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55-481: In 1996, Peng Qi'an , a former vice mayor of Shantou , came across dozens of graves scattered around the slopes of Tashan Scenic Area . Having learned that these victims had died in 1967 and 1968 during the Cultural Revolution, he started his efforts to turn the park into a memorial site. He began by contacting other survivors of the Cultural Revolution, many of whom were government officials. Peng named

110-524: A stone tortoise and crowned with hornless dragons , while the lower-level officials had to be satisfied with steles with plain rounded tops, standing on simple rectangular pedestals. Steles are found at nearly every significant mountain and historical site in China. The First Emperor made five tours of his domain in the 3rd century BC and had Li Si make seven stone inscriptions commemorating and praising his work, of which fragments of two survive. One of

165-474: A T-shaped symbol. Near the ancient northwestern town of Amud in Somalia , whenever an old site had the prefix Aw in its name (such as the ruins of Awbare and Awbube ), it denoted the final resting place of a local saint. Surveys by A.T. Curle in 1934 on several of these important ruined cities recovered various artefacts , such as pottery and coins , which point to a medieval period of activity at

220-654: A commemorative function or served as boundary markers. Although sometimes plain, most bore a cuneiform inscription that would detail the stele's function or the reasons for its erection. The stele from Van's "western niche" contained annals of the reign of Sarduri II , with events detailed yearly and with each year separated by the phrase "For the God Haldi I accomplished these deeds". Urartian steles are sometimes found reused as Christian Armenian gravestones or as spolia in Armenian churches - Maranci suggests this reuse

275-572: A corpus of post-5th century historical texts engraved sometimes on steles, but more generally on materials such as stone and metal ware found in a wide range of mainland Southeast Asia ( Cambodia , Vietnam , Thailand and Laos ) and relating to the Khmer civilization. The study of Khmer inscriptions is known as Khmer epigraphy . Khmer inscriptions are the only local written sources for the study of ancient Khmer civilization. More than 1,200 Khmer inscriptions of varying length have been collected. There

330-534: A family unit or a household scene. One such notable example is the Stele of Hegeso. Typically grave stelai are made of marble and carved in relief, and like most Ancient Greek sculpture they were vibrantly painted. For more examples of stelai, the Getty Museum's published Catalog of Greek Funerary Sculpture is a valuable resource Steles (Chinese: bēi 碑 ) have been a major medium of stone inscription in China,

385-403: A friend a copy of a book by Yang Kelin (杨克林) entitled Cultural Revolution Museum . The descriptions in the book served as a blueprint for the main museum building. On 1 January 2005, the museum was officially opened as the first museum in China dedicated to the Cultural Revolution. In 2015, Peng handed over the museum to the local government, citing his old age. In late April 2016 the museum

440-621: A hallmark of Classic Maya civilization. The earliest dated stela to have been found in situ in the Maya lowlands was recovered from the great city of Tikal in Guatemala . During the Classic Period almost every Maya kingdom in the southern lowlands raised stelae in its ceremonial centre. Stelae became closely associated with the concept of divine kingship and declined at the same time as this institution. The production of stelae by

495-690: A large part of Ancient Greek funerary markers in Athens. Regarding stelai (Greek plural of stele), in the period of the Archaic style in Ancient Athens (600 BC) stele often showed certain archetypes of figures, such as the male athlete. Generally their figures were singular, though there are instances of two or more figures from this time period. Moving into the 6th and 5th centuries BC, Greek stelai declined and then rose in popularity again in Athens and evolved to show scenes with multiple figures, often of

550-485: A list of five people for whom execution was recommended to higher authorities, due to his alleged association with a " counter-revolutionary " group named after two local leaders who had lost power. The district government originally opposed the construction of the museum. Friends and other officials expressed their worries to Peng that he might run afoul of authorities, but he remained unfazed. Business tycoon and philanthropist Li Ka-Shing donated 300,000 Renminbi towards

605-493: A widespread social and religious phenomenon. Emperors found it necessary to promulgate laws, regulating the use of funerary steles by the population. The Ming dynasty laws, instituted in the 14th century by its founder the Hongwu Emperor , listed a number of stele types available as status symbols to various ranks of the nobility and officialdom: the top noblemen and mandarins were eligible for steles installed on top of

