“It is astonished that such a huge ancient smelting group was well reserved here,” Mo Linheng who is the team leader of Guiyang Mining and Metallurgy Site Archaeology Protect and Member of Hunan Archaeology Institute said gladly to the reporters. Some experts investigated the sites Doulingxia and Tongmuling of Guiyang County recently.

From this July to September, Hunan Archaeology Institute worked together with some scientific research departments of Peking University to handle the special investigation of 10 zinc smelting sites in Guiyang Vounty. They carried out active archaeology excavation of Tongmuling and Doulingxia sites.

Mo Linheng said: “the sites discovered on the archaeology process highly displayed the whole procedures of zinc smelting in ancient ages. It is very helpful to get better understanding about the divisions, scale, living condition of miner, and production level of ancient mining and metallurgy industry.”

Mo Linheng introduced: “after studying the blue and white porcelains, coins, and pots which were discovered in the sites, and accumulation layers of the sites, we preliminarily assumed that the site was established in late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty and was abandoned in late Qing Dynasty.”

According to the excavation, multiple mines were smelted in the sites, for example, zinc and arsenic were smelted in Doulingxia site, while zinc and lead were smelted in Tongmuling site.

Mo Linheng said: “the engineering for the smelting of multiple metals was more complicated and seldom discovered in China. It is helpful to provide some physical data for further study of the mining and metallurgy technology in Ming and Qing dynasties.”