As I mentioned a few shots ago, I had to take a bus to Zhengzhou which is the capital of Henan province, and thus a typical modernized Chinese urban center. I had a few hours to kill in Zhengzhou while waiting for a 10 o'clock flight, so I decided to check out the remains of the Shang Dynasty wall which is almost entirely submerged by earth. Here you can see a cross-section where a portion of the wall has been removed in order to build a road. The wall itself is in the center of the mound, and the only exposed section is the very top. I am not sure of the exact dates of its construction but it certainly predates the Great Wall and Forbidden City by several thousand years.