added by archaeologs [Wu-chin Yen-ch’eng]. Site in southern Jiangsu province, China, of a walled city traditionally identified with the capital of the Eastern Zhou state of Yan (a different state from the Yan state in the neighbourhood of Beijing, written with a different character). Bronze ritual vessels found at Yancheng in 1957 belong to the late 6th and early 5th centuries bc; stylistic peculiarities suggest that they were made locally and point to connections with earlier bronzes, also of provincial style, unearthed in the same general region (see Dantu, Tunxi).
The Macmillan dictionary of archaeology, Ruth D. Whitehouse, 1983