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660-645: Is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in the ancient world as a monument . The surface of the stele often has text, ornamentation, or both. These may be inscribed, carved in relief , or painted. Stelae were created for many reasons. Grave stelae were used for funerary or commemorative purposes. Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines . Stelae were occasionally erected as memorials to battles. For example, along with other memorials, there are more than half-a-dozen steles erected on

715-684: Is the Rosetta Stone , which led to the breakthrough allowing Egyptian hieroglyphs to be read. An informative stele of Tiglath-Pileser III is preserved in the British Museum . Two steles built into the walls of a church are major documents relating to the Etruscan language . Standing stones ( menhirs ), set up without inscriptions from Libya in North Africa to Scotland , were monuments of pre-literate Megalithic cultures in

770-502: The Chinese nation , and that he did not intend to undermine the credibility of the CCP through the museum. He also said that it was possible to understand the intentions of the museum by reading "between the lines". From 2006 to 2013, Peng and a group of volunteers held an annual memorial ceremony at the museum in remembrance of the victims of the Cultural Revolution. The date of the ceremony

825-591: The Far East , and, independently, by Mesoamerican civilisations, notably the Olmec and Maya . The large number of stelae, including inscriptions, surviving from ancient Egypt and in Central America constitute one of the largest and most significant sources of information on those civilisations, in particular Maya stelae . The most famous example of an inscribed stela leading to increased understanding

880-465: The First Dynasty of Egypt . These vertical slabs of stone are used as tombstones, for religious usage, and to mark boundaries, and are most commonly made of limestone and sandstone, or harder kinds of stone such as granite or diorite, but wood was also used in later times. Stele fulfilled several functions. There were votive, commemorative, and liminal or boundary stelae, but the largest group

935-646: The Iron Age kingdom which existed in the Armenian Highlands of modern Armenia , Turkey and Iran between the 9th and 6th centuries BC. Some were located within temple complexes, set within monumental rock-cut niches (such as the niche of the Rock of Van , discovered by Marr and Orbeli in 1916 ), or erected beside tombs. Others stood in isolated positions and, such as the Kelashin Stele , had

990-535: The Late Stone Age . The Pictish stones of Scotland, often intricately carved, date from between the 6th and 9th centuries. An obelisk is a specialized kind of stele. The Insular high crosses of Ireland and Great Britain are specialized steles . Totem poles of North and South America that are made out of stone may also be considered a specialized type of stele. Gravestones , typically with inscribed name and often with inscribed epitaph , are among

1045-561: The Maya had its origin around 400 BC and continued through to the end of the Classic Period, around 900, although some monuments were reused in the Postclassic ( c.  900 –1521). The major city of Calakmul in Mexico raised the greatest number of stelae known from any Maya city , at least 166, although they are very poorly preserved. Hundreds of stelae have been recorded in

1100-570: The Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica . They consist of tall sculpted stone shafts or slabs and are often associated with low circular stones referred to as altars, although their actual function is uncertain. Many stelae were sculpted in low relief, although plain monuments are found throughout the Maya region. The sculpting of these monuments spread throughout the Maya area during the Classic Period (250–900 AD), and these pairings of sculpted stelae and circular altars are considered

1155-523: The Merneptah Stele , which features the first known historical mention of the Israelites . In Ptolemaic times (332 - 30 BC), decrees issued by the pharaoh and the priesthood were inscribed on stelae in hieroglyphs, demotic script and Greek, the most famous example of which is the Rosetta Stone . Urartian steles were freestanding stone obelisks that served a variety of purposes, erected in

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1210-498: The battlefield of Waterloo at the locations of notable actions by participants in battle. A traditional Western gravestone (headstone, tombstone, gravestone, or marker) may technically be considered the modern equivalent of ancient stelae, though the term is very rarely applied in this way. Equally, stele-like forms in non-Western cultures may be called by other terms, and the words "stele" and "stelae" are most consistently applied in archaeological contexts to objects from Europe,

