Tianning Temple Tower

This guide to the Tianning Temple Tower in Beijing follows a brick pagoda raised in 1119 by the faltering Liao dynasty, eight sides and thirteen tiers carved with dragons and lotus petals, built as a kind of prayer to hold a crumbling kingdom together. You'll hear how that prayer failed within years, and how the tower outlived the empire that built it. It also follows historians Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin, who disputed old records dating the tower five hundred years too early. Look up at the spire, cracked by an earthquake and later repaired.