The Ruins of Ancient Beiting City

Situated in Beitinc Town, 12 kilometers north to Jimsar County, the Ruins of Ancient Beiting City lies on the plain between low northern slope of Tianshan Mountains and the edge of Kurbantonggut Desert. The ruins leads eastward to Qitai, Mulei and Hami and westward to Fukang, Urumqi and further to Yili River area, all this suggests that it used to be a strategic place on the ancient Silk Road. To the south it lead to Turpan and to the north it leads over the great desert and to Mongolian Highland. The ruins, in rectangular shape, 1500 meters from south to north and 1000 meters from east to west. According to the measurements of a group from China Academy of Social Sciences, there were outer and inner walls of the ancient city, and the walls were built up by rammed clay. The outer city wall was 7-10 meters thick. Now most of the city walls but the northern part were destroyed. North to the outer city wall there was a circle that was used to keep horses and sheep. And turrets were built at four corners of the city walls and outside the wall were watching towers, and now the remains of the turrets can be seen, the highest one is about 20 meters. There was a city gate for each side of the wall but now only the gate of the northern wall still exists. In the early Western Han Dynasty, the Beiting city was managed by the court of later Qiushi Kingdom and in 60BC(the second year of Shenjue of Emperor Xuan), the Han Court established the Western Region Administration Office and Beiting was Jinmancheng of the Office.