Friday, December 15, 2006

2,500-year-old boat coffin to reveal mysterious Chinese kingdom
With abundant cultural relics, a boat-shaped coffin dating back nearly 2,500 years has unearthed recently in southwest China's Sichuan Province, giving expectation to reveal true history of a mysterious kingdom in the area.

Located in a construction site in Feilong Village of Heshan Town in Pujiang County, the coffin was discovered on Dec. 5 by workers when they were conducting mud-digging 1.5 meters deep underground.

The Pujiang County was part of the Shu Kingdom, which has kept mysterious because no written record about its history and culture left over in the past 2,500 years.

According to Liu Yumao, an expert of Chengdu Institute of Archaeology, the coffin, belonging to the Warring States period (475 BC - 221 BC), was made of a 7-meter-long rare wood material nanmu with a diameter of 1.6 meters.


That's a good article, too.