Several batches of late Northern Dynasties period broken Buddhist stone statues were unearthed in Qingzhou City and the surrounding Boxing, Gaoqing, Linqu and Zhucheng areas in recent years. These finds aroused great interest in academic circles. Analysis of the content of burial, the degree of damage and the surviving bright gold traces of designs and paintings, most of the statues must have been damaged during the time the Northern Zhou Dynasty pursued the policy of wiping out Buddhism after its emperor Wudi destroyed the Northern Qi Dynasty in the sixth year of his Jiande reign (AD 577). The late Northern Dynasties period Buddhist statues from the Qingzhou area are different in style from those recorded in Xinjiang, Liangzhou and Yungang; their difference from the Longmen Grotto images is also easy to distinguish though the two groups of works are rather close in artistic style. Therefore, the Buddhist statues in question should be classified into a new regional type, i. e. the ’’Qingzhou style," which is characterized by the following three major features. 1) Single stone statues constitute the primary content of the "Qingzhou style". In the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei periods, the image with boat-shaped large nimbus was popular, while under the Northern Qi Dynasty, the single Buddha and Bodhisattva became the main objectives of representation. 2) Most of the statues are richly decorated with the body all over painted in colors and traced in gold. The paintings inside the colored squares of kasayas are drawn smoothly, and the human figures are vivid and really true to life, which is a reflection of the then super painting technique. 3) The statue of Maitreya was predominant in the Qingzhou area throughout the late Northern Dynasties period, which is distinctly different from those in other areas.
