In Tainan, during the 1930's of Japanese time, the city walls and gates were torn down to make room for new roads. A few of the gates and sections of wall were relocated and some remnants are still around town.
The biggest gate in it's original site is the Grand East Gate shown below. It sits in its own park with traffic on both sides. The temple was added on top is post WWII.
The Lesser South Gate also sits on its original site that is also now a park. The
the long tunnel under the gate was a good control point if the walls could be held.
Some of the linestone blocks used to build the wall have fossils in them. How did the ancients explain fossils before the idea of deep time came up in the 1800's? I don't know.
The Lesser East Gate was moved to the NCKU campus in 1970. How was that done? Brick by brick and reconstructed? How many man hours did that take? The Lesser East Gate is outside my language classes, I pass it every day. The tunnel is maybe 40 feet long and I doubt an SUV could get through it.
Like the Great Wall of China, this remnant of the South Wall is made from whatever was available, there is a section still visible at the University of Tainan Campus. You can see that it was a haphazard affair. I'm sure cannons, like those at the Eternal Golden Fort in the 1800's would not be stopped by such a wall.
The final remnant of the city walls is the Lesser Western Gate. It took 2 maps and a guide book to find this one. It's part of an alley now but still has a plaque and is in good shape. Inside the passage way the walls are the fossiliferous limestone, same as at the Lesser Southern Gate.
2 comments:
The gates really add to the city's sense of history and are charming. The lesser East gate has a special look to it. We wouldn't find it in Bellevue! I love your illustrations.
The gate is interesting. It really hard to imagine how it was prevent people from coming. There were gate in Taipei but it was torn down for "greater future"
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