The Bajiazi City Site

The Bajiazi City Site

The Bajiazi City Site is a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level.

The Bajiazi City Site, located in Jianping County, Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province, is an ancient city site dating from the Liao Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty. In May 2013, it was designated as part of the seventh batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level.

The Bajiazi site underwent cross-year excavation from October 2014 to May 2015, with a total excavated area of 2,100 square meters. “Most of the house foundations were in poor condition, with unclear boundaries, leaving only traces of hearths and heated kang bed flues.”

The better-preserved structures at the Bajiazi site are semi-subterranean house foundations, which are square in plan, with relatively intact indoor hearths and heated kang beds. The openings of ash pits come in oval, circular, rounded-square, and irregular shapes; the pit walls are mostly straight, with a few being curved; the pit bottoms are flat, rounded, or irregular.

Among the various excavated house foundations, the design of the heated kang beds is largely in an “L” shape, with clear remains of flues, kang surfaces, and stove platforms. These kang beds, over a thousand years old, are all around 10 square meters in size — no smaller than those used by residents in northern China today. A notable feature is that the flues and kang surfaces are relatively low in design, with the kang tops clearly covered by grooved blue bricks and stone slabs, giving them the appearance of a “floor mat.”

Further reading:

· Fourth Batch of Cultural Relics Protection Units in Liaoning Province

· Seventh Batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level