1265-839: The clerical script . Chinese steles from before the Tang dynasty are rare: there are a handful from before the Qin dynasty , roughly a dozen from the Western Han , 160 from the Eastern Han , and several hundred from the Wei , Jin , Northern and Southern , and Sui dynasties . During the Han dynasty, tomb inscriptions ( 墓誌 , mùzhì ) containing biographical information on deceased people began to be written on stone tablets rather than wooden ones. Erecting steles at tombs or temples eventually became

1320-524: The "tragedy of the Cultural Revolution" to be repeated was engraved at a wall near the park entrance. Quotations by Ren had also been engraved elsewhere in Tashan Scenic Area. The museum also had statues of Liu Shaoqi , a former president who was one of the first victims of the Cultural Revolution, and of Marshal Ye Jianying , who spearheaded the action taken against the Gang of Four. Surrounding

1375-438: The Cultural Revolution, and his last wife, Gang of Four member Jiang Qing . Hundreds of gray granite slabs around the circumference of its inner walls had etchings of paintings from the two volumes of the book by Yang Kelin. Some paraphernalia such as little red books and Mao busts and badges were removed after some artifacts had disappeared. A library inside the museum held nearly 300 books as of 2005. A large granite slab at

1430-577: The Maya region, displaying a wide stylistic variation. Many are upright slabs of limestone sculpted on one or more faces, with available surfaces sculpted with figures carved in relief and with hieroglyphic text . Stelae in a few sites display a much more three-dimensional appearance where locally available stone permits, such as at Copán and Toniná . Plain stelae do not appear to have been painted nor overlaid with stucco decoration, but most Maya stelae were probably brightly painted in red, yellow, black, blue and other colours. Khmer inscriptions are

1485-572: The ancient Near East and Egypt, China, and sometimes Pre-Columbian America. Steles have also been used to publish laws and decrees, to record a ruler's exploits and honors, to mark sacred territories or mortgaged properties, as territorial markers, as the boundary steles of Akhenaton at Amarna , or to commemorate military victories. They were widely used in the ancient Near East , Mesopotamia , Greece , Egypt , Somalia , Eritrea , Ethiopia , and, most likely independently, in China and elsewhere in

1540-406: The bank account of the museum for receiving donations was closed. In 2015, Peng handed over the museum to the local government, citing his old age. Previous attempts by Peng to find a successor, who he had wanted to be prestigious and influential, had failed; several retired municipal officials who he had contacted had refused due to the sensitive nature of the position. The last director of the museum

1595-403: The construction, and inscriptions. The total funds raised by Peng amounted to over CN¥  10 million. The donors included many friends of Peng who were fellow survivors. In 2003, Peng received from a friend a copy of a book by Yang Kelin (杨克林) entitled Cultural Revolution Museum . The descriptions in the book served as a blueprint for the main museum building. On January 1, 2005, the museum

1650-517: The earliest examples dating from the Qin dynasty . Chinese steles are generally rectangular stone tablets upon which Chinese characters are carved intaglio with a funerary, commemorative, or edifying text. They can commemorate talented writers and officials, inscribe poems, portraits, or maps, and frequently contain the calligraphy of famous historical figures. In addition to their commemorative value, many Chinese steles are regarded as exemplars of traditional Chinese calligraphic scripts, especially

1705-562: The endeavor the Pagoda Park ( Chinese : 塔园 ) project, avoiding any reference to the Cultural Revolution due to the sensitivity of the topic. After retiring from public office in 1999, Peng intensified his efforts towards the project. Including the main museum, altogether 25 scenic spots were built on Pagoda Park, one at a time whenever enough money had been raised by Peng. During the Cultural Revolution, Peng had been subjected to at least 30 criticism sessions ; in 1967 he had been on

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1760-625: The entrance of the museum bore an inscription of the official verdict of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the Cultural Revolution from 1981, which pronounced it to have been a "serious disaster to the party, the country and the people". Outside the museum was a large statue of Deng Xiaoping , a victim of the Cultural Revolution who later rose to condemn its excesses as Mao's successor. A quote of party secretary Ren which warned against allowing

1815-460: The highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea , the Axumites erected a number of large stelae, which served a religious purpose in pre-Christian times. One of these granite columns is the largest such structure in the world, standing at 90 feet. Additionally, Tiya is one of nine megalithic pillar sites in the central Gurage Zone of Ethiopia. As of 1997, 118 stele were reported in the area. Along with

