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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, February 03, 2004

Thousand-year-old stone tablet recovered in Liaoning

A stone tablet that is nearly 1,000 years old and inscribed in different periods of history, 200 years apart from each other, has come to light in the northeastern China province of Liaoning.


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A stone tablet that is nearly 1,000 years old and inscribed in different periods of history, 200 years apart from each other, has come to light in the northeastern China province of Liaoning.

The mammoth tablet, bearing some 5,000 Chinese characters, was first inscribed in the Liao Dynasty (916 - 1125) in commemoration of disastrous floods in Yizhou town, today's Tayingzi Town in Fuxin Mongolian Autonomous County, and the local residents' building of bridges and embankments to fight the floods.

The tablet was inscribed on four sides, including names of ancient villages, officials and civilians, but inscriptions on one side were removed and a head portrait -- probably of Liu Hong, thelast magistrate serving in Yizhou town in the Liao Dynasty -- was carved in its place.

Archeologists say they assume the portrait was carved in the Jin Dynasty (1115 - 1234) because the epigraph next to it was doneby Wang Ji, a Jin citizen.

The tablet was first discovered and carried in a horse cart to the county government by a local farmer in the 1960s, but was almost forgotten after it was buried by officials to protect it from being damaged or stolen.

No one knew the whereabouts of the tablet, though the local government tried several times to find it out in the 1980s.

In 2002, local archeologists started to see into the case again, and got clues that a huge tablet was spotted in 1994 at the construction site of a major department store. But unaware of its value, no one took the trouble to dig it out.

Early in January 2004, archeologists were finally able to retrieve the tablet close to the Global Shopping Center in the central areas of the old town.

Archeologists say its inscriptions are still largely legible, though some characters have blurred over the years.

Lu Zhenkui, an archeologist with Fuxin cultural heritage administration, said the tablet was a rare find. "It was a common practice in China's history to inscribe people's names and merits in stones, but this is the only one ever to be written over different dynasties."

The four coiling dragons on its crest suggested the tablet had been an important record even 1,000 years ago, he said.

Source: Xinhua


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