Site of E Wang City

Site of E Wang City

The Site of E Wang City is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

An ancient city site from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Located 500 meters south of Huyangui Village, Gaohé Township, Daye City, Hubei Province. The site covers an area of approximately 120,000 square meters. It is an extremely important historical and cultural ancient city site in southeastern Hubei and was a significant Chu city during the Eastern Zhou period.

According to the "Hubei General Gazetteer – Historical Sites – Wuchang County," there was an E Wang City in Maji Township. The current E Wang City site was originally part of Maji Township, Wuchang County, and is believed to be the E Wang City recorded in the historical texts. In 1982, the Huangshi Museum and other institutions conducted multiple surveys of the site. The city was built along a ridge, with higher terrain in the southwest and lower in the northeast, standing about 5–10 meters above the surrounding ground. The layout is an irregular rectangle, approximately 500 meters long from east to west and 400 meters wide from north to south, with a perimeter of 1,533 meters. The city walls were constructed from red-brown soil mixed with yellow-speckled soil, with rammed layers about 0.1 meter thick. Parts of the southern and northern walls have been damaged, while the eastern and western walls are relatively well-preserved, with a base width of about 20 meters and remaining heights of around 4.5 meters. There are currently seven breaks in the wall, including one on the northern part of the eastern wall about 15 meters wide and one in the middle of the northern wall about 12 meters wide, which may have been the locations of the east and north gates, respectively. Outside the walls, remnants of a moat can be found, about 10–20 meters wide. Within the city, one rammed earth foundation site has been discovered, covering an area of about 2,000 square meters; two kiln sites have also been found, oval in shape, about 1.2–1.4 meters wide and 1.4–1.5 meters high. Outside the city, to the west, southwest, and northwest, there are clusters of earthen mound tombs on the ridges, with mounds about 1–3.5 meters high and 14–20 meters in diameter. The tombs contain white clay, charcoal, and pebbles. Stone axes, bronze ge (dagger-axes), arrowheads, halberds, iron axes, knives, as well as pottery fragments such as ding (tripods), li (tripod cauldrons), dou (stemmed bowls), guan (jars), yu (basins), and weng (vats) have been collected from within the city and its surroundings.

In 2001, it was designated as part of the fifth batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units by the State Council.

Further Reading:

· Third Batch of Hubei Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Fifth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units