The remains of a forgotten Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) imperial palace in Nanjing were damaged by a construction team on Sunday.

The foundations of the 600-year-old palace were unearthed on Sunday afternoon at a building site in Zhongshan Donglu in Nanjing, the capital of east China's Jiangsu Province.

Workers unearthed several large marble pillar bases but continued to work, officials with the Nanjing Cultural Relics Bureau said on Monday.

The relics are believed to be part of the eastern courts of the Ming Dynasty imperial palace compound, which was built by Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Ming emperor. The palace was destroyed by fire when war broke out during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911).

Local relics protection officials rushed to the site to stop the work after residents tipped them off on Sunday, according to the Jinling Evening News.

Wang Zhigao, a relics protection expert with the Nanjing Museum, said he and his colleagues visited the site and reached an agreement with the construction team to suspend work while an investigation was conducted.

However the team resumed work and continued until the police ordered them to stop.

By the time they had finished, the builders had dug a huge pit roughly 2,000 square meters in area and 3 to 4 meters deep out of the palace's foundation, officials said, completely destroying it.

People responsible for deliberately damaging cultural relics will be punished according to laws enacted to protect such sites and objects, said Li Peisong, an official with the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

(China Daily November 9, 2004)