BEIJING (AFP) - A hundred Chinese tombs more than 2,000 years old have been crushed or buried to make way for a housing project in Inner Mongolia province, state media reported.

The destruction, backed by the local government, continued even though the Helinge'er county site was one of the largest and best-preserved cultural heritage sites in China, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

Nearly 50 of the tombs were razed and more than 50 others were covered over by earth when construction equipment flattened the ground.

"Here we don't know how many cultural relics have been broken to pieces," said Chen Yongzhi, deputy director of the Inner Mongolia Cultural Relics Archeological Research Institute.

"We don't know how many historical mysteries that could've been solved will remain mysteries forever."

The site in the north of China was once the cemetery of the former city of Tuchengzi and has a history dating back to the Warring States period in the latter part of the Eastern Zhou dynasty (770-221 BC).

In 2001, the Chinese government placed it on the list of important national sites to be preserved.

County authorities, however, were eager to turn the 300,000 square metre (3.2 million square feet) plot of land over to the Xiangyu Real Estate Development Company to cash in on the local housing boom.

They failed to conduct a required cultural heritage assessment, said the report, citing heritage experts and local government officials.

Their actions amounted to a violation of China's cultural relics protection law, but so far no one had been arrested.

Inner Mongolia cultural relics protection officials ordered a work stoppage on May 10, but construction crews had continued to destroy the tombs as the county government and police refused to stop the workers.

Officials from China's Cultural Relics Bureau rushed experts to the site in April after learning about the destruction and were trying to salvage as many of the tombs and their relics as possible, the report said.

The developer and its workers have reportedly been putting up resistance, warning the preservationists that they need to finish up their work fast or risk being run over by bulldozers.

It is estimated that the site had at least several thousand tombs, all in good condition, until the developer began tearing them up. Many relics as well as skeletons have been shattered to pieces.

Much of China's cultural heritage has disappeared, with many relics smuggled overseas. Illegal excavations are rampant, while the drive for profit has seen countless ancient sites damaged or destroyed.

ref: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050524/lf_af...na_050524143116

What a shame.

It sure is.

It just goes to show you that money still rules the world, and always will.

I do hope these developers get to relive the "Poltergiest" story and eventually die from extreme fear.

Might sound a bit rash, but I have no tolerance for those who exploit for their own benefit.

I can't believe that, that really is ashame... what are they going to do about this incident? also, did they know they were plowing them, if so why didnt they move them?

That is incredibly sad that nothing could be done to save those tombs.

why couldnt anything been done to save thet tombs, i dont understand.... so they knew they were there then? if so why couldn't they move them?


***I Guess being covered by earth would make it hard to dig them up**** but wasnt their anyway to do it... obviously not... At least they tried...

Well some people worry more about more than they do about yesterday. Its sad but its a fact more common than this. The entirety of Athens back home in fact is build on archaelogical grounds more or less. Then if they didn't we would be a country-wide museum. Today an effort is made to remove or relocate those that are found but a lot was lost and destroyed to the point where the law was established. Hopefully people wil be more vigilant after this.

It is such a shame that money is so important that something as old and culturally important as that can just be destroyed without even a thought or concern for it.
I feel for those officials who were trying to save some things. They must've had a hard time with the developers and the workers.

Very common. I can show you dozens of midevil castle ruins that were partialy or almost completely dissasembled for the blocks.

Right now, they are in the process of building a new motorway right beside the Hill of tara.

I read about that, how sad!

Thank god the Chinese are becoming more like capitalists.

And what a tragedy! That they would rather posture as capitalists, than care to preserve their own history!!

on teh face of it i would agree this is a bad thing
but HELLO wake up people
this is the fourth piece of crap news from china about their archaeological exploits in a fortnight.
Tune in to find out what remarkable news we hear next week
i can't but help feeling that they actually have discovered something important but seeing as up til now the most they've produced is the ica stones. iirc
they are the laughing stock of world archaeology, well actually the russians are a little ahead of them since announcing a few years ago that they'd found the tomb of osiris.
Either that or the chinese state publicity dept just got a grant for publicity.

detroying thier whole history for a housing program, tsk tsk tsk

crazy asians, when will they learn...

chinese

chinese are asians =P

that's one of the stupidest things ive heard. capitalism isnt an end all and be all. curses!

Maybe they just have some history there they wished to be buried and never heard nor seen again.

I've always thought that the Chinese valued their history. It doesn't make sense that they would destroy a part of their history.

I suppose profits trumps history. It makes sense from a capitalistic point of view.

yeah but everything is all about money know ya no... its sad, but thats like what the world has come too