Baisigou Square Pagoda, Buddhist pagoda in Helan County, China
Baisigou Square Pagoda was a 13-story brick tower positioned at the eastern edge of the Helan Mountains, with small rooms and windows distributed across multiple levels. The interior housed thousands of miniature stupas alongside religious manuscripts that were carefully stored within its structure.
The structure was constructed between 1075 and 1076 under the Western Xia dynasty and remained intact for nearly nine centuries. It was destroyed in 1990 by an explosion, marking the end of this ancient landmark.
The pagoda served as a focal point for Buddhist devotion, where worshippers left thousands of small clay stupas as offerings and kept sacred texts. The gathering of these objects reflects how communities used the structure as a center for expressing their religious beliefs.
The archaeological site is located approximately 10 kilometers into Baisigou Valley, northwest of Yinchuan, in a remote location. The recovered artifacts and discoveries are now on display at the Ningxia Museum, making them accessible to visitors.
Excavations uncovered one of the earliest known printed books using wooden movable type, the Auspicious Tantra of All-Reaching Union. This discovery reveals that printing technology existed in this region much earlier than previously thought.
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