Source: CCTV.com

11-23-2008 11:01

Chinese archaeologists have found a 1,000-year-old steel case in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province. After more than one hundred days of investigation, archaeologists say they are ready to unwrap the decorative pagoda top -- known as a finial -- which was inside the case. Mysterious Buddhist relics are believed to be hidden inside the pagoda top.

Chinese archaeologists have found a 1,000-year-old steel case in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province.

When the steel case was discovered in early August in Nanjing, a pagoda finial wrapped in silk emerged, after archaeologists removed two steel panels of the cube-shaped case, which is 1.34 meters high and weighs 409 kilograms.

Also found in the case were a mirror, a crystal ball and brass wires as well as more than two hundred small silk parcels.

Buddhist relics, formed from the ashes of cremated Buddhist masters are an important aspect of the religion. Some of these relics are likely to be inside the pagoda finial.

Mysterious Buddhist relics are believed to be hidden inside the pagoda top.

The box was found in an underground shrine of the Dabaoen Temple. The steel case is believed to belong to a Buddhist Temple of the Northern Song Dynasty, about a thousand years ago.

 

Editor:Yang Jie