A launching ceremony to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the foundation of Jiading Museum and the 800th anniversary of Jiading Confucius Temple is held at the temple. [Photo/jiading.gov.cn]

A launching ceremony to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the foundation of Jiading Museum and the 800th anniversary of Jiading Confucius Temple was recently held at the temple.

At the ceremony, an exhibition jointly held by Jiading Museum and Shanghai Museum was opened to display the cultural relics unearthed in Jiading. An animation for the promotion of the Confucius Temple was released for the first time and an activity to select the "treasure of Jiading museum" was launched.

Jiading, located in the northeast of Shanghai city, was originally named "Liucheng city" and designated a county in 1218 during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). At that time, it stretched from Loujiang river in the north to Wusong river in the south and to the sea in the east, but after hundreds of years of changes, it was incorporated into Shanghai in 1958.

Cartoon characters of stone lion are released during the ceremony. There are 72 stone lions stand in front of Jiading Confucius Temple, representing 72 students of Confucius. [Photo/jiading.gov.cn]

Jiading museum was constructed in 1958 and held its first exhibition in 1959. As a national secondary-level museum, Jiading Museum is home to more than 4,000 cultural relics and has received an annual average of 850,000 visitors over the last five years.

In 1959, the district also initiated archaeological work and a great number of unearthed cultural relics showed Jiading's long history and profound culture, including 187 immovable cultural heritages which were officially identified by governments at different levels.

The Confucius Temple is the only national key cultural relics protection unit in Jiading. Also named the Academy, or Xuegong in Chinese, it covers 1.13 hectares at No 183 Nandajie Street. Local experts on ancient buildings believe that the temple used to be the center of local culture and education and that the buildings inside were mainly made in the styles of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. There were also a number of ruins and components from the Song and Yuan (1271-1368) dynasties.

Other cultural heritages, such as the brick pagoda in Nanxing Temple, which could date back over 1,000 years, and Fahua Temple, founded in Yuan Dynasty, all represent the district's profound culture.

Jiading Confucius Temple [Photo/jiading.gov.cn]