The Beiting Ancient City is located in Hubaozi, about 12
kilometers north of Jimusaer County in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The city, developed from Tingzhou City of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), was a
town of military importance in North China until its desolation in the early
Ming (1368-1644).
In 1820 during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Chinese scholar Xu Song carried
out the first site study and discovered some precious cultural relics, such as
stone tablets from the Tang Dynasty. Between 1979 and 1980, the Archaeological
Research Institute of the Chinese Social Science Academy discovered a large
number of clay statues and exquisite frescos at a Buddhist temple site from the
Gaochang Huihu period , about 700 meters north of the city.
The ancient city was built on a large scale, assuming an irregular oblong
shape. The inner city is located in the northeast part of the central outer
city. The outer city has a perimeter of 4,596 meters, while the inner one
measures 3,003 meters. The 10-meter-high city walls were built with tampered
earth about eight to 12 meters thick. The city is surrounded by military defense
works, such as the city moat. Original constructions from within the city no
longer exist, with the exception of three damaged city-wall bases and nine other
dilapidated sites, two of which are temples.
According to analyses, the outer city was built during the Zhenguan reign of
the Tang Dynasty (627-649), while the inner city was built during the Gaochang
Huihu period, A large number of cultural relics from the Tang period were
unearthed at the site, including flat and round tiles, square bricks with
lotus-flower patterns, bronze official seals, bronze lions, stone lions, bronze
mirrors, stone balls, pipes and porcelain
wares.