The Dunhuang Limes is a series of military sites spread over a distance of more than 140 miles, and are considered to be parts of the westernmost portion of the Great Wall. The sites begin in Anxi to the east of Dunhuang and extend to the Lop Nor desert to the west, and date back as far as the 2nd century BCE.
The term limes, usually used to describe Roman military roads and their fortifications, was assigned by Aurel Stein to this series of watchtowers, forts, storehouses, beacon towers, walls, and other defensive structures. The items excavated from the sites reveal much about the daily life and administration of the garrisons stationed at the frontiers of the Chinese Empire.
These items include tools, stationery, pottery, arrowheads and textiles, as well as important written documents including the Sogdian ‘ancient letters’. Stein and later excavations also discovered hundreds of wooden slips containing Chinese documents dating from the Han dynasty, many from the key military outpost known as the Jade Gate (Yumen Guan).
