Qing Dynasty Mural Art and the Spatial Order of Ritual Spaces: Archaeological Perspectives on Heritage Education and Sustainable Geosite Tourism Development

This study examines how Qing Dynasty mural art and the spatial order of ritual spaces can be interpreted archaeologically for heritage education and sustainable geosite tourism development. It focuses on mural-bearing temples, ancestral halls, tomb-related ritual environments, and landscape linked heritage spaces where painted iconography, movement, sightlines, altar orientation, material evidence, and local geomorphology jointly shape visitor learning. The study used a completed cross sectional mixed-method design structured around quantitative PLS-SEM analysis and qualitative stakeholder interviews. The empirical analysis is based on a primary field dataset comprising 326 valid questionnaire responses and completed semi-structured stakeholder interviews with curators, educators, guides, planners, and community representatives. Five constructs were examined: Qing mural spatial-ritual legibility, archaeological authenticity perception, heritage education engagement, geo-interpretive infrastructure quality, and sustainable geosite tourism development intention. Reliability, validity, HTMT discriminant validity, R-square statistics, path analysis, mediation, and moderation were assessed as part of the empirical analysis. The estimated model suggests that spatial ritual legibility and archaeological authenticity perception are strongly associated with higher heritage education engagement. Heritage education engagement is the strongest statistical predictor of sustainable geosite tourism development intention, while geo-interpretive infrastructure quality shows significant direct and moderating associations. The mediation analysis indicates that the educational translation of mural spatial order is a central explanatory pathway linking Qing mural heritage with sustainable tourism value. This study contributes an interdisciplinary model connecting Qing mural art, ritual spatial order, archaeological authenticity, heritage education, and geosite tourism. It extends mural studies beyond stylistic interpretation by treating mural walls as spatial, ritual, material, and educational interfaces. The findings offer practical implications for route design, digital interpretation, school programmes, community guide training, and tourism planning that protects fragile mural surfaces while creating local benefits. This study addresses a research gap in which existing mural studies tend to privilege iconography, style, and conservation condition, whereas tourism studies rarely test how perceived ritual-spatial legibility and archaeological authenticity shape heritage education and sustainable geosite intention. This study fills this gap by modelling perceived spatial order, authenticity, education, geo-interpretive infrastructure, and sustainable tourism intention within one SEM framework. In this article, geosite tourism is used as a geo-cultural landscape category in which mineral pigments, building stone, landform, hydrology, and mural-bearing ritual spaces are interpreted together; it is not used to claim that every mural site is a formally designated geopark.