Archaeologists have confirmed that the royal tombs unearthed recently in a Beijing suburb belonged to the royal families of the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234), which was founded by the minority ethnic group of Nuzhen.

Altogether 17 emperors were buried here including the famed historic figure Wanyan Aguda (1068-1123), founder of the dynasty, said Song Dachuan, director of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Institute, in an interview with Xinhua Saturday.

Experts retrieved a wealth of relics from the tomb pits in the 60-sq-km cemetery located in the Jiulong (Nine Dragons) mountains of the Fangshan District, in southwestern Beijing, even though many of them were destroyed by the rulers of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in 1622 and 1623.

If the tombs had been well protected, many more treasures would have been found because the Jin rulers seized a lot of plunder from the Song Dynasty (960-1279), Song acknowledged.

Archaeologists found that the coffin of Wanyan Aguda was decayed and demolished but several other coffins remained intact. Some embossed white marble bars and tiles were also discovered.

Wanyan Aguda proclaimed himself as the first emperor of the Jin Dynasty in 1115 and overthrew the Liao Empire (916-1125) through wars. Jin was defeated in 1234 by the rising Mongol nomads, who later founded the imperial Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).

(Xinhua News Agency September 7, 2003)