The Xi’an City Wall is the most complete city wall that has survived China’s long history. It     1     (build) originally to protect the city     2     the Tang dynasty and has now been completely restored (修复). It is possible       3     (walk) or bike the entire 14 kilometers.

We accessed the wall through the South Gate. The wall is 12 meters high and from here you can see streams of people moving inside and outside the City Wall.

After     4     (spend) some time looking at all the defensive equipment at the wall, we decided it was time for some action and what     5     (good) than to ride on a piece of history!

We     6     (hire) our bikes from the rental place at the South Gate. My bike was old and shaky     7     did the job. It took us about 3 hours to go all     8     way around the Xi’an City Wall. Supposedly you can do it in two hours, but we stopped at the different gates and     9     (watchtower) to take pictures or just to watch the local people going about their     10     (day) routines.

More than 500 pieces of relics    1    (discover) in recent months at the legendary Sanxingdui Ruins site in Southwest China’s Sichuan province, dazzling archaeologists with their historical value as well as the display of creativity.

The relics, discovered at the six new sacrificial pits of the ruins, include golden masks, jade and ivory artifacts and bronze wares    2    were delicately built and    3    (unique) shaped, said the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Heritage Administration.

The new finds bring the total number of items discovered at Sanxingdui to nearly 2,000    4    the excavation (挖掘) of No.3 to No.8 sacrificial pits began in October last year.

“The new discoveries demonstrate once again that    5    (imagine) and creativity of the ancient Chinese far surpassed    6    people today have expected,” said Tang Fei, chief of the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute.

Tang added that the excavation of the new pits has entered a critical stage,    7    more items yet to be unearthed and expected to challenge the    8    (convention) wisdom of archaeologists.

Originally discovered in the late 1920s, the Sanxingdui Ruins have been referred to as one of the world’s greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century.

Located in the city of Guanghan, around 60 km from the provincial capital Chengdu, the ruins covering    9    area of 12 square km are believed to be the remains of the Shu Kingdom,    10    (date) back some 4,500 to 3,000 years.

Did you ever wish that you could foretell the future? Well, thousands of years ago, the people living in     1     is today Armenia thought they could. In the high mountains of the South Caucasus, archaeologists working at Gegharot have uncovered a fortune-telling center that     2     (date) back to the Late Bronze Age (1500-1200 B.C.). So far, three small shrines (圣地) have been unearthed, and each offers evidence of     3     (variety) methods local communities used in an attempt     4     (understand) the future.

The site of Gegharot is rather small in     5     (compare) with its neighbors. The Late Bronze Age in the South Caucasus was     6     era of centralization. Large new societies fought with one another     7     control of the region. The castle and western shrine at Gegharot are actually less than an acre in size. However, remains at the site are well preserved, thanks to destructive events that     8     (complete) destroyed it twice during its occupation.

The shrines at Gegharot offer archaeologists a rare glimpse into fortune-telling practices that would have been the closely     9     (guard) secrets. As work continues, archaeologists will learn more about these individuals and the techniques they used when they     10     (seek) to foretell the future.