The government of Dali County, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, is preparing to establish a exhibition center of stone tombs, inscriptions and sculptures of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
Preliminary excavation shows that a total of eleven tombs were found in Payu Village, Dali County, with the circumference of 1,000 meters. After analyzing the characters on cultural relics, archaeologists concluded that the tombs are those of a local wealthy family named Li.
The tombs starting from the end of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, and ended in the early period of the Republic of China (1911-1949), covering a total of 300-olus years.
Under the guidance of the township government, villagers contributed to the exhibition center hundreds of stone inscriptions and sculptures, which they had collected in the 1950s and 1960s.
(Xinhua 04/02/2001)
