Archeologists exploring a mountainside in China have discovered 21 tombs dating back 2,000 years. The presence of luxury artifacts and a rare “couple’s grave” suggests this was an ancient royal burial site.
The discovery of the 2,000-year-old royal tombs was made at the Changsha archaeological site, which is located just over 665 miles (1,000 kilometers) southwest of Shanghai. Located in the present-day Hunan district, the ancient Changsha Kingdom was founded in 203 or 202 BC and represented the largest and longest-lasting kingdom of the Han Empire of China.
The discovery of the 21 tombs was announced earlier this week by a team of archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology , at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Hunan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. Located along a remote mountainside, the researchers said the tombs have laid buried for two millennia and that they “potentially held regal past, but not anymore”.
