Archaeologists have unearthed another ancient tomb of the famous
Liang Zhu Culture in a city at the northern part of East China's
Zhejiang Province.
The discovery after nine hours of excavations on Sunday sheds new
light on the pre-historic Liang Zhu civilization which evolved on
the vast land around
Taihu Lake about 4,500 to 5,500 years ago.
And experts regard the excavation work on the culture as one of the
most important sources for the study of the earliest origins of
Chinese civilization.
In
the newly found tomb in Xin Dili, Tongxiang, more than 30 pieces of
exquisite relics were revealed, including pottery, stoneware and
many other scattered tube-shaped and pearl-shaped jade wares.
Most of the jade wares were body decorations, while several stone
knives were used as arms or tools of production.
"As the special white color of those little items of jade ware
tells us, the tomb is at least 4,000 years old, known as the late
period of the Liang Zhu Culture," said Jiang Weidong, chief
director of the excavation site and a researcher at the Zhejiang
Provincial Relics and Archaeological Institute.
"This newly unearthed tomb has added many more real objects to our
study of the later period of Liang Zhu Culture, and has helped us
gain an even greater insight into the highly civilized society
which used to exist here several thousands years ago," said Wang
Mingda, director of the State Archaeological Institute.
The tomb was found to be 3.77 meters long and 1.8 meters wide.
He
said the tomb is part of a large group grave, which are all located
in Xin Dili, Tongxiang, one of the most important locations of the
Liang Zhu Culture on the southern side of the Taihu Lake.
Experts say the group of graves, which were discovered in Xin Dili
on March 21 and have been unearthed one by one ever since then, is
probably the biggest of the Liang Zhu era ever to have been found
in China.
In
the past four months, 85 ancient Liang Zhu graves, covering an area
of about 2,000 square meters, have been unearthed in the area.
Experts say the 900 kinds of relics buried in the grave group
represent the highest level of social status and craftsmanship for
the Liang Zhu Culture.
(China Daily 07/17/2001)