A Study On The Cultural Heritage Of Yuan’an County

Yuan’an county, situated in the foothills between Jianghan Plain and the highlands of Western Hubei, Yuan’an County is known as the portals of Western Sichuan and gateway of Jingzhou and Xiangfan. Besides, it boasts of a long history. In the spring and autumn and warring states periods, it belonged to the territory of Chu. Later, Liu Che, the Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty settled it as Linju County. In AD 559, it was renamed as "Yuan’an" which is still being used till now. Because of its multivariate geography and profound history, Yuan’an County presents itself with different cultures. Thus, this thesis tries to probe into the cultural characteristics of the area through a deep investigation on its historical and cultural heritages. As is known to all that great amounts of cultural heritages exist just in our ordinary life, with Non-renewable.If not discovered, explored or protected in time, these originally fragile cultural resources are very likely to disappear with the fast development of our society.This thesis sets the historic and cultural heritages of Yuan’an County as its study object. And it mainly consists of the following several aspects.The first chapter is the Introduction, involving the research background, significance, groundwork, methodology, the focus and difficulties of the research.Then the following deserves to be the main body of this study which firstly gives a brief introduction to the ecological environment, history and cultural heritage.Then, on the basis of an investigation, collection and classification of the tangible cultural heritages of Yuan’an County, it makes a cultural explanation on the ancient relics, local architectures, temples, complex of rock houses and revolutionary monuments etc.Next it follows the analysis on the intangible cultural heritages such as the local music, traditional drama and artistry according to the documents, for a detailed interpretation of Yuan’an Wuyin, Yuan’an Huagu Drama, Lei Zu Fair and Luyuan Tea production process.The fourth part probes into the characteristics of historical and cultural heritages of Yuan’an County and the reasons of its formation from angles like history, folklore and anthropology, this part is the focus and innovation for this article. Search through field surveys and other history research methods such as local chronicles, to discuss Taoist culture, Kuan culture, silkworm culture and the red cultre.The final chapter is the Conclusion, which summarizes the major findings of the present study, points out its limitations and proposes suggestions for further study in this regard.