News >> Imperial Tombs Found at Beijing Olympic Site
5/8/2006 Beijing-- Workers working on a shooting range for the 2008 Beijing Olympics discovered the tombs from the imperial era, newspapers and an antiquities official said Monday. The tombs were found in mid-April and are believed to date back five to six centuries to the Ming dynasty, and may be those of eunuchs serving at the imperial court, the Beijing Morning Post said.
Over the past years, Beijing has been the site of numerous imperial and other capitals. Every since modernization, major building projects unearth gravesites or relics. Most are removed or destroyed before experts can examine them.
A spokeswoman for the Beijing Olympic organizers, Zhu Jing, said the find accounted for only a small part of the construction site and "shouldn't affect the work too seriously." Archaeologists have found coins, ceramics and jade in the tombs at the shooting range on the Chinese capital's western outskirts, the Post and other papers said.
Olympics organizers broke ground in July 2004 for the shooting range. The construction of the venues for the 2008 Olympics are still on schedule says officials.
