Sunday 14 July 2013

Farmer stumbles upon 2,000-year-old Han tomb in Shaanxi

11 July 2013

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Archaeological finds are often made accidentally, and these days often occur during construction work. That’s what happened recently to a farmer in Fengxiang county in Shaanxi Province.
While building his house, he happened upon a Han dynasty tomb dating back some two thousand years. And both the tomb and the pottery it contains are in very good condition.
It’s not the first time that ancient tombs have been found in Fengxiang county, located near Xi’an, the famed capital of both the Han and Tang dynasties. But this one is special.
Li Wansuo, village leader of LiJiapu Village, said, “Last Friday, when the villager was fetching earth from the nearby cliff, he dug out some bricks, then dug deeper, and found that it was a tomb with some pottery inside it.”
Archaeological finds are often made accidentally, and these days often occur during
construction work. That’s what happened recently to a farmer in Fengxiang county in
Shaanxi Province.
The tomb has turned out to be astonishingly well preserved, despite extreme weather, war, construction, anything that happened in the past two thousand years. The arch shaped ceiling and the tomb’s chamber are neatly built with light blue bricks.
And on top of that, fourteen metal coins and fourteen works of finely crafted pottery have also been found. They include containers, pots, a wine cup, one mini cooker and two mini storehouses, which all provide clues to the tomb’s age.
Cao Jianning, vice director of Fengxiang Museum, said, “From the shapes of the pottery, the coins and the shape of the tomb, we have concluded that the tomb was built in the early years of the western Han dynasty.”

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