Temple of the Heaven

Passage of the time over the Temple of the Heaven in Beijing, during its 600th anniversary year in December 2020. The long-exposure timelapse sequence has revealed the startrails, the motion of the sky caused by the Earth rotation. This World Heritage Site, built in 1420, has an axial arrangement of Circular Mound Altar to the south open to the sky with the conically roofed Imperial Vault of Heaven immediately to its north. This is linked by a raised sacred way to the circular, three-tiered, conically roofed Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests further to the north. Here at these places the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties as interlocutors between humankind and the celestial realm offered sacrifice to heaven and prayed for bumper harvests. In its overall layout and that of its individual buildings, it symbolizes the relationship between earth and heaven – the human world and God’s world – which stands at the heart of Chinese cosmogony, and also the special role played by the emperors within that relationship.