Shuiguan is a water pass through which a river channel passes through the city wall, and people are also customarily called: Shuijin Gate and Water Culvert. In the early 1990s, on the banks of the Liangshui River outside the South You'an Gate of the capital, people unexpectedly discovered a ruins, which is the site of Jinzhongdu Shuiguan. Nowadays, it is now the "Beijing Liaojin City Wall Museum".
The museum is backed by a residential area and faces the rushing Liangshui River, which was also the moat of Jinzhongdu at that time. Although this small museum, which opened in the mid-1990s, has not attracted much attention in the museum-studded capital city, if you want to fully understand the history of the ancient capital of the city for three thousand years, you really have to see it here.
The exhibition hall of the Jinzhongdu Shuiguan Ruins and the Exhibition Hall of the Beijing Liaojin Ruins are important points to understand the construction of the Liaojin City Wall. Here we know the general outline of the capital city of Jinzhong in that year: the northeast corner is about near the present-day Xuanwu Gate; the northwest corner is about the present-day Military Museum; the southeast corner is about the present-day Beijing South Railway Station; and the southwest corner is about the present-day Phoenix Mouth.
Walking into the front hall of the museum, directly to the basement floor, is the exhibition hall of the Jinzhongdu Shuiguan Ruins. In the dim light, you can see the scene of the excavation site. The remnants of the water pass are composed of four parts: the bottom of the water culvert, the stone wall of the two compartments of the culvert, the swing of the inlet and outlet, and the rammed earth wall above the water pass, with a total length of 47.4 meters. The spacing between the two stone walls is 7.7 meters, and the maximum height is 1 meter. From the analysis of the cross-sectional view of the site's stratigraphic accumulation on the wall, we know that this water barrier was still in use in the early Yuan Dynasty. That is to say, the water pass seen now was more than 740 years ago, and it was also an important pass for the city to drain water from under the city walls to the outside of the city.
The walls of the Shuiguan site are detailed on the discovery of the site, the exploration of the Shuiguan site, and the significance of the site discovery. The urban drainage project, built more than 870 years ago, provides important physical information for modern people to understand the construction of ancient cities.
Through the first floor of the museum, the bungalow out of the north gate is the "Beijing Liaojin Relics Exhibition Hall". The exhibition hall uses a large number of physical objects to let visitors know about the "old objects" left over from the Liaojin Era. Copper, pottery, porcelain, stone and other artifacts excavated from Shuiguan are incomplete. The gold and silverware, ceramics, architectural components, tomb murals, clothing, rubbings, furniture, carriage and horse harnesses, bronze mirrors, coins, tomb stone statues, stone carvings and other physical objects displayed in the exhibition hall are well preserved, and some still exude brilliant luster.
In addition to the physical relics, the exhibition hall also introduces the ruins of the Jinzhong capital city wall and the Tallinn monasteries, cliff carvings, porcelain kiln sites built in the capital by the Liaojin and Jin dynasties, so that people have a more detailed understanding of the religion and culture of Liaojin.
The history of the development of the Beijing capital on the first floor of the museum outlines the founding lines of the 3,000-year-old ancient capital, and also allows people to understand the past and present lives of the ancient capital.
Tips:
Beijing Liaojin Chengyuan Museum is located at No. 40, Yulin Community, You'anmenwai, Fengtai District, Beijing. The museum is free to visit, but reservation is required. Visitors can log in to the "Beijing Wenbo" public account or the "Beijing Liaojin Chengyuan Museum" WeChat public account below the visit instructions in advance→ online reservation.
Traffic information: Take bus No. 19, No. 377, No. 454, No. 474 No. 48 to You'anmen Outer Station and walk west along the Liangshui River North River for more than 600 meters.