Shanxi Yingxian Wooden Pagoda: The tallest and oldest existing wooden building in China

The full name of Sakyamuni Pagoda is Buddha Palace Temple Sakyamuni Pagoda. Yingxian Wooden Pagoda is the tallest, oldest and only existing all-wood structure tower building in China.

Yingxian Wooden Pagoda was built in the second year of Qingning in Liaoning (1056 AD in Song Zhihe three years) and completed in the sixth year of Jinmingchang (1195 AD in the first year of Qingyuan in the Southern Song Dynasty). 30.27 meters, in the shape of a flat octagon. The whole tower consumables 3,000 cubic meters of Korean pine wood, more than 2,600 tons, pure wood structure, no nails and no rivets

The design of the wooden pagoda in Yingxian County boldly inherits the form of heavy buildings with national characteristics since the Han and Tang Dynasties, makes full use of traditional architectural techniques, and widely adopts the bucket arch structure. The whole tower shares 54 types of bucket arches, and each bucket arch has a certain combination form. Some combine beams, squares and columns into a whole, and each layer forms an octagonal hollow structure layer.

In addition to being eroded by day and night, seasonal changes, wind, frost, rain and snow, the wooden pagoda has also been hit by many strong earthquakes. Experts believe that the reasons for ensuring that the wooden tower will not collapse for thousands of years must first be analyzed from the theory of structural mechanics. The tower design contains nearly 60 kinds of bucket arches with different shapes and functions, which are the types of bucket arches used in ancient Chinese architecture. The building with the most and the most exquisite design can be called a bucket arch museum.

From a structural point of view, the general ancient buildings adopt a rectangular or single-layer hexagonal structure, while the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda adopts two octagonal shapes that are nested inside and outside, forming a rigid double-layered barrel-type structure. This greatly enhances the anti-lodging performance of the wooden tower.

In addition, there are thousands of hemp swallows living on the tower in summer. These hemp swallows feed on the worms on the wooden tower and have played the role of "tower guards" for thousands of years. This is what Yingxian people like to talk about. The real "myth" about the wooden pagoda that will not fall for a thousand years.