running alongside the inner expressway is a long stretch of massive, tamped-mud walls recalling the city’s role as one of China’s Bronze Age capitals during the Shang dynasty three and a half millennia ago. In terms of history and archaeology, Zhengzhou now promotes itself to visitors as the earliest of China’s historic capitals, the focus of a local ‘Ancient Capital Group’ of eight neighbouring historic sites which are part of a wider ‘Central Plain City Group’, taking the national narrative back ever further into prehistory.
