Yahoo News Archaeologists Went Digging Under a Chinese Zoo—and Uncovered 148 Tombs Spanning Thousands of Years
Nearly 150 ancient tombs were discovered within the grounds of the Guangzhou Zoo in South China’s Guangdong Province.
Experts believe the burial grounds span at least 2,100 years, evidencing a well-planned cemetery system.
Two tombs, one from the Jing Dynasty and one from the Southern Dynasty, are particularly of interest for further research thanks to their condition.
When one goes to a zoo, the expectation is to see wild and exotic animals from across the globe. And that’s true of the Guangzhou Zoo in South China’s Guangdong Province. However, visitors might also come across millennia-old burial tombs for humans—not exactly the standard wildlife park residents.
Since the start of the original 1956 construction on the the Guangzhou Zoo, archaeologists have excavated roughly 500 ancient tombs across over 30 locations on the zoo’s grounds. But over the course of a few months spanning April to July of this year, they made a sizable addition to the record. Archaeologists discovered an additional 148 tombs across the zoo, according to a report from the Xinhua News Agency.
The recently uncovered tombs each date back to a wide range of Chinese history. Some are from the Han Dynasty, which lasted from roughly 206 BC to 220 AD, and some are barely over a century old, coming from the years following the founding of more modern Chinese leadership in the early 1900s.
Discovered during a zoo construction project, the 14,000-square-foot area features four Han Dynasty tombs, eight tombs from both the Jin and Southern dynasty, 15 Tang Dynasty tombs, and 121 from the more recent Ming and Qing dynasties.
There were two tombs that excited the archaeological team, one from the Jin Dynasty, which stretched from about 265 to 420 AD, and another from the Southern Dynasty, which lasted from 420 to 589 AD. The well-preserved Eastern Jin tomb include a 33-foot-long chamber as part of the tomb’s impressively large structure. With no major damage to the entirety of the tomb—except for a hole above the main sealing door likely made at one point by a grave robber—experts said it is the largest and most well-preserved tomb from that era ever found in the area.
While the Southern Dynasty tomb is smaller, it was still in good enough condition to yield interesting details about the time. Built in a style designed for a married couple, much of the structure is intact, although it shows signs that it was also once raided by robbers.
“The discovery of these two tombs is of great significance to the study of burial shapes, stages, and funeral customs during the Six Dynasties Period (222-589) in Guangzhou,” said Cheng Hao, an official with the institute, according to Xinhua News Agency, “as well as to the research on the construction technology during the Jin and Southern dynasties’ architecture.”
Researchers also found 48 gravestones, all of which came from the Republic of China era.
The archaeological team said that a pattern emerged on the orientation and scale of the tombs, especially the ones in the Ming and Qing burial chambers, suggesting a planned cemetery location that lasted a significant amount of time.
Along with the burial sites, the team located an additional 196 artifacts, ranging from pottery to porcelain to bead ornaments and items made of bronze and jade. Some of the cultural relics are uncommon for the region.
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