Museum plan for Tongzhou wall

Tongzhou Commission of Urban Planning said Sunday that it plans to build a new museum to preserve the historical remains of Tongzhou city walls discovered during the construction of Subway Line 6.

This follows criticism of cultural heritage authorities in summer 2012, when heritage protection activists accused them of not taking enough action to preserve the remains of the ancient walls and the former east gate of Tongzhou, which was at the northern end of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

The remains were discovered in 2011, but still in July 2012, the site was not being protected, and authorities seemed unsure as to the best way to preserve the ruins, which date from the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The new plan calls for the museum to be surrounded with a sunken square, from which people can access the underground museum. The museum will be separated into two stories, with the upper one around 7 meters deep and the second one at 12 meters deep, the Beijing News reported Sunday.

Zeng Yizhi, a member of the International Committee on Monuments and Sites in China has been tracking this project throughout.

From what she has seen from observing the subway construction site from a vantage point on a nearby tall building, the dilapidated city walls were cut into smaller pieces and transferred elsewhere on trucks.

"Moving the relics, which can be very damaging, took place mainly from last August [2012] to September," she told the Global Times Sunday.

So far, neither local nor municipal authorities have explained the decision to uproot the relics, instead of trying to preserve them in situ.

Previously, heritage protection experts, including He Shuzhong from Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, had told the Global Times the remains should be preserved on site, and the planned subway station moved.

Zeng noted that removing historical remains from underground is illegal since they are immovable cultural relics by legal definition.

"Therefore, the subway construction there is an illegal project," she said. She also agreed that the remains should not have been moved, and the subway station should have been relocated instead.

An employee of the Tongzhou Commission of Urban Planning, responsible for the construction plans for Subway Line 6, surnamed Meng, confirmed that the ruins have been transferred off-site to make way for construction of the subway station.

"I understand underground cultural remains are all immovable cultural relics and should not be moved but the removal was approved by experts from the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage after inspecting the spot in early 2012," he told the Global Times.

Meng said that the museum would be open to the public in 2014 when Line 6 in Tongzhou district is completed.

"So far the museum is not under construction," he said, adding that he does not know when the construction work will start.

"Neither the subway line nor station has been affected by the preservation of the historical remains," he said.

Meng would not specify how much the project was expected to cost, and would not comment on how the relics were moved, nor where they were being stored.

He admitted that the relics could not be moved back to their exact original location due to the station construction, but they would be placed back as close as possible to the original spot.

"Not every cultural relic unit should be preserved," said Meng.

"It's already good enough to build a museum upon the actual site of the historical remains for their preservation," he said.

The plans also include restoration of Jing'an Temple, which dates from 1161, and its surrounding area, located to the northwest of the subway station. Since the current location of the temple does not affect the subway construction, it has not been moved.

The Global Times also reached the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage as well as the Tongzhou District Commission of Cultural Heritage Sunday, yet neither of them were informed of the museum project or the removal of the walls.

In 1996, the relics of several 25,000-year-old bones and ancient tools were discovered during the construction of Oriental Plaza in Dongcheng district. The construction project paused for eight months while the excavation was completed. Wangfujing Paleolithic Museum, which houses the remains, opened in 2001.