Chinese archeologists conducting an excavation claimed that they have for the first time found solid evidence showing British and French troops set fire to Yuanmingyuan, China's most beautiful imperial garden in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Amid an autumn breeze and sunshine, mountains of headless Buddha statues, and broken jade works lie scattered across the surface of blackened earth and red bricks. A slight touch on the delicate-carved Buddha statue would cause it to break. Charcoal ashes are deposited in plinths and tree stumps.

The garden authority opened the excavation site to the public today. Beijing Institute of Cultural Heritage expert, Jin Fengyi, said "Two hundred years ago, Emperor Qianlong and his mother used to live in the halls made of gray bricks. There he often watched moon to rise over lotus ponds and improvised poems."

Jin said the seven charred sites are as they were a century ago, because a blanket of earth one-meter-thick has preserved the blackened surface as well as a layer of charcoal ashes upon it. Some ashes are as thick as two centimeters.

Jin said, "Every dig into the earth is like reopening a wound on my body." The excavation testifies, for the first time, the garden fires.

The State Administration of Cultural Heritage planned the excavation because it wants to restore the historic site based on how it appears in this excavation.

Besides broken Buddha statues and jade, there are also numerous cypress slabs charred and splintered.

Jin said that they belong to an opera stage floor and all these strongly indicate damage by force.

Built in the early 18th century, Yuanmingyuan, embraced the essence of western and oriental culture. It soon became known as "the garden of gardens" by westerners.

In 1860, the British-French expeditionary army invaded Beijing and robbed the garden of its valuables. What they couldn't take away, they set fire. In 1900, the garden suffered a second ransack by the eight-nation expeditionary army.

A Garden officer, Zong Tianliang, said that literature on the garden has no record of fires caused by thunder or accident.

Besides, the vastness of the areas burnt indicate human destruction.

Buried among the weeds are broken bricks of Xiazhu Hall, which used to house the Imperial Collection of Four, multi-volume up-to-that-time encyclopedias and tablets of famous calligraphers.

Archeologists have also found advanced drainage and heating systems. However, the functions of some parts of the site remain a mystery.

The team leader, Wang Ce, said, "Though we've carried out a thorough excavation, we have not found any valuables."

Tao Sicheng, a retired college teacher from Shanghai, said, "On seeing these blackened earth and bricks, I could picture in my mind the flames of more than a century ago. It is a wound that belongs to the world as well as China, and it never heals."

(People's Daily 09/28/2001)