Jing bricks still in production

Workers put Jing bricks in neat piles in a kiln at a historic building materials factory in Zhiben Garden, Jiashan county of Zhejiang province, Sept 16, 2010. With a history of 150 years, the brick kiln has long been an important Jing brick manufacturer and was named a provincial culture relics protection unit in 2005. With a high and fine-grain quality, bricks specially used for building royal walls in Beijing during ancient times were called Jing bricks. It allegedly took nearly one year to fire up a kiln of Jing bricks (almost 7,000 bricks in a kiln), which contributed to the fact that the price of a Jing brick was as high as one-liang gold in Ming (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasty (1636-1911), about $700. [Photo/CFP]