Celestial Princesses Saga
Author journal

How Do Glazed Bricks Become a Pagoda?

Assembly | A dozen or so bricks, one Buddha Writing about Nanjing’s Bao’en pagoda in Tao’an Mengyi, Zhang Dai describes a Buddha figure assembled from a dozen or so glazed bricks, its robes and features meeting across the joins. His praise cannot establish precision in modern engineering terms. Read Zhang Dai’s account in Chinese

Repairs | Replace a brick by its code Zhang Dai describes obtaining replacement bricks from the Ministry of Works by their identifying codes. His account of spare building materials begins with wen (聞), ‘I have heard’. It does not establish that enough spares existed to build two more complete pagodas. Read the passage on replacement bricks

Material | Architectural liuli is glazed earthenware The heritage entry describes architectural liuli (琉璃) as low-fired, lead-glazed earthenware. Think of a fired clay body beneath a coloured glaze when looking at these bricks and tiles, rather than transparent glass. Read the heritage entry’s material description

Detail of a glazed arch from the Porcelain Pagoda: green, yellow and brown relief with a bird-headed deity above a serpent form

Surviving glazed-arch fragment from Nanjing’s Bao’en pagoda: coloured glaze on a ceramic body, not transparent glass. Photo by Augoustoshai, Wikimedia Commons , CC BY-SA 4.0 .

Firing | First the clay, then the glaze The account of the craft in Beijing’s Mentougou district describes two firings: one after shaping and drying, another after glazing. This is evidence about a regional craft in Beijing, not a construction record for Ming Nanjing’s pagoda. Read about the Mentougou firing process

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Sources

Original research sources (credits and further reading)

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