The top 10 archaeological discoveries of 2002 were selected in Beijing Sunday out of 23 candidate events by a group of well-known Chinese scholars.

The 10 major discoveries are:

The Gexinqiao relics of the Neolithic Age in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region;

The bamboo slips of official documents of the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC) in Liye City in Hunan Province;

The Haiqu ancient tomb of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) in Rizhao City of Shandong Province;

The ancient tower relics of the period between Eastern Wei (534-550 AD) and Northern Qi (550-577 AD) in Yenan City in Hebei Province;

The ancient tomb of Xu Xianxiu in Northern Qi (550-577 AD) in Taiyuan City in Shanxi Province;

The ancient city relics in Badong County in Hubei Province;

The ancient city relics of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) in Yanbian City in Jilin Province;

The imperial palace relics of the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234 AD) in Heilongjiang Province;

The ancient brewery plant of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368 AD) in Jiangxi Province; and

The storehouse relics of the Yuan Dynasty in Ningbo City in Zhejiang Province.

The annual event was co-organized by the China Archeology Association, China Cultural Relics News and China Cultural Relics Magazine, and was supervised by the State Administration of Cultural Relics.

The selection differed from past years as the archaeological team leaders of the 23 projects were invited to make presentations during the selection Sunday and to show their research results via multimedia. Some experts claimed these discoveries covered a wide range of time and space and were of great research value.

(Xinhua News Agency April 14, 2003)