BEIJING, March 16 (Xinhua) -- The following are highlights of China's key news on archaeology from the past week:
-- Centuries-old painted lacquer coffin
The coffin was found in one of the three Ming tombs built in 1581, during the reign of Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The tombs are situated by the Feilian Lake in Weng'an County, southwest China's Guizhou Province.
The coffin bears exquisite designs of the "Four Mythical Creatures" in ancient China -- the Azure Dragon, the White Tiger, the Vermillion Bird and the Black Turtle. Other paintings include phoenixes, bonsai and red-crowned cranes.
All three tombs are likely to belong to the same family, experts say. Gold and silver hairpins, gold earrings and silver bracelets were also found in the tomb, together with teeth and bone fragments.
-- The heaviest bronze drum base in China
The drum base, dating back to the Warring States period (475 BC - 221 BC), is the largest and heaviest unearthed in China. It was retrieved from criminal gangs.
The 80-kg drum base is 77 cm in diameter and 47 cm high. It is well-preserved and rich in carvings, including human figures, snakes, cattle and monkeys. Three convoluted snakes symbolizing dragons also appear on a wooden stick that connects the base and the main drum body.
Archaeologists say only about 10 bronze drum bases from the Warring States period (475-221 BC) have been excavated in China, usually from tombs of kings and high-ranking aristocrats. They were used in wars and religious rituals as a tool to communicate with heaven.
The drum base was among 5,259 relics retrieved in the first two months of the year when police busted 24 criminal gangs and arrested 260 suspects.
-- Traces of ancient human activity found in China's Guizhou
Chinese archaeologists have found traces of human activity dating back between 38,000 and 4,000 years ago in southwest China's Guizhou Province.
A large number of pottery shards, stones, animal bones and horn tools used by ancient humans have been unearthed at an excavation site in Yankong village in Guizhou.
The findings suggest that ancient humans living in the area fished, hunted and collected fruit to make a living. No signs of planting have been found.
-- Board game rules from 2,000 years ago discovered
The long-lost rules of "liubo," an ancient Chinese board game, were found from 5,200 bamboo slips unearthed from a Western Han Dynasty (202 BC - AD 8) tomb.
The slips were found in the tomb of the Marquis of Haihun near Nanchang in east China's Jiangxi Province. Over 1,000 of them were inscribed with the rules of liubo, literally "six sticks."
The game is a two-player board game dating back over 2,000 years and believed to be the ancestor of Xiangqi, or Chinese chess. It was immensely popular among royals and commoners during the Western Han Dynasty, but its exact rules were lost after the Tang Dynasty (618-907).
It is the first time that detailed rules of liubo have been found. The tomb of the Marquis of Haihun is part of China's most complete Western Han Dynasty cemetery. Excavation began in 2011, with more than 10,000 artifacts unearthed so far.