1870-552: The later history by being buried underground for several centuries. Steles created by the Kaifeng Jews in 1489, 1512, and 1663, have survived the repeated flooding of the Yellow River that destroyed their synagogue several times, to tell us something about their world. China's Muslim have a number of steles of considerable antiquity as well, often containing both Chinese and Arabic text. Thousands of steles, surplus to

1925-431: The main building were small monuments, commemorative steles and inscribed tombstones. These focused on the local victims of the Cultural Revolution, with one mural listing the names of more than 4,000 dead from the neighbouring villages. Another mural listed 304 types of counter-revolutionary crimes that a person could be charged with, among them being a "counter-revolutionary revisionist" or "bourgeois element". Coverage of

1980-704: The most common types of stele seen in Western culture. Most recently, in the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin , the architect Peter Eisenman created a field of some 2,700 blank steles. The memorial is meant to be read not only as the field, but also as an erasure of data that refer to memory of the Holocaust. Egyptian steles (or Stelae, Books of Stone) have been found dating as far back as

2035-465: The most famous mountain steles is the 13 m (43 ft) high stele at Mount Tai with the personal calligraphy of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang commemorating his imperial sacrifices there in 725. A number of such stone monuments have preserved the origin and history of China's minority religious communities. The 8th-century Christians of Xi'an left behind the Xi'an Stele , which survived adverse events of

2090-635: The original requirements, and no longer associated with the person they were erected for or to, have been assembled in Xi'an's Stele Forest Museum , which is a popular tourist attraction. Elsewhere, many unwanted steles can also be found in selected places in Beijing, such as Dong Yue Miao, the Five Pagoda Temple, and the Bell Tower, again assembled to attract tourists and also as a means of solving

2145-510: The park entrance contained a depiction of Ba Jin and described him as an "advocate" of the museum. The museum covered an area of approximately 570 square metres (6,100 sq ft), with its main building, a three-storey pavilion, designed to resemble the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. The main building housed hundreds of photos and drawings depicting events in the Cultural Revolution. It prominently featured Chairman Mao Zedong , who initiated

2200-617: The park into a memorial site. He used a special mayor's fund to the amount of 600,000 Renminbi , which he was entitled to use at his discretion, as start-up funds. He intensified his efforts after his retirement from public office in 1999. The district government originally opposed the construction of the museum. Friends and other officials expressed their worries to Peng that he might run afoul of authorities, but Peng remained unfazed. The total funds raised by Peng amounted to over CN¥  10 million. The donors included many friends of Peng who were fellow survivors. In 2003, Peng received from

2255-421: The perpetrators was scant. The design of the monuments largely drew on premodern China. A graveyard adjacent to the museum grounds contains the remains of over 70 victims of the Cultural Revolution, including those who were beaten to death by rebel groups ; one of the graves contains the remains of 28 victims who could not be individually identified. Peng said he and others wanted to leave a place of caution for

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2310-770: The pharaoh, or his senior officials, detailing important events of his reign. Some of the most widely known Egyptian stelae include: the Kamose Stelae, recounting the defeat of the Hyksos ; the Victory Stele , describing the campaigns of the Nubian pharaoh Piye as he reconquered the country; the Restoration Stele of Tutankhamun (1336 - 1327 BC), detailing the religious reforms enacted after the Amarna period; and

2365-405: The present and the afterlife, which allowed the deceased to receive offerings. These were both real and represented by formulae on the false door. Liminal, or boundary, stele were used to mark size and location of fields and the country's borders. Votive stelae were exclusively erected in temples by pilgrims to pay homage to the gods or sacred animals. Commemorative stelae were placed in temples by

2420-548: The problem faced by local authorities of what to do with them. The long, wordy, and detailed inscriptions on these steles are almost impossible to read for most are lightly engraved on white marble in characters only an inch or so in size, thus being difficult to see since the slabs are often 3m or more tall. There are more than 100,000 surviving stone inscriptions in China. However, only approximately 30,000 have been transcribed or had rubbings made, and fewer than those 30,000 have been formally studied. Maya stelae were fashioned by

