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Jiuliandun Tombs relics displayed in Sichuan

Visitors to the Jinsha Site Museum in Chengdu, Sichuan province, are bemused with a bronze object serving as a refrigerator more than 2,000 years ago.

Containing ice to cool wine in an inner container by a general in the Chu Kingdom whose center is in today's Hubei province, it is one of 142 cultural relics from the Jiuliandun Tombs in Hubei which will be displayed in the Jinsha Site Museum from August 20 to October 30.

To prepare for the exhibition, workers are busy arranging exhibits in the Jinsha Site Museum.

Excavated in the city of Zaoyang in Hubei in 2002, the Jiuliandun Tombs consist of a tomb of a general and his wife, said Wang Fang, an archaeologist and researcher at the Jinsha Site Museum.

More than 5,000 cultural relics, including bronze, lacquer and jade ware, armors and two chariot pits, have been excavated. The pits are the largest and best preserved chariot pits in China.

"Such a large number of relics excavated in the tombs of a general and his wife, instead of a king and his wife, show the prosperity of the Chu Kingdom," Ms Wang said.

Regarded as one of the seven most powerful states in its time, the Chu Kingdom consisted of today's Hubei, Hunan, Henan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.