Important dates and artifacts

-In Xian, 781 AD, was the official arrival of Nestorian missionaries in China.

-In 1623 an ancient stele was discovered near Xi’an, just thirty miles from the Christian pagoda.

 

 

 

By 1625, the stele’s inscriptions had been published by the Jesuit Father Trigault.

 In the early twentieth century the stele stood near a Buddhist temple, a mile outside the western gate of Xi’an.

In 1907 it was moved to its present location among the Xi’an historical museum’s famous collection of ancient steles.

The tablet stands about eight feet high, is just over three feet wide, and about a foot thick.

 It weighs nearly two tons. It contains 32 vertical lines with approximately 1,800 beautiful and well-preserved Chinese characters.

 Setting this inscription apart from similar ancient inscriptions are the words in its bottom margin—23 short lines in ancient Syriac script.

On the narrow sides of the stone are an additional 70 lines in Chinese and Syriac.

-This tablet is now housed at the Forest of Steles Museum in Xi'an, and is available for visits by tourists, as seen in the picture below.

-In 638 the first Nestorian church was created in Changan. Evidence of Nestorian Christian writings can be found in previously mentioned cave temples at Dunhuang

-The councils of Ephesus (431 AD)

-Chalcedon (451 AD)