The Songyue Temple Pagoda stands at the foot of Mount Song in Dengfeng. Built in the Zhengguang era of the Northern Wei, it is the oldest surviving brick pagoda in China. Its plan is a twelve-sided polygon, unique among Chinese pagodas, and above the body rise fifteen close-set eaves whose outline is shaped something like a shell. Liang Sicheng called it the prototype of the later close-eaved pagodas. It is a component of the World Heritage Site “Historic Monuments of Dengfeng in “The Centre of Heaven and Earth””.
