Cnetizens: Why the thousand-year-old stone statues at the Northern Song Mausoleums aren’t covered with glass enclosures.
The director of the Cultural Relics Bureau replies: "They’ve stood here largely intact for over a millennium. Why add extra barriers?"
Visitors worry wind, rain and sunlight in the farmland will wear them down. The director explains:
Glass covers speed up decay—it’s like locking the statues in a sauna. Trapped heat and moisture create sharp temperature shifts. Salt crystals inside the stone expand and crack the carvings far faster than open-air exposure.
These statues blend naturally with the farmland landscape. Glass barriers would destroy the sense of scale and historical atmosphere.
When first built, the mausoleum complex was a restricted royal compound ringed by walls, palaces and pine trees—no farmland at all. After the Song fell, protection systems collapsed. Wars and weather destroyed buildings. Local residents gradually dismantled the abandoned structures, reusing timber and bricks in nearby villages.
By the Ming and Qing dynasties, villagers turned the empty grounds into farmland, leaving stone figures scattered amid crops.
Few people damaged the statues for three reasons: each weighs several tons and is impossible to move; folk belief held that anyone who damaged the guardian statues would be cursed with misfortune; every later dynasty passed laws punishing those who vandalized former imperial mausoleums.
Once an exclusive imperial burial ground, now ordinary farmland—this shift tells the story of history. Glass covers would only be unnecessary. As an old Chinese poem puts it: 旧时王谢堂前燕，飞入寻常百姓家
The swallows that were wont to grace the halls of Wang and Xie,
Now seek the humble roofs of common men.
This 2006 house in Duluth, MN is called an "Artisan Estate" b/c it's a skillfully handcrafted modern version of a Craftsman style home. 3bds. 2ba. 1,956sqft, $1.2m.
Look at the painting on the fireplace chimney, and it's a tree that goes all the way up to the ceiling.
The living room is pretty. The woodwork is very beautifully done and notice that for authenticity they used radiators. They must've bought them at an architectural salvage yard.
They look like they came from a Victorian home.
This is a nice touch. I've never seen anything like this in an original Craftsman. You never see a 2nd fl. mezzanine, let alone a curved balcony.
The dining area is in the rounded tower at the back of the house.
Beautiful cabinetry and counters.
Look at the built-in benches.
Large primary bedroom.
This bath is in the tower. So pretty.
Looks like a child's room. Very nice.
Also on the property there's this adorable little studio that looks like a lighthouse.
It's more like a rental or guest cottage, and has a kitchenette.
And, it has a little sleep loft. The trap door in the ceiling must go up into the top of the "lighthouse."
Salt of the Earth actually has a crazy interesting history- OP already said it was made in 1954, but that was in the middle of the Red Scare (communism scary cold war hysteria)
Congress’s anti-communism target fell hard on Hollywood, and those in the industry who were suspected of communism at all were blacklisted from all jobs, because studio’s didn’t want to face backlash from Congress
Salt of the Earth was made nearly 100% with blacklisted crew members from Hollywood, and had such difficulty finding actors that they hired local citizens and miners from the actual strike the plot is based on. There were only 5 trained actors involved, and one of them (Rosaura Revueltas, the woman in the gif) was deported to Mexico before they finished filming on accusations of communism, with no proof and no substance. The filming was plagued with police harassment and threats (according to my professor they were shot at more than once), and the local union hall was burned down.
The movie itself not only covers a real 1950′s labor strike demanding safer and more equal labor conditions for Mexican-American employees, but after the miners were facing arrest, their wives and children took up the strike in their place. The movie’s combination of blacklisted crew, civil rights and feminist message, and pro-union plot (during the red scare) got the movie blacklisted and only 12 theaters in the entire United States would show the movie- it was successful in Europe, but didn’t actually achieve viewership in the US until the 60′s
when i was a kid my parents bought me an inflatable doll of the Scream by Edvard Munch (??) that was significantly taller than i was at the time and i used to slow-dance with it and pretend it was my boyfriend. It had its hands attached to its head obviously so it felt like he was always a bit horrified to be forced to dance with me
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