi Sacred Passage bearing the largest number of characters inscribed by Zhu Xi so far existing in the country, the grain warehouse set up by Zhu Xi, etc. All these cultural sites are of precious value for the study of the development of Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucian theories and Confucianism as well as the history of philosophical thoughts, and are treasures of traditional Chinese culture.