URUMQI, March 31 (Xinhua) — The Keyakekuduke Watchtower site in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is included in the list of the 10 most sensible Chinese archaeological finds of 2021 released Thursday.
The site, in the desert 90 km southeast of Yuli County, Mongolian autonomous prefecture of Bayingolin, dates back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907), said the team leader of the Hu Xingjun Site Excavation Project of the Regional Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. . .
The institute conducted an archaeological excavation on a 2,300-square-meter domain from 2019 to 2021 and dug up homes, a fence, steps, ash piles, ponds and more than 1,400 cultural relics, adding paper documents.
The excavations reveal a complete picture of the watchtower and provide abundant first-hand material for the study of border army garrisons in ancient China, Hu said.
“The documents are rich in content and involve military, political, economic, cultural, legal, transportation, social life and devout beliefs,” Hu said, adding that the documents largely complement the Tang Dynasty’s main border defense points.
The documents also demonstrate the effective management of the western regions through the central government of the Tang Dynasty, Hu added.