Ancient tomb unveiled: discoveries from Western Zhou Dynasty

On Monday, the Shanxi Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology published new excavation information about an ancient tomb from the Western Zhou dynasty (c. 11th century-771 BC) in Yicheng county of Linfen city, Shanxi province.

Archaeologists from the institute and local archaeological departments conducted salvage excavations at the Dahekou Cemetery of the Western Zhou Dynasty in Dahekou village from September 2007 to December 2016.

Over 2,200 tombs were excavated, and the recently published information is from Tomb No 1033.

The tomb yielded a collection of 430 burial objects divided into 93 groups, including bronze wares, pottery, jade artifacts, and shellfish containers.

According to Xie Yaoting, the leader of the excavation team, the scale of the burial and the variety and quantity of the burial objects indicate that the tomb's owner was a middle-ranking noblewoman from the middle period of the dynasty.