Xiuba’s Stone Towers: Form, Craft and a Debated Date

A 2023 account from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences describes five towers near the Bahe Bridge in Gongbo’gyamda County. Each stands about 40 to 50 metres high, and the towers are separated by roughly the same distance. The report describes stone slabs and timber, a twelve-sided exterior, an octagonal interior, and walls about two metres thick with timber embedded on the inner side.

These measurements make Xiuba’s architecture tangible. The towers rise as a group, yet each has its own carefully shaped plan. Stone and wood work together in thick walls, while the contrast between the polygonal exterior and interior gives the buildings a distinctive geometry.

Xiuba is often described in tourism material as more than 1,600 years old. The 2023 CASS account reports another piece of evidence: French tower scholar Frédérique said she had taken a wood sample from the site for radiocarbon dating in France, where it was interpreted as a ninth- or tenth-century cultural remain. The account also says reliable historical records for the towers are lacking.

The two date claims have not been reconciled in the published account. A result from one wood sample speaks to that sample’s age; it does not by itself date every tower or explain the sequence in which the group was built. Xiuba’s chronology remains open, while its surviving stone-and-timber form can still be described in detail.

In 2021, Nyingchi’s tourism quality-rating committee announced that Xiuba Fortress and Gangyun Spruce Forest had been designated national 3A scenic areas after review and public notice. The designation recognizes their tourism status; it sits alongside the separate architectural and historical record of the towers.

At Xiuba, the cluster’s scale, thick walls and carefully shaped interiors invite attention to the builders’ work. The 2023 account brings those features into focus, while the reported radiocarbon result and older tourism date leave the chronology unsettled. The towers are both a striking group of structures and a site whose history continues to be discussed.