Yumen Pass and the Great Wall beacon tower ruins

Yumen Pass and the Great Wall beacon tower ruins are located in the Gobi Desert 90 kilometers northwest of Dunhuang city. The attraction comprises three parts.

Yumen Pass (also known as xiao fang pan in Chinese) is the site of a military office in Yumen in the Western Han Dynasty. It is said that Khotan jade first entered the Central Plains (the area comprising the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River) from this pass, hence its name. Now the parapets of the pass remain, in square rammed-earth structures.

The remaining city walls are 26.4 meters long south to north, 24 meters wide east to west, and 9.7 meters high. The upper part of the walls is 3.7 meters wide, the bottom is 4 to 4.9 meters wide, and the rammed section is 0.1 to 0.15 meters thick. With one gate on its east and north sides each, the pass covers a total area of 630 sq m. Around the pass are ruins of barracks, turrets and pagodas.

Hecang City (also known as da fang pan in Chinese) served as a munitions depot to store supplies for the western border lines in the Han Dynasty through to the Wei and Jin dynasties.

Situated 10 kilometers east of Yumen Pass, Hecang City was built on a natural earth station two meters above the river bed on the south bank of Shule River. In a rectangle layout, the south-facing rammed-earth structure has a south gate. Its walls extend 132 meters long east to west, 17 meters wide north to south, 6.7 meters high, and 1.5 meters thick.

Inside the city, there are three warehouses, separated by partition walls with two rows of ventilation windows on the top and bottom. Wing walls stand on the east, west and north sides of the city, with four piers in the corners. A beacon tower stands 100 meters south of the city and is called "Hecang Beacon Tower".

The Great Wall beacon towers are distributed east to west in an area two kilometers north of the Yumen Pass. The Han Dynasty Great Wall sections in the jurisdiction of Dunhuang city extend around 150 kilometers long in total and the best-preserved parts are found near the Yumen Pass. There are nearly 80 beacon towers along the Great Wall.

The Western Han Dynasty Great Wall was constructed with laminated plates of gravels and reeds/rose willows. The best-preserved parts are about 400 meters long, 3.25 meters high, three meters wide at the bottom, and one meter wide at the top. A six- to seven-meter wide defense was established along the inner side of the Great Wall.

In 1979, Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Dunhuang Municipal Museum discovered the Maquanwan Beacon Tower ruins of the Han Dynasty, which is 11 kilometers west of Yumen Pass. During excavation, 337 items were unearthed, including 1,217 pieces of bamboo slips. Before the discovery, a total of 2,285 slips had been discovered around the Yumen Pass and the Han Dynasty Great Wall.

The Yumen Pass, Hecang City and Maquanwan Beacon Tower ruins are cultural relics units under provincial protection.