This photo published on December 18, 2007 shows nine reconstructed large tripod urns at a Beijing museum.

The reconstructing of nine previously lost, large tripod urns made their debut in Beijing on Tuesday, the Beijing Evening News reported.

Legend has that the nine tripod urns were cast by Yu of the Xia Dynasty (2070 – 1600 BC), and handed down as state treasures for several hundreds of years before becoming lost.

The nine urns stand for "jiuzhou", or the nine administrative divisions of China in antiquity, and are also the legendary Chinese symbol of national unity.

The reconstructed set of urns is composed of one round tripod urn and eight square ones, with the tallest one having a height of 99.9 centimeters.

The reconstruction of the nine urns was based upon numerous excavated ancient bronze and pottery tripod urns and incorporated the opinions of many domestic historians, archaeologists and bronze ware experts.
 
(CRI December 19, 2007)