Chinese archeologists have found two stone coffins in a tomb chamber recently discovered in northwest China's Shaanxi Province and identified the tomb owners as an official and his wife who lived more than 400 years ago.

The tomb was found in the suburbs of Xi'an. The text inscribed on the gravestone indicates its owner is Duan Fengwu, an official who died in 1573 at the age of 75.

It said Duan, a native of Taiyuan in Shanxi Province, served as an official in Ningbo, a city in the eastern Zhejiang Province, and was widely recognized as a clean and upright man.

An expert with the Xi'an Institute of Cultural Heritage Preservation said the discovery is new evidence for the hypothesis that couples customarily shared the same tomb chamber during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).