Construction ruining heritage of Beijing

In the past three years over 30,000 construction projects have been undertaken in Beijing but the city’s cultural relics bureau has only excavated 237 of the sites, the Beijing News reported.

“Of the 237 excavations, cultural relics bureaus were called in before construction began at only 60 of them,” the paper quoted Song Dachuan, head of the Beijing Cultural Relics Research Institute, as saying.

“The others came after ordinary people reported that cultural relics had been found at the sites during construction.”

Beijing has numerous laws and regulations aimed at preserving buried cultural relics but few are being respected as developers fear archaeological excavations may cause delays, the paper said.

Developers are required to report any historical finds but, according to the paper, builders are destroying countless buried cultural relics that could originate in prehistoric times, up to 500,000 years ago.

During the construction of Beijing’s airport terminal that opened ahead of the August Olympic Games, the construction company got the police to stop cultural protection personnel from entering the site, Song said.

The site was an imperial park during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368-1911) and included the burial grounds of the nobility, he said.

Archaeologists were refused access to a Qing Dynasty defence structure in the northern part of the city that was destroyed during the construction of one of Beijing’s new subway lines, he said.

“Cultural relics are being damaged and destroyed,” said Song, a local politician.

“You cannot remake cultural relics. Once these are destroyed they are gone forever.”

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