Ancient Chinese Tombs Were Demolished to Build a Subway

Guangzhou, located in the southern part of China, is the country's third most populous city, and is currently adding an eighth line to its main metro system to help shuttle around the 5.6 million people that ride it daily. According to South China Morning Post, contractors working on the new Line 6 demolished a group of ancient tombs, which were between 2,200 and 3,000 years old, sometime last Friday night.

Worse yet, the tombs weren't some undiscovered, unknown entity; archaeologists working at the site said it was fine when they left during the day, and were destroyed by the time they returned Saturday morning.

"At least five of them were destroyed … this time," archaeologist Miao Hui told SCMP. They date from the late Shang dynasty to the Warring States. This is not the first time the construction company has destroyed ancient tombs. The area they dug up was sealed by red lines. They even specifically moved our archaeological tools aside before blazing in."

China Daily spoke to an executive in charge of the project who claimed the destruction of the tombs, which dated to the pre-Qin period, was a "misunderstanding." Epoch Times notes that the construction company said it had received permission to work near the sites, and that taking them down must have been a mixup. That doesn't jibe with statements made by archaeologists, who said that the tomb sites were clearly marked out or covered with tarps, and that their equipment and tools were moved prior to the demolition.

Of course, ancient sites crumbling under the pace of progress are nothing new. Miao told reporters that 10 tombs have been destroyed during the Line 6 construction so far. In 2010, Shan Jiaxiang, then China's top official for cultural heritage, decried the destruction of hundreds of historic city block in Beijing. In 2007, Reuters shed light on ancient tombs being destroyed to build an IKEA.

There's also no ignoring the Three Gorges Dam, which flooded hundreds of ancient sites. And it's not just construction that's erasing China's artifacts; last year, the Guardian ran a great story on China's sophisticated tomb raiders, who use everything from bulldozers to dynamite to rob China of its history. As Magnus Fiskesjo wrote in China Daily in 2010, these cultural artifacts are naturally important to China, but are also important to archaeologists the world over. Ultimately it's up to China to decide how and if they can be protected, but is it really worth losing history for the sake of a subway?

@derektmead