2475-788: The stelae in the Hadiya Zone, the structures are identified by local residents as Yegragn Dingay or "Gran's stone", in reference to Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (Ahmad "Gurey" or "Gran"), ruler of the Adal Sultanate . The stelae at Tiya and other areas in central Ethiopia are similar to those on the route between Djibouti City and Loyada in Djibouti . In the latter area, there are a number of anthropomorphic and phallic stelae, which are associated with graves of rectangular shape flanked by vertical slabs. The Djibouti-Loyada stelae are of uncertain age, and some of them are adorned with

2530-524: The transportation, energy and telecommunications sectors. In the subsequent years until his retirement in 1999, he served a consultant for the Shantou municipal government. In 2012 he was chosen as an "excellent party member" of Shantou. In 1996, Peng came across dozens of graves scattered around the slopes of Tashan Scenic Area . Having learned that these were victims of the Cultural Revolution who had died in 1967 and 1968, he started his efforts to turn

2585-435: Was August 8, commemorating the 1966 decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party to launch the Cultural Revolution, which Peng in 2012 called a "disastrous day for China". The seventh annual ceremony in 2012 was attended by some 450 people. Due to the museum addressing a sensitive period of Chinese history, it advertised itself discreetly on the internet, other means not being allowed as of 2010. In 2013,

2640-600: Was Du Xuping. In late April 2016 the museum was closed down, fenced off and all inscriptions, monuments, and more were covered up. The timing of the decision was seen by observers as being related to the impending 50-year anniversary of the May 16 Notification , considered widely to be the starting point of the Cultural Revolution. Peng Qi%27an Peng Qi'an ( Chinese : 彭启安 ; pinyin : Péng Qǐ'ān ; born 1932 in Chenghai  – 3 January 2023 )

2695-533: Was a Chinese municipal official and survivor of the Chinese Cultural Revolution who founded a museum in Shantou to commemorate the victims of the revolution, which opened in 2005. He continued to serve as its volunteer curator. The museum was closed in 2016. During the Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976, Peng was subjected to at least 30 criticism sessions . In 1967 he

2750-524: Was a deliberate desire to capitalize on the potency of the past. Some scholars have suggested Urartian steles may have influenced the development of the Armenian khachkar . Greek funerary markers, especially in Attica, had a long and evolutionary history in Athens. From public and extravagant processional funerals to different types of pottery used to store ashes after cremation, visibility has always been

2805-563: Was an 'explosion' of Khmer epigraphy from the seventh century, with the earliest recorded Khmer stone inscription dating from 612 AD at Angkor Borei . Ogham stones are vertical grave and boundary markers, erected at hundreds of sites in Ireland throughout the first millennium AD, bearing inscriptions in the Primitive Irish language. They have occasionally been described as "steles." The Horn of Africa contains many stelae. In

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2860-481: Was closed down, fenced off and all inscriptions, monuments, and more were covered up. In an interview with the New York Times , Peng expressed his belief that the order to close the museum had come not from local officials but "above", refusing further discussion of this point. Stele A stele ( / ˈ s t iː l i / STEE -lee ), from Greek στήλη , stēlē , plural στήλαι stēlai ,

2915-481: Was officially opened as the first museum in China dedicated to the Cultural Revolution. Vice president of the Federation of Literary and Art Circles Feng Jicai attended. Chinese state media kept silent about the opening ceremony. The museum is regarded as the brainchild of reformist Guangdong party secretary Ren Zhongyi , with distinguished author Ba Jin also having been a major influence. A memorial space at

2970-517: Was on a list of five people for whom execution was recommended to higher authorities, due to his alleged association with a " counter-revolutionary " group named after two local leaders who had lost power. After the Cultural Revolution, Peng remained in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). From 1979 until 1983, he served as CCP Committee Secretary of Chaozhou . He later served as the executive vice mayor of Shantou , overseeing

3025-527: Was the tomb stelae. Their picture area showed the owner of the stele, often with his family, and an inscription listed the name and titles of the deceased after a prayer to one, or several, of the gods of the dead and request for offerings. Less frequently, an autobiographical text provided additional information about the individual's life. In the mastaba tombs of the Old Kingdom (2686 - 2181 BC), stelae functioned as false doors, symbolizing passage between

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