Chinese waterway structure is 700-year old lock

Chinese experts have confirmed that an ancient water project discovered in Shanghai in May 2001 is a lock built more than 700 years ago.

Experts consider the seven-meter high lock the most precious water works find in China, and is even larger than one found in Beijing in 1993, which was recorded as one of the top ten archaeological finds of that year.

The lock is located on a silted tributary on the old course of the Wusong River, a major shipping route in ancient China now known as the Suzhou River, stretching from the prosperous lower reaches of the Yangtze River to the East China Sea.

Constructed in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), the lock was one of many used at that time to prevent silt and sand carried back by reverse tidal flows from choking the waterway, according to Chen Xiejun, curator of the Shanghai Museum.

Chinese archaeologists recently unearthed 27 pieces of rare cultural relics at the tombs of Qin Shihuang, the first emperor who unified China in the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.).

Excavated from a pit of the Qin tombs in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, the cultural relics included 10 bronze swans, 16 bronze cranes and a crane standing on a bronze platform, said Duan Qingbo, head of the excavation team.

In addition to the waterfowl, the archaeologists also found 15 terracotta warriors with different poses at a passage leading to the pit.

Earlier, 13 bronze water birds had been unearthed from the pit, he added.

Posted by David on January 9, 2003 10:21 AM