Four Gates Pagoda, Shentong Temple, Jinan, Shandong 山东济南神通寺四门塔
The Four Gates Pagoda stands on the site of the Shentong Temple below Mount Qinglong at Liubu, Licheng District, Jinan, and is one of the oldest surviving stone pagodas. Built of large stone blocks on a square plan, it has a single storey with an arched door on each side, and a Buddha seated on each face of the central square pillar inside – the prototype of many later funerary pagodas. Liang Sicheng dated it to the Eastern Wei from an Eastern Wei reign date on a statue inside, but an inscription of the seventh year of the Sui Daye reign, found later on a roof slab during repairs, showed that it was built in the Sui.
