千人洞

Qianren Dong - Qiān Rén Dòng - Thousand-Men Cave - Qianren Cave

Useful Information

Location:	(36.270216, 118.069238)
Open:
Fee:
Classification:	Karst cave
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System Coloured Light
Dimension:
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Photography:
Accessibility:
Bibliography:
Address:	Qianren Cave.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

SEP-1938 to MAR-1939	used as an arsenal by the Eighth Route Army.
JUN-1965	late Paleolithic remains discovered.
1986	opened as a show cave.

Description

千人洞 (Qianren Dong, Thousand-Men Cave) is a huge cavern, it is thought to be big enough for an army, hence the name. The cave is also known as 石龙洞 (Shilong Cave). The cave portal is 13 m high and 20 m wide, which was closed by a massive wall. The massive chamber behind the wall is 105 m long, 26 m wide and 15 m high. It was used as an arsenal by the Eighth Route Army from September 1938 to March 1939, during the Anti-Japanese War. The place was called the Shandong Column Army Factory and used for building guns and repairing weapons.

It is also a cave temple with 23 wall-carved Buddha statues of various shapes and three groups of bas-relief displaying Buddha stories. Five statues are over 10 m in height, the highest ist the statue of Buddha Sakyamuni, which is 15 high. "Nirvana" is 13.8 m long and is a holy place for Buddhist believers.

In June 1965, Dale Jian, Institute of Paleoanthropology and Paleovertebrate Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Bai Yunzhe, Shandong Museum, discovered an undisturbed sedimentary layer. The 10 m deep excavations revealed numerous layers with archaeological remains. 30 stone tools and numerous animal bones were dated to the late Paleolithic Age some 120,000 years BP. At this time they were the first Paleolithic remains discovered in eastern China. This made this cave quite famous, at least among archaeologists.