China plans to put most parts of the ancient city of Liye in Hunan Province back underground to better protect the precious cultural wealth.

According to a plan of the China Cultural Relics Research Institute, most of the ancient city already excavated will be reburied as a nearby hydropower station, which began to store water since 2003, has threatened the protection of the ancient city.

The plan was approved by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage last month.

Liye, where more than 36,000 bamboo slips documenting events of the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) were unearthed, was named one of China's top 10 archaeological finds of 2002.

The operation of Wanmipo Hydropower Station, located in the mid reach of the Youshui River, has brought up the water level in Liye on the upper reaches of the river, said an official with the local cultural heritage bureau.

Currently, water has infiltrated to within ten meters underneath the city, making it difficult to protect the ancient city from damage.

Besides underground water threat, experts worry that the ruins of the ancient city exposed in open air might be damaged by summer floods.

After inspection, archeologists found that there is a layer of water-resistant clay soil formerly covering the city. Putting this layer of clay soil back could protect the ruins from harm.

Some key sites of the ancient city, such as the No.1 well, workshop and moat will be exhibited as is in open air. But the basic principle is "not to change the original state of the cultural relics."

"Before carrying out open-air exhibition, protective measures must be adopted to ensure that these relics will not be affected by natural reasons. These measures will have to be proven effective in small-scale trials before being adopted," says the plan.

The discovery of Liye attracted the attention of China's archeological circle. Shen Jianhua, an expert from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, hailed the find as "one of the greatest discoveries in China of the 21st century" and "no less significant than the discovery of the oracle scripts."

The 2,200-year-old bamboo slips were found in an ancient well when archeologists inspected the site of the ancient city before the Wanmipo Hydropower Station was built.

The bamboo slips have been identified as official documents from the government of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC), recording various aspects of Qin history, including politics, military affairs, ethnic groups, economy, law, culture, geography and administration.

Before this batch of bamboo slips was found, there were only some 2,000 slips from the Qin Dynasty and fewer than 1,000 words of official Qin records.

The slips from Liye provide an encyclopedic record of the dynasty, and are considered another significant Qin discovery in line with the terra-cotta horses and warriors, experts have said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 11, 2004)