This stone pillar is one ofthe few objects retrieved from Shangdu.

The picturesque original Capitol Building columns that were relocated to a hill at the National Arboretum in 1984.

Walking through the serried stone pillars,tourists feast their eyes on changing spots, feeling they are in aparadise where the Gods live.

A large marble pillar lay on the ground, which, in falling, had been broken into three pieces.

"From here the dead are looking out at the ideal view, " Schmidt says as the sun casts long shadows over the half-buried pillars.