Description
The monument has a estimated height of 37.94 metres and covers an area of 32,000 square feet (3,000 square metres). It weighs over 10,000 metric tons and contains about 17,000 pieces of marble and granite from Qingdao, Shandong Province, and the nearby Fangshan District.
On the pedestal of the tablet are huge bas-relieves depicting eight major revolutionary episodes, which can be read in chronological order in a clockwise direction from the east:
- Destruction of Opium at Humen (1839), in the run-up to the First Opium War
- Jintian Uprising, the catalyst for the Taiping Revolution (1851)
- Wuchang Uprising, the catalyst for the (1911 Revolution)
- May 4th Movement (1919)
- May 30 Movement (1925)
- Nanchang Uprising (1927)
- War of Resistance Against Japan (1931-1945)
- Crossing the Yangtze River Campaign in the Chinese Civil War (1949)
On the front of the monument is an inscription in Mao Zedong's handwriting, which reads, "Eternal glory to the people's heroes!" (Chinese: 人民英雄永垂不朽; pinyin: Rénmín yīngxióng yǒngchuí bùxiǔ; literally "People's heroes forever upright not decayed").
On the back of the monument is a message, drafted by Mao Zedong and written by Zhou Enlai:
| “ | Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who laid down their lives in the people's war of liberation and the people's revolution in the past three years! Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who laid down their lives in the people's war of liberation and the people's revolution in the past thirty years! Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who from 1840 laid down their lives in the many struggles against domestic and foreign enemies and for national independence and the freedom and well-being of the people! |
” |
Read more about this topic: Monument To The People's Heroes
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)