The Huangshi-ya Cliff is a small mountain that rises 350 meters above sea level, and is located to the south of the city precincts of Jinan city in China's Shandong province. The Buddhist carvings on the Huangshi-ya Cliff are located near the top of this mountain, and cover an approximately 36 meter wide (east to west) area on the northern cliff face of the mountain. There is one large cave that utilizes a natural cavity, and some 28 small niches. Seven dated records from the 520s (Northern Wei Dynasty) to the 540s (Eastern Wei) are extant on these carvings. The Buddhist arts of the Shandong region are chronologically relatively evenly distributed between dated examples from the latter half of the 5th century, from the Northern and Southern Dynasties Period, through the Sui and Early Tang dynasties. However, this region does not have any of the large scale stone cave temples which formed a central role during this period, such as those found at the Yungang grottoes of Shanxi or the Longmen grottoes of Henan. Examples from this period are scattered in several locations on the Shandong peninsula, and hence it can be said that it is hard to grasp an overall view of the situation of the creation of these Buddhist sculptures and of their styles. Art historical and archeological surveys and reports regarding the Buddhist sculpture of the Huangshi-ya Cliff were carried out in the 1920s by such foreign scholars as Tokiwa Daijo and F. S. Drake. While Chinese researchers have also conducted studies, the road to the site is relatively hard to find and the site has been considered of lesser importance since that period. However, the Buddhist sculpture of the Huangshi-ya Cliff is located in a relatively small geographical area, on the outskirts of Jinan city, and it has historical importance as the oldest of the cave temples on the Shandong peninsula. The contents of this site are also naturally a considerable focus of this paper. The sculpture of the Huangshi-ya Cliff were carved without unified plan directly into the natural caverns and niches of the cliff. In terms of content, these carvings are largely triads in format, depicting one Buddha images and two bodhisattvas. From the individual expression found in the poses of the Buddha images and the bodhisattvas, and their respective draperies, the sculpture of Huangshi-ya Cliff can be seen as generally the kind of images that can be found from this period in the other regions of China, not solely those in Shandong, and there is nothing about them which gives special value to the Huangshi-ya site. Further, the decorative carvings which surrounds these figures consists solely of celestial beings and dragons, and there is not a single example of the architectural decoration or other forms seen in the majority of cave temples. In fact, moreso than sculpture from cave temples, these images are similar to the group of stele works that show triad groups of central deities and celestial beings carved from boat-shaped rocks. The boat-shaped stele form was popular in China's various regions from around the year 500, and each region shows different expressive characteristics. For example, the works that were widely carved in the northern part of Henan province show the non-central figures carved in a flat, low-relief carving and linear incisions, while the Shandong examples show the celestial beings and dragons drawn in relatively deep, three-dimensional relief carving. In the case of Shandong, these works are similar to those which have been carved in the rock face of Huangshi-ya Cliff. These research materials are the result of the on-site study conducted by the author, Mr. Zong Zhang of the Institute of World Religions, The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and one other scholar, and the basic materials of this study are the same content as those published by Mr. Zhang in China (Wenwu 1996–4). However, the present article includes reference to other works of the same period in S
