The Zuojiang Huasha rock paintings, from South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region,     1     (include) in the World Heritage List in 2016. It was the first time that china’s rock paintings had been listed as a world heritage.

    2     (locate) on the towering cliffs in the border regions of China, these 38 sites of rock art, the cliffs themselves, and Mingjiang River together form an     3     (impress) cultural landscape. The rock art, combined with its special landscape,     4     (convey) the vigorous spiritual and social life of the Luoyue people, who are believed to be ancestors of the present-day Zhuang people.

The main painted area along the cliff (悬崖) has a width of about 170 metres and a     5     (high) of about 40 metres. The paintings are between 30 metres and 90 metres     6     the river’s level. The main area contains about 1,900 paintings,     7     include human figures as well as animals along with bronze drums, knives, swords, bells, and ships. Human figures are     8       (typical) between 60 centimetres and 150 centimetres tall, but     9     highest figure is over 2 metres.

The paintings were originally thought     10     (date) from the period around the 5th century BCE to the 2nd century CE. The period of their creations spans the time from the Warring State Period to the late Han Dynasty in the history of China.

The saying ‘All roads lead to Xianyang’ may not be widely known, but it is the     1    (true)in history. After Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, unified the country in 221 BCE, he began building state-level roads, Xianyang     2    the center. Several long roads were therefore completed,     3    (cover) a distance of about 750 kilometers, running through plains, mountains, grasslands, deserts, and finally leading to Xianyang, the capital city.

Like the Great Wall, these roads,     4    (call) Qin Zhidao, literally the Qin Direct Paths or Qin Highways, are considered another miracle in Qin Dynasty. Generally, the roads were 20 to 60 meters wide and 50 cars could run side by side at the same time on their     5     (wide) sections. The firmly made surface     6    (shape) like a turtle back above the ground to avoid standing water at that time. Another amazing fact is that grass     7    (rare)grow on the road and many parts are still in good condition even today.

The mysterious ancient roads,     8     date back over 2,200 years and predate the Roman Roads by over 200 years, are known to be     9     natural museum in the history of road construction. Historians evaluate it this way: if the Great Wall is compared to a defensive shield (盾牌), then Qin Zhidao is the weapon     10    (guard) the stability and prosperity (繁荣) of the Qin Empire.

A collection of tombs dating from the Han Dynasty to the Six Dynasties period were discovered in Wulong District of Southwest China’s Chongqing. The tomb dating back     1     the Western Han Dynasty was the most important among them, and more than 600 precious     2     (culture) relics such as lacquerware (漆器), wood ware, bamboo ware, pottery and bronze ware were unearthed from it. Due to     3     (fill) with water, the tomb remained undisturbed and unharmed, and the funerary objects were well-preserved.

What is exciting about this     4     (discover) is not just the large number of unearthed artifacts but also the list of burial items that indicate a precise record of burial,     5     has been verified as 193 BC,     6     (provide) clarity on the tomb’s date. A piece of unearthed jade ware shows the important position of the tomb owner. The list of burial items found in the tomb is complete and     7     (clear) records the name, quantity and size of the funerary objects.

The tomb     8     (contain) the largest quantity of lacquered wood and bamboo ware ever found at one time in the upper     9     (reach) of the Yangtze River. Based on publicly available information, it is also the earliest tomb of the Western Han Dynasty found in China with     10     clear recorded year.

Archaeologists have uncovered a collection of 3,000-year-old handicrafts at Sanxingdui, Sichuan province. The researchers found more than 500 objects at the site in 2019, most of    1    were carved out of gold, bronze, jade and ivory.

Experts are unsure who made the handicrafts, but they guess that the creators belonged to the Shu state, a    2    (high) skilled civilization conquered by the neighboring state of Qin in 316 B.C. Because the people of Shu left behind few    3    (write) records, historians’ knowledge of their culture is limited.

A major highlight of the find is a 0.6-pound fragment (碎片) of a gold mask that may have been used    4    (wear) during religious ceremonies. About 84 percent pure gold, the piece likely weighed close to one pound in total,     5    (make) it one of the heaviest gold masks from that time period discovered in China to date.

Other    6    (discovery) made at the site included two kinds of silk. Silk has played    7    important role in China’s long history. As the statement points out, the silk was thought to serve    8    a carrier by the ancient inhabitants of Sanxingdui for communication between heaven, earth, man and god. The presence of silk at Sanxingdui     9    (indicate) that the ancient Shu Kingdom is one of the important origins of silk in ancient China. All these findings enrich and     10    (deep) our understanding of the Sanxingdui culture.