Houqile Taoligai Ruins

Houqile Taoligai Ruins

The Houqile Taoligai Ruins is a cultural tourism attraction.

In 1970, a Stone Age stone tool workshop was discovered at Houqile Taoligai (meaning "Flint Ridge" in Chinese), located 4 kilometers southwest of Hanggaigobi Sumu in Urad Middle Banner. Stone cores, scrapers, and artificially flaked stone flakes were excavated.

The Darigai Ruins are located at the Darigai Pass in Urad Rear Banner, covering a total area of more than 1,000 square meters. Not far from the ruins is an orderly array of stone coffin tombs. This site consists of a Neolithic hunting tribe’s settlement and tomb cluster.

The Hulusitai Ruins are located in Hulusitai Sumu, Urad Middle Banner, and belong to the Bronze Age. Typical linked-bead-style Xiongnu plaques have been found here, along with a cluster of Xiongnu tombs dating back to the Spring and Autumn Period nearby.

The Jilu Sai Ruins are situated on a terrace west of the Harhaina Pass, north of Bayinwula Gachaa in Shajintao Hai Sumu, Dengkou County. The fortress is entirely built from gneiss teeth and pebbles, constructed on a mountainside platform about 19 meters above the bottom of the valley. The fortress is square-shaped, with each side approximately 68.5 meters long. The remaining upper wall thickness is about 3.7 meters, while the lower part is about 5.3–5.5 meters thick. The surviving wall height generally measures around 7 meters, reaching up to 8 meters, though only 2 meters high at the northwest gap, with an average height of 7.2 meters. There is only one city gate on the southern wall, outside of which there is a rectangular enclosure resembling a jar-like structure, with an entrance. A ramp is built along the inner side of the southeastern part of the southern wall and the northwest corner. Artifacts unearthed inside the city include Han Dynasty rope-patterned bricks and tiles, gray pottery shards, arrowheads, and a bronze crossbow trigger mechanism.

Within a ten-kilometer radius of the ancient city, there are more than ten Han Dynasty beacon tower ruins, serving as defensive and alarm facilities. Together, Jilu Sai and these beacon towers formed a key military stronghold on the northwestern frontier of the Han Dynasty.

The Yuhun Ancient City, known in Mongolian as Baerhaote and in Chinese as Tuchengzi, is located about 3 kilometers southwest of Shajintao Hai Sumu, Dengkou County. It was built in the second year of Emperor Wu of Han’s Yuanshuo era (127 BC). The city has an irregular rectangular shape, measuring 250 meters at its longest from east to west and 200 meters from north to south. Its northern and northwestern parts are covered by desert. The city walls are 9–13 meters wide, with a gap of about 20 meters in the middle of the southern wall, likely serving as the city gate. The eastern and northern walls have surviving heights of 1–2.5 meters. Slightly east of the center of the city lies a raised platform of about 10,000 square meters, where cultural layers 1–3 meters deep have been detected. The lower layer of the cultural stratum contains Han Dynasty relics, which are quite thick, including large quantities of gray pottery and Han Dynasty construction materials. The middle layer holds Tang Dynasty artifacts, with several types of white porcelain fragments unearthed. The upper layer is from the Ming and Qing dynasties, also relatively thick, featuring numerous Jun ware porcelain fragments, such as blue-and-white porcelain pieces. On the broken walls’ surfaces, iron chains and tri-faced bronze alloy arrowheads can also be found. About 100 meters east of the platform, two Tang Dynasty gold bowls were excavated—one with a lotus-shaped rim and the other with a round rim, engraved with intertwined peony and honeysuckle patterns. These works are exquisitely crafted, with lifelike designs, and although buried underground for over a thousand years, they still shimmered golden upon excavation.

Three kilometers north of the highway beside Bayi Township, Linhe City, lies the site of a Han Dynasty ancient city. The city measures approximately 450 meters from north to south and 210 meters from east to west, with a plan resembling the Chinese character “目”. The northeastern and central parts of the city contain two raised platforms that served as building areas, where a large number of bricks, tiles, and pottery shards were excavated. Two kilometers directly north of the city lies a cluster of Han Dynasty brick and stone tombs.

The Sandingzhangfang Ancient City Ruins are located 0.5 kilometers south of Sandingzhangfang Village, Heiliuzi, Urad Front Banner. The ancient city stretches 1,120 meters from east to west and nearly 1,000 meters from north to south. Parts of the western and southwestern southern walls remain 3–4 meters high, while other sections stand 1–2 meters tall, appearing as earthen ridges. The northeast corner features a relatively large rammed earth platform, likely the site of a corner tower and adjacent structures. A larger architectural foundation is also located slightly south of the city center. Other parts of the city are scattered with construction materials, especially typical Han Dynasty roof tiles and bricks inscribed with the phrase “Changle Weiyang,” which serve as key evidence for dating the site. Artifacts found in the city include pottery jars, vats, bottles, basins, tripods, as well as coins such as Han Dynasty wuzhu and Xin Dynasty daquan. In addition to Han Dynasty items, ring-shaped stone tools and typical Warring States iron tripods have also been unearthed, indicating that this place had already become significant even before the Han Dynasty. The western and northeastern parts of the ancient city ruins contain a large number of ancient tombs.