5000 stone statues older than Terracotta warriors discovered in Hunan

NEW DELHI - Archaeologists have discovered a large group of ancient stone statues at the worship site of Guizai Mountain near Hunan province.

According to People’s Daily Online, these statues are a lot more in number and a lot older than the Qin Terracotta Warriors found in the depths of the Nanling Mountains located in Dao County of Yongzhou City.

Tang Zhongyong, director of the Dao County Administrative Office, said that the Guizai Mountain site is a large ancient worship site. There are over 5,000 vivid stone statues at the site, covering an area of 15,000 square meters. They are statues of civil officials, military officers, pregnant women and all kinds of common soldiers and their height varies from 30 to 100 centimeters.

Archaeology experts in Hunan said that there are over 5,000 stone statues on the ground and a large number of stone statues buried about two meters below the ground.

The Hunan Cultural Relics Department also found that the statues are the group of stone portraits with the longest history found in China by far.

Some were carved in prehistoric times about 5,000 years ago, and some were carved during the Qin, Han, Wei and Jin dynasties about 2,000 to 5,000 years ago.

Based on the existing information and field investigations, archaeologists deduced that Guizai Mountain was simply a large altar and that prehistoric people placed stone statues on it. (ANI)