Qi Capital Linzi and Qi Culture Museum (临淄齐国故城)

Linzi, in Linzi District of Zibo, Shandong, China, was the capital of the Zhou-era state of Qi for about 630 years, from 859 BC until Qin conquered Qi in 221 BC. It was among the largest cities of the ancient world, with a population reported in the hundreds of thousands during the Warring States period. Under rulers such as Duke Huan and his minister Guan Zhong, Qi became a leading power of the Spring and Autumn period, and the city was known for commerce, iron and salt production, and scholarship. The Jixia Academy, established near the city gate by the Qi rulers, gathered thinkers from many schools, and is often cited as an early centre of the Hundred Schools of Thought. The archaeological site preserves the outline of the double city, with a large city and a smaller palace city, and stretches of rammed-earth walls, drainage channels, foundations and roads. The Qi Culture Museum, built near the excavated remains, displays bronze vessels, ritual jades, pottery, coins and weapons from the Qi state, and is well known for the Zhou horse-sacrifice pit, in which the skeletons of about 600 horses were found arranged in rows and are exhibited in place. The museum also covers Qi's football-like game cuju, associated with Linzi in ancient sources, and the site is often presented as the birthplace of that sport. The visit mixes exhibition halls with open archaeological ground, so the character is partly museum and partly field site, and the interpretation is chiefly chronological, moving from the founding of Qi to its fall. Excavation began in the twentieth century and continues in places, with the surviving walls protected as a national key site. Most of the ancient city lies under farmland and the modern town, so what is visible is only a portion of the original, and the museum provides the clearest overview.