Shimao Ruins Museum

A museum is being built to showcase the ancient Shimao culture in Yulin city, Northwest China's Shaanxi province. 

A design sketch of the Shimao Ruins Museum [Photo/ylrb.com]

The museum is designed to occupy an area of 12,890 sq m, consisting of three major functional areas - the exhibition area, the management center and the archaeological research center. 

The old Shimao ruins [Photo/yl.gov.cn]

The Shimao ruins are the remains of a neolithic city, which was built about 4,300 years ago and abandoned roughly 300 years later during the Xia Dynasty (2100 BC-1600 BC), the first dynasty of China described in historical chronicles.

Composed of Huangcheng Terrace, an inner city and an outer city, with a total area exceeding four million sq m, Shimao is currently the largest known city site in China of that period. 

A stone statue of a human face discovered in the Shimao ruins [Photo/yl.gov.cn]

Over the past 10 years, excavators have uncovered immense fortifications and sophisticated infrastructure, as well as thousands of luxurious artifacts and a 230-foot-high stepped pyramid.

It has been listed as one of the top 10 archaeological discoveries of the past decade by the Archaeology Journal.