Ancient City Ruins of Liye

The site of Ancient City Ruins of Liye (Chinese: 里耶古城遺址; pinyin: lǐyē gǔchéng yízhǐ) is the archaeological site of seat of the historic Qianling County (Chinese: 遷陵縣) in Dongting Prefecture (Chinese: 洞庭郡), Qin dynasty (221 BC–206 BC). Its site is located in the present-day Liye Town, Longshan County, Hunan Province, China, and it is known for 37,400 pieces of Qin Bamboo slips unearthed in 2002. The Ancient City was built by Chu State in the late Warring States period, reconstructed in the Qin dynasty and abandoned in the early Western Han dynasty. The site of Ancient City Ruins was approved as a hiistorical and cultural site protected at the national level in Hunan on November 22, 2002. The Qin Bamboo Slips Museum and the Ruins Park has been established and officially opened on October 28, 2010.

In June 1985, a group of bricklayers digging to make bricks excavated ancient potteries and weapons, the archaeologists had gradually carried out archaeological excavations there since then. As part of the Wanmipo Hydropower station (Chinese: 碗米坡水電站) construction, the archaeologists from Hunan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology (Chinese: 湖南省考古研究所) and the local archaeological units started a rescue excavation for the site of ancient cultural remains in Liye on April 17, 2002, the ancient city gradually revealed. In the ancient city ruins, there are a moat, a rampart, building ruins and drainage facilities, ancient wells are spread regularly in the inner and outer side. All the buildings and facilities together formed a complete system of an ancient city. In June 2002, more than 36,000 Qin Bamboo slips were unearthed in an ancient well, the event was considered as the most important archaeological discovery of the Qin dynasty after the Qin Terracotta Army unearthed in 1973 in an eastern suburb of Xi'an.

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