Giant 2,200-year-old mass grave discovered

A large mound rises in an otherwise relatively normal landscape. In the area covered with grass and trees, the hill looks normal. But when archaeologists began excavating it, they quickly realized that it was no ordinary hill.

He was a tremendous team player grave 2,200 years old full of treasures. Archaeologists have spent the past four years excavating the hill outside Huainan, Anhui province in eastern China.

The layout of the mound

The gigantic complex of burial monuments — called Wuwangdun — covers an area of ​​about 15,000 acres. About the size of 280 football fields or three times the size of Vatican City. Surrounded by a moat, the complex consists of three main sections: an outer cemetery, a central tomb and a coffin chamber.

The Wuwangdun Complex, built by the ancient Chu Dynasty, dates back to the Warring States Period, a turbulent era in Chinese history that began in 475 BC. and ended in 221 BC, the Huainan municipal government said in an official bulletin on April 17. The outer cemetery has a large rectangular pit filled with horses and chariots, sacrificial pits and other structures, the archaeologists said.

The central part of the complex is in the center of these structures: the 2,200-year-old mound has the shape of an almost inverted pyramid. Its four walls descend to the ground in 21 long steps. A sloped entrance extends outwards on one side. After the mound was built, archaeologists describe that soil was piled on top to form the mound. Excavations have brought to light shovels, spears, arrowheads, bamboo baskets and other tools.

At the bottom of the mound, is the coffin chamber. It is a wooden structure with nine rooms, in the shape of a “plus” symbol (+). One of the photos shows the coffin after excavation and without the bamboo mats that covered the top.

Words on coffins

Archaeologists discovered about a thousand words written on the wooden coffins, the institute said. The text describes the placement of the pieces and the function of the various rooms.

So far, over a thousand ancient artifacts and artifacts have been unearthed in the Wuwangdun burial complex, according to archaeologists. These include musical instruments, lacquered wooden objects, copper vessels and utensils. The photos show some of these treasures.

The mound is the “largest, highest level and most complex” tomb of its kind ever found, reported Shanghai Eye, a Chinese state-backed news channel.

Excavations at the Wuwangdun Tomb in Huainan City are still ongoing. Huainan is a city in Anhui Province in eastern China, about 600 miles south of Beijing.