Zhenfeng Pagoda: visitor inscriptions inside a river landmark

Zhenfeng Pagoda is a nationally protected heritage site and a public landmark in Anqing. A 2024 report by the city’s United Front Work Department draws attention to a less visible feature: more than fifty historical stone inscriptions distributed through the tower. The image of a pagoda on the Yangtze horizon is only the outside of its story. Inside, carved words record people who climbed the structure, visited it or made offerings.

According to the report, many interior inscriptions date from the Ming and Qing periods and record visitors or donors. They are not all formal commemorative plaques. Their scattered positions preserve small acts of presence: someone climbed the tower, chose a surface, and left writing that later readers can still encounter. Together the inscriptions make the pagoda an archive of use as well as a religious and architectural structure.

The 2024 report says inscriptions on the exterior wall at the first level had been displayed behind glass, while many interior carvings remained exposed. Their height made them reachable, and the report records damage from touching and scratching. It describes the conservation situation at that time and raises a practical question: how can visitors see the marks closely without adding wear to them?

The author proposed expert dating, cleaning and conservation measures, including surface films or a protective coating. These suggestions were recommendations, not evidence that a treatment had already been carried out. The inscriptions’ value lies partly in their irregularity: each belongs to a different visitor, moment and intention. Protecting them means preserving that layered record while making the interior legible to the people who continue to enter the tower.