Folklore Analysis Of Nanjing City Wall

As a carrier of the historical information, The walls not only embodies the guiding ideology of the rulers’ fortification, but accompanied by generations of people undergoing the change of dynasties as well as a variety of historical events. All past now already had changed, but the history leave its deep imprint on the wall. It not only makes you feel you are now, and will always belong to the history, but also belong to this specific city. This belongs to the memory of city, which is sealed for a long time. It may also be regarded as a kind of attitude, complex or even a philosophical views beyond the realm of the memory.As a cultural concept and architectural style, the "Wall" is a worldwide phenomenon. Since600years ago, the city of Nanjing, as one of the most distinguished ancient capitals, has been closely related to the Wall. Firstly being utilized as one form of cold (defense)arms during the war years until nowadays, as an important embodiment of the pursuit for the humanistic spirit of the citizens, the Walls of Nanjing city have always been an important symbol through the whole city. Either taking the Walls as a whole to explore its symbolic connotation or researching the bricks, gates and the spatial culture they brought about, the Walls always contain abundant information about the institution, thought, culture and city spirit of the historical changes.This paper is concentrated on the research of the Nanjing city wall, adopting such methodologies as the document research and field investigation. The paper has investigated extensively about the bricks, walls, the architects of the walls and the city layout. By means of combining the angles of the city wall with archaeology, architecture, urban history and geography, economics and sociology, it attempts to analyze the city walls’ characteristics in system culture, square culture, spatial culture, social formation features of the regions separated by the city walls and the influences of the walls themselves to the lives of the people. From a brand new perspective of folk semeiology to investigate the profound connotation of the city walls, the paper regards the city walls as a symbolic sign to investigate the culture and the symbolic meaning of the walls.