The Iron Lion of Cangzhou is a cast iron

Cast iron

Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...

  sculpture

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

 located in the town of Cangzhou

Cangzhou

Cangzhou is a prefecture-level city in Hebei province, People's Republic of China. Cangzhou's urban center has a population of approximately 514,074 at the 2010 census which correspond to the built up area), while the prefecture-level administrative region in total has a population of 7,134,053...

 in Hebei

Hebei

' is a province of the People's Republic of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is "" , named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei...

 Province, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, about 180 km (110 mi) southwest of the national capital Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

. Cast in 953

953

Year 953 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.- Europe :* Liudolf, Duke of Swabia and Conrad the Red rebel against German King Otto I....

 AD, the iron lion is
the largest known and oldest surviving iron-cast artwork in China.

The sculpture, which is also known as the "Sea Guard Howler", is 5.78 
m (19 ft) high, 6.5 m (21 ft 4 in) long, 3.17 m (10 ft 5 in) wide, and has an estimated weight
of 40 tonne

Tonne

The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...

s (44 tons

Short ton

The short ton is a unit of mass equal to . In the United States it is often called simply ton without distinguishing it from the metric ton or the long ton ; rather, the other two are specifically noted. There are, however, some U.S...

). On its back, it carries a basin-shaped lotus throne
with a maximum diameter of about 2 m (6 ft 7 in) and a height of 70 cm (28 in). Presumably, the iron lion was originally displayed
inside a Buddhist

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 temple and carried a bronze statue of the
bodhisattva

Bodhisattva

In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either an enlightened existence or an enlightenment-being or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one for enlightenment ." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," although in modern publications, and...

 Manjusri

Manjusri

Mañjuśrī is a bodhisattva associated with transcendent wisdom in Mahāyāna Buddhism. In Esoteric Buddhism he is also taken as a meditational deity. The Sanskrit name Mañjuśrī can be translated as "Gentle Glory"...

 on the lotus seat. The bronze statue was
later removed, maybe because of the higher value of the bronze.

The iron lion was cast using a piece-moulding technique in a single
mould. In this technique, which has also been used in ancient Chinese
bronze-casting, a clay model of the sculpture is made and covered with
a new layer of clay after drying. This outer layer of clay is then cut
into pieces and removed before it dries completely. In the next step,
material is taken off the surface of the inner clay model in order to
provide room for pouring the iron between the outer and inner
mould. Hence, "seams" visible on the cast do not represent boundaries
between separate iron pieces, but are impressions of the seams between
the pieces of the outer mould. Casting did proceed in several stages
between which the iron already poured into the mould did cool down. As
a result, fault lines were introduced into the cast at regular
intervals which mark the filling height of the mould at successive
casting stages. These fault lines were bridged by the craftsmen
carrying out the cast with pieces of wrought iron which were plunged
into the solidifying surface of the iron from the previous pour and
then covered in the next pour. Traces of these bridging pegs as well
as those of wrought iron spacers used to separate the outer mould from
the core can still be found in the sculpture.

Over the years, the iron lion sculpture has sustained various kinds of
damage: By 1603, its tail had been lost. In 1803, a storm
toppled the statue resulting in damage to its snout and belly. In
1886, it was supported with stones and bricks on the orders of a
local magistrate. In 1961, it was listed as a national key
cultural relic. In 1984, the iron lion was remounted on a stone
pedestal. Its legs were filled with a sulfate compound. Probably due
to these interventions, cracks began to appear in the
sculpture. Therefore, most of the compound was removed during
restoration work carried out in 2000.

The iron lion is an important cultural icon in Cangzhou, the city is
referred to as the "Lion City" and a local beer (Cangzhou Lion Beer)
is named after the sculpture.