A 1,500-meter city wall of the Western Zhou Dynasty (11 century B.C.- 771 B.C.) have been found around a newly found tomb group at the Zhougong Temple site in Qishan County in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Chinese archaeologists said Tuesday.

As the archaeological excavation at Fenggao, capital of the Western Zhou Dynasty, has not discovered any relics of a city wall,the discovery of the city wall at the Zhougong Temple site is of great significance to the research on the history of the Western Zhou Dynasty, said Lei Xingshan, associate professor with the School of Archaeology and Museology at Beijing University, who participated in the archaeological excavation at the Zhougong Temple site.

The city wall runs around the newly found tomb group, which is considered of the highest tomb standard of the Western Zhou Dynasty ever discovered in China.

The rest of the wall is distributed around the eastern, northern and western sides of the tomb group with a length of 700 meters, 300 meters and 500 meters respectively. And the wall is some 10 meters thick.

About seven kilometers from Qishan County, the Zhougong Temple was built in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) to commemorate Zhougong, the regent of the newly established Western Zhou Dynasty.

The excavation at the Zhougong Temple site, which was done by the Shaanxi Archaeological Research Institute and Beijing University, started in February. Since then a large-scale investigation and excavation was made in the region around the Zhougong Temple.
 
(Xinhua News Agency May 27, 2004)