Baisigou Square Pagoda

It is situated in an isolated location about 10 km into the Baisigou Valley on the eastern side of the Helan Mountains, northwest of Yinchuan, but may have been the site of an important Buddhist temple during the Western Xia.

In addition to archaeologists, his team included two police officers who were investigating the crime, and twenty or so soldiers from a unit of the People's Liberation Army who were to help move the rubble.

In August 1991, after receiving permission from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, Niu's team headed off to the site of the ruined pagoda, which was several hours from the nearest road, and could only be reached by foot, with donkeys carrying their equipment.

[1] On the sixth day the team uncovered a large number of historical artefacts dating to the Western Xia period (1038–1227), including: These objects were all concentrated in an area about 2 m in diameter, underneath about 1 m of rubble in the centre of the ruins, and were mixed in with earth, branches, bird carcasses and bird skeletons.

Although the pagoda was solid, there were small, square rooms built into the third, tenth and twelfth stories, with windows on the south side.

[1] Investigation of the surrounding area showed that there was a large Western Xia site to the west of the pagoda, from which archaeologists recovered pieces of tile ends, roof sculptures, and guttering, some of which was glazed in green or blue.