Ravenswood Chinese Temple Site拉文斯伍德华人庙宇遗址

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

Australia · Queensland · Ravenswood · Former gold-mining town of Ravenswood, North Queensland

First built

the late nineteenth century · The building has long since disappeared, giving the site high archaeological value; two "roast-pig oven" remains still survive

Overview

Ravenswood was a gold-mining and ore-processing town in late-nineteenth-century North Queensland, where Chinese miners and market gardeners settled and built a temple. The temple building has long since disappeared, and it should be stated clearly that this is a site rather than a surviving temple; however, the site itself retains significant archaeological value, and two "roast-pig ovens" can still be identified on the surface — stone-built ovens of this kind, used to roast whole pigs for deity birthdays and sacrificial rites, were an essential facility of Chinese temple worship, and very few survive in Australia; together with similar remains at the Croydon site, they form the physical evidence for Australian Chinese sacrificial practice. Because neither the Ravenswood nor the Croydon site has been built over by later development, both are regarded as irreplaceable resources for studying the layout of regional Australian Chinese temples and their ritual practice.

Highlights

• Site of a Chinese temple in a North Queensland gold-mining town
• Two "roast-pig oven" ritual remains still survive
• High archaeological value, undisturbed by later development
• The building has entirely disappeared