Xanadu's glory revealed

NEW discoveries made at the historic site of Xanadu suggest Marco Polo must have visited the fabled capital of Mongol emperor Kublai Khan.

They also show that Samuel Taylor Coleridge painted a surprisingly accurate description of its grandeur in his famous poem Kubla Khan, penned in 1816.

'Marco Polo came here. There is no question about that. Everything he described we have found,' said Professor Wei Jian who has led a team of archaeologists investigating the ruins near Zhenglan in Inner Mongolia since 1992.

Excavations of the inner palace have uncovered marble slabs, delicately carved with flowers and dragons, used for the palace buildings which the Venetian merchant described after 20 years in the service of Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan dynasty.

The imperial city, which Chinese call Shangdu, was capital of China for three years from 1260. This is where the Mongol hordes crowned Kublai as the Great Khan and for over a century he and his successors rode from Beijing, 400 km to the south, to spend the summer entertaining their nomadic followers.

Last year aerial surveys helped pinpoint where Kublai Khan built his 'stately pleasure dome', as Coleridge wrote.

Professor Wei describes it as a traditional round Mongolian yurt but so enormous the Great Khan entertained 1,000 guests at a sitting.