Archeologists have found an ancient fruit cellar containing well-preserved apricot and melon seeds from more than 3,000 years ago in Monday's Shaanxi Province.

The cellar was a rectangular pit about 105 centimeters long, 80 centimeters wide and 205 centimeters deep, said Sun Zhouyong, at the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archeology.

Sun and his colleagues found the pit in 2002, about 70 centimeters underground the Zhouyuan site, ruins of Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC) 100 kilometers from Xi'an. They concluded it was a cellar used to preserve fruits for aristocrats.

In each corner of the pit, Sun found a little round hole. "We assume the cellar had something like a shade that was fixed on the four holes but had decayed over the years," said Sun. "We sorted them out with care, and found about 500 apricot nuts - 108 of which were complete with carbonized pulp, at least 150 melon seeds and 10 plum seeds."

Sun and his colleagues sent three apricot nuts to Beta Analytic in Florida, the US, last year for carbon 14 test to determine their age.

"The test results indicated they were about 3,000 years old, dating back to a period between 1380 BC and 1120 BC," said Sun. "Seemingly the fruits had been stored in an acidic and dry environment, so dehydration was extremely slow and the nuts were not carbonized even after so many centuries."

Zhouyuan site, where the cellar was unearthed, was believed to be a dwelling place for Duke Danfu, an early leader of the Zhou clan. It was known as the cradle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, one of the earliest periods of China's written history. The cellar, with roughly 1.7 cubic meters of storage, could store up to 100 kilograms of fruits, Sun said.

A poem in the "Book of Songs," a collection of poetry from the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century-771BC) to the Spring and Autumn Period (770-475 BC), says food kept in "ling yin" - meaning cool places - will stay fresh for three days in the summer.

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