Yangguan Pass Ruins 阳关遗址

About Yangguan Pass Ruins

The Yangguan Pass Ruins (阳关遗址) are the remains of the Han-dynasty frontier pass of Yangguan, on a sandy flat called Gudong Tan (古董滩, "Antiques Beach") about 70 km southwest of Dunhuang (敦煌), Gansu.

Yang (阳) means the south side, and the pass is named for lying south of Yumen Pass (玉门关). Dunhuang's own account of the site dates both passes to 121 BC, when the Western Han set up the four Hexi commanderies of Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan and Dunhuang to hold off the Xiongnu (匈奴). Yangguan became the gate on the southern branch of the Silk Road into the Western Regions (西域). Under the Western Han, Longle county (龙勒县) was set up at Nanhu (南湖) and Yangguan was the seat of a military commandant; the Jin and Wei had a Yangguan county here, and the Tang a Shouchang county (寿昌县). The monk Xuanzang (玄奘) came back from India along the southern route and passed east through Yangguan on his way to Chang'an (长安). The fortress was destroyed around AD 900, and after the Song drifting sand buried the site.

Today nothing of the walled town stands. A single beacon tower survives on Dundun Mountain (墩墩山). South of it, archaeologists have exposed rammed-earth remains and neatly aligned house foundations covering roughly ten thousand square metres, beside broken stretches of wall footing no more than 0.6 m high. More than twenty large sand ridges run east to west across the flat, with gravel between them, and Han and Tang potsherds and pieces of brick and tile lie on the surface. Hard black bricks from the old walls were once ground into inkstones sold as "Yangguan inkstones" (阳关砚). The Gansu cultural relics bureau lists the Han and Jin ruins as a provincial protected site.

Yangguan stands in Chinese poetry for a sad parting. The Tang poet Wang Wei (王维) named the pass in a poem seeing off a friend bound for Anxi (安西), whose closing line says that past Yangguan there are no old friends. Set to music, the poem became "Three Refrains at Yangguan" (阳关三叠), whose earliest surviving score dates from the Ming. A corridor of steles carved with poems and calligraphy by modern writers now lines Dundun Mountain, which looks out over oasis, desert and snow peaks. The site forms the Yangguan Scenic Area in Longle village (龙勒村), Yangguan town, rated 4A in Gansu's list of scenic areas.

What to look for

• The beacon tower on Dundun Mountain (墩墩山), the only standing structure of the pass
• Gudong Tan (古董滩): exposed foundations, low wall footings and east-west sand ridges, with Han and Tang potsherds on the surface
• The stele corridor of modern poetry and calligraphy on Dundun Mountain
• Views from the ridge over oasis, desert and distant snow peaks
• Pieces of the hard black wall brick once made into Yangguan inkstones (阳关砚)

Location & getting there

Getting to Yangguan Pass Ruins

• Search for 阳关遗址 with 酒泉市 and 敦煌市.