Heritage
The Le Loi Stele — a mark of sovereignty on the Da River
· Bài mẫu — tổng hợp từ báo chí
Nearly six centuries ago King Le Thai To had a poem carved into a cliff above the Da River. The inscription is now a National Treasure of Vietnam.
A poem carved into the cliff
In 1431 King Le Thai To (Le Loi) led his army up the Da River to put down a revolt by Deo Cat Han, a chieftain of Muong Le. Once the region was pacified he had a poem carved into the Pu Huoi Cho cliff on the north bank of the river, in what is now Le Loi commune, Lai Chau province.
The inscription — 132 Chinese characters in regular script, set in a frame of roughly 1.4 × 0.8 m — reminds the frontier chieftains that their land belongs to a single, unified country.
Moved above the reservoir
The original site lay in the area later flooded by the Son La hydropower reservoir. In 2012 the inscribed rock face, a block of about 15 tonnes, was cut out whole and moved some 500 m uphill into the grounds of the King Le Thai To temple.
The stele was listed as a national historic monument in 1981 and recognised as a National Treasure on 22 December 2016.
The 3D model above is a placeholder rock; a scan of the real stele will replace it.
Sources (Vietnamese): Bao Lai Chau · Bao Phap luat