Nine new sections of Great Wall of China discovered

Newly discovered ruins discovered on the border of Ningxia Hui autonomous region and Gansu province in China could redraw the path of the Great Wall.

Nine new sections of the wall stretching 10km have been located by a team of archaeologists headed by Zhou Xinghua – former chief of the Ningxia Museum.

"Finally, we're able to see the whole picture of the Qin Great Wall," Zhou is quoted by China Daily as saying. The Great Wall was designed to reach the Ningxia province – as indicated by Emperor Qin's plans in historical documents – but physical proof had not been found.

Six of the nine discovered ruins stretch almost the entire 10km from Nanchangtan Village of Ningxia to Jingyuan County of Gansu and would have been made from stone and loess. The remaining three, made solely of loess, would have been just 50 metres long, the archaeological crew said, People's Daily reported.

The wall could have been around 20 foot high, but because of natural degeneration, parts of it are now just three foot tall.

The Great Wall of China is not actually one wall, but a series of overlapping fortifications. Scientists recently discovered that it is made up of overlapping buttresses that extend over 13,000 miles – almost twice as long as previously thought.