The rise of the stele school, or beixue , was closely connected to the development of academia after the middle of the Qing dynasty, which saw the calligraphers at the time gaining stone carving abilities, which was an art overlooked by the school of calligraphy in earlier times. Stone carvings from the Northern Song dynasty were mostly religion-oriented(namely Buddhism or Taoism), and today much of the research conducted on them has been derived from studies on the history of calligraphy, focusing on the origin of a specific calligraphy style and the script used, the content inscribed, and it’s historical references, withfield studies and archaeological data integrated. Further examinations and studies are conducted on Northern Song dynasty’s religious stone carvings, with unique case studies, such as “the Recordation of Statue of Ci Xiang”, reexamined, in order to gain further understanding on these religious stone carvings’ production backgrounds and possible cultural implications.
