The Baojia Gold Mine Ruins

The Baojia Gold Mine Ruins

The Baojia Gold Mine Ruins are a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Era: Tang to Ming

The Baojia Gold Mine Ruins, located in Baojia within Chating Town, Shangrao City, Jiangxi Province, are the earliest known gold mine site in China to date. Operating through five dynasties—Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing—for over 1,100 years, their remarkable longevity and scale are rare in the world. The Baojia Gold Mine Ruins span an area of twenty-five square kilometers. The site mainly consists of mining areas, ore processing areas, and smelting areas, all of which are well-preserved. It features China’s most spectacular open-pit gold mining site, a water-powered automatic gold panning facility ingeniously carved from massive natural rocks, as well as numerous underground mining remains, making up a complete mining system. The waste rock piles in the ore processing area are striking in scale. The central smelting zone also includes ore processing sites and slag heaps. In addition, a large number of ceramic artifacts that help determine the archaeological dating have been unearthed, along with cliff inscriptions from the Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties related to the ancient mine. The ruins were shortlisted as one of the “Top 100 New Discoveries” in the third national cultural relics survey of Jiangxi Province in 2010. In May 2013, they were officially designated as part of the seventh batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units by the State Council.

Further Reading:

· Seventh Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units