A large cemetery site dating back to the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24) was recently discovered by archaeologists in Taiyuan city, capital of North China's Shanxi province.
Excavations in the local East Mountain area since 2015 have shown that the rectangular cemetery site covers an area of around 64,000 square meters and has 10-meter-wide paths and traces of wheels, according to Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology and the Taiyuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.
The two tombs found at the site might belong to a noble couple from the dynasty, said Chang Yimin, a researcher from the Taiyuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.
Archaeologists also excavated 11 tombs from the dynasty outside the site.
The discovery is expected to fill the gap in archaeological knowledge about the princely tombs from that era in Shanxi, with further currently excavations underway, Chang added.
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