For more than half a millennium, the Great Shangqing Palace was the primary place of worship for a popular Taoist sect in China. It was reportedly where several generations of Chinese emperors worshipped.

But in 1930, the temple completely burned to the ground. After that, archaeologists weren’t sure of its exact location.

Now, thanks to a four-year excavation, the remains of the palace have been confirmed. They sit at the foot of Longhu Mountain in Jiangxi Province in eastern China.

It's the largest excavation ever conducted for a Chinese Taoist site.

To pinpoint the exact location, archaeologists from China's Jiangxi Provincial Research Institute of Archaeology had to survey an area that stretched more than 1.9 million square feet. Eventually they