Part of the Ruined Imperial Palace in Yuanmingyuan Park 圆明园
It was quite sobering to see the ruins of the Yuanmingyuan Park European style palaces. The blocks of the palaces were laid out like a giant jigsaw puzzle waiting to be solved. It reminds me a lot of the ruins of the Angkor Wat archeological park where innumerable pieces of temple were collected and catalogued hoping to be later pieced together. Just thinking about this undertaking is already causing me headaches. It is a herculean task to say the least and I don’t think I will see it completed.
Giant Jigsaw Puzzle at Yuanmingyuan Park 圆明园
There were some pieces which were large enough to be pieced together but most were just small pieces. A piece of the floor here, and piece of column there. It was a nightmare. It brings to mind the stupidity of those troops for destroying these structures. Not only was the palace destroyed, it was also looted with a lot of the treasures of the palace carted off to Europe as part of someone’s antique collection. As you can see the destruction was so severe that the emperor was left with no choice but to abandon and rebuilt the palace in the nearby Forbidden City.
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