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<< News >> Museum displays relics discovered during water diversion project

Submitted by coldrum on Saturday, 07 July 2007  Page Views: 1599

DiscoveriesCountry: China A museum featuring cultural relics unearthed during the construction of the south-to-north water diversion project opened on Sunday in Shiyan City, central China's Hubei Province.

Archaeologists have dug out 14,000 artifacts from 2,800 ancient town ruins, tombs, kilns, houses and storage pits in Shiyan City, where the Danjiangkou Reservoir for the project is being renovated.

The local archaeological institute started excavating in June 2005 the historical sites covering an area of 72,000 square meters.

After two years of excavation, archaeologists have unearthed the tombs, kilns, houses and pits that date back to the Xia (21-16cent. BC), Shang (16-11 cent. BC), Zhou (11 cent-221 BC), Han (206BC - 220), Western Jin (265 - 316), Tang (618 - 907), Song (960 - 1279), Ming (1368 - 1644) and Qing (1644 - 1911) dynasties.

The sites contain large quantities of bronze, stone, iron, bone, jade, china and ceramic wares, terracotta warrior-shaped figures and ancient coins, according to the archaeologists.

The south-to-north water diversion project, which runs across eight provinces and regions, has given Chinese archaeologists unprecedented opportunities to discover old treasures, the experts added.

The findings will help the study of the production of ancient villages and townships as well as their customs, cultural traditions, protocols and burial rites, experts said.

The water diversion project consists of three canals, each running more than 1,200 kilometers across the eastern, central and western parts of the country.

The eastern and central routes will require the protection of more than 700 major cultural heritage sites, with a planned excavation area surpassing 1.6 million square meters.

Last November, the Chinese government decided to allocate 50 million yuan (6.2 million U.S. dollars) for the preservation of 45major cultural heritage sites along the two routes.

jongonews.

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"Museum displays relics discovered during water diversion project" | Login/Create an Account | 2 News and Comments
  
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2,000-year-old intact female skeleton with gray hair unearthed in Hubei by coldrum on Sunday, 23 October 2011
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2,000-year-old intact female skeleton with gray hair unearthed in Hubei

A 2,000-year-old intact skeleton of an elderly woman was unearthed from a tomb from the early Western Han dynasty at the construction site of an industrial park in the north of Zhuchengjie, a satellite city of Wuhan, capital of east-central China's Hubei Province, on Nov. 19.

Much gray hair can still be seen clearly on her skull

The archaeological team said that when exploring the tomb numbered M6 from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Nov. 19, they found a nearly intact outer coffin and almost no water had leaked into it. More surprisingly, there was a well-preserved dark brown skeleton inside the inner coffin, with a lot of gray hair still on the skull.

The coffin was tied with seven pieces of hemp rope. It was identified as the skeleton of a woman aged about 70 years, according to the funeral customs of the early Western Han dynasty, the distance between the chin and the pit of the stomach; bone structure and thickness; as well as other evidence.

The archaeological team explained that the woman's skeleton and hair were well preserved because she was buried in multiple coffins, with the outer coffin covered by a thick layer of special plaster, and hair is not easily damaged by water.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90782/7207917.html
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Ancient relics threatened by water project by coldrum on Wednesday, 17 October 2007
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Ancient relics threatened by water project

Beijing - An ambitious water diversion project in China risks submerging cultural relics up to 4 000 years old, despite efforts by heritage officials to rescue them, state media said on Tuesday.

With just three years left before the South-North Water Diversion Project - a $25-billion scheme to divert water from China's lush south to its parched north - is finished, only one third of the preservation project has been completed, China Daily reported.

The relics along the path of the water project are "far more valuable" than those along the Three Gorges Dam project, both in terms of quality and quantity, according to Li Taoyuan, an archaeologist involved in the preservation project.

"Considering the work involved in excavating and protecting relics in the entire region (of the project), the time constraints defy imagination," he was quoted as saying.

Heritage workers have already cleared more than 2 000 tombs, temples and other cultural sites and have relocated about 10 000 pieces of ancient ceramic, copper, jade and bone objects - but these are only a fraction of relics that are worth saving in the area.

A lack of funding and manpower are to blame for the slow progress of preservation works and archaeologists are also fighting to save the relics from professional robbers, the article said.

The 1 300-kilometre route of the water project, which will pump water from a major tributary of the Yangtze river to Beijing by 2010, cuts across the relics-rich region dubbed "the cradle of the Chinese civilisation".

The project will submerge numerous cultural relics, including sites from the Xia and Zhou dynasties dating back 3 000 to 4 000 years.
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=588&art_id=nw20070918084411791C542557
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