Weekly snapshot of China's archaeological news

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BEIJING, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- The following are highlights of China's key archaeological news from the past week:

-- Bamboo slip museum

Construction on a bamboo slip museum started in the city of Lanzhou, northwest China's Gansu Province.

Expected to open to the public in 2021, the museum will help store, protect, restore and study bamboo slips -- used for writing prior to the widespread introduction of paper -- as well as display over 40,000 bamboo slips and more than 10,000 cultural relics.

Over 80,000 bamboo slips have been unearthed since 1907 in the province. Among them, 70,000 are from the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), which are important artifacts of the ancient Silk Road, accounting for 80 percent of the total in China.

-- Qing Dynasty official's work report

A work report of an official dating back to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was found in north China's Shanxi Province.

The work report belonged to Zhang Jiuding, who was born in Duancun Village in Pingyao County in 1748. Zhang was dispatched by the imperial court to work in Guizhou in 1789, according to the work report.

The report recorded Zhang's major duties as an official and details of his life in Guizhou, including preaching newly issued laws and regulations to the local ethnic groups every month, reporting his own behaviors and daily expense, overseeing local officials and investigating and cracking down on crimes.

Experts said that the work report reflected the government official system and the officials' values at that time. Although the report had a history of more than 200 years, it still has practical significance today.

-- 4,300-year-old jade disk

A jade disk which dates back to the Liangzhu civilization more than 4,300 years ago has been unearthed in east China's Zhejiang Province.

The jade disk, with a diameter of more than 25 cm, was discovered in early July in Linghu Township, Huzhou City. It is the largest such artifact discovered in the city.

Earlier this month, the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City was inscribed to the UNESCO World Heritage List as a cultural site, bringing the total number of Chinese sites on the list to 55.

-- Dinosaur footprint fossil

Paleontologists from China and the U.S. have found a Tyrannosauripus, a giant dinosaur footprint fossil in east China's Jiangxi Province, marking the first discovery of Tyrannosauripus in China.

The fossil was unveiled to the public in Yingliang Stone Nature History Museum, located in the coastal city of Nan'an, east China's Fujian Province.

The track, found in Jiangxi's Ganzhou during road construction, was identified as Tyrannosauripus by scholars including Xing Lida with the China University of Geosciences, Beijing, Niu Kecheng with Yingliang Stone Nature History Museum, and Martin G. Lockley from the University of Colorado.

Tyrannosauripus is a term coined to describe fossilized footprints that may have been left by tyrannosaurid. The paleontologists inferred the trackmaker's body length from the footprint, suggesting the dinosaur could be as long as 7.5 meters, roughly the size of the Qianzhousaurus, a type of tyrannosaurid previously found in Ganzhou. Enditem

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