A 600-year-old brick bearing Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau Tak-wah’s name has gone viral on social media in mainland China.
Three characters, identical to the actor and singer’s Chinese name, were carved into the city wall of Nanjing, the ancient capital of the early Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
The inscriptions, carved into a brick now preserved at the Nanjing City Wall Museum, offer clues about the identity of the ancient namesake – whose name is pronounced “Liu Dehua” in Mandarin.
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The Ming-era Liu, who hailed from what is now Jiangxi province, was a brickmaker, People’s Daily reported on Saturday, citing heritage officials.
The inscription gained attention online after a film marking the 660th anniversary of the construction of the Nanjing Ming City Wall was released earlier this month. The brick was featured to illustrate an ancient quality-control method that required artisans to inscribe their names on their products.
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“All the bricks … are marked with Chinese characters recording their origin, the official in charge of their making and the individual maker,” according to information submitted to Unesco by the National Cultural Heritage Administration. It added that the practice was unique to the city wall of Nanjing.
