More than 4,220 cliff tombs have been discovered over 680 sites
in Shangluo, a city in western China's Shaanxi
Province, local archaeologists said on Monday.
The cliff tombs are large and of various shapes, and are
scattered along a 160-km-long belt connecting Danjiang Valley in
the east and Qianyou River in the west, scientists with the
provincial archeological research institute said.
According to Yang Yachang, a researcher with the institute, most
of the single-compartment tombs are erect stone caves, rectangular
in shape and three meters deep. Tombs with multiple compartments
are flat and carved with kitchen ranges, wells, toilets and
shrines.
Inscriptions with names and titles, presumably of those buried
in the tombs, were also found.
Another discovery was a cliff painting and eight pieces of basso
relievo of what could be human faces or beast heads.
(Xinhua News Agency January 10, 2006)