An ancient warrior "sleeping" underground for more than 2,000 years has been "woken up" by the noise from a road renovation site in downtown Chengdu City, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Construction workers discovered some bronze artifacts while they were reconstructing the Wenmiao West Street of the city on Sept. 22.

Local archaeologists, who got the news and came to the site later, found a 1.8-meter-tall male skeleton with a broken double-edged sword lying upon his ribs as well as over 40 pieces of pottery, bronze ritual articles and weapons, like a tomahawk and lance, at a four-meter by one-meter tomb.

Wei Shaozhi, lead archaeologist, said the on-site examination showed the man was probably a rich warrior of the Warring States Period (475 BC- 221 BC) as at that time, only rich families could afford bronze wares.

The position where the broken sword lies shows that he was holding the sword when buried, according to Wei.

Wei said that the discovery will be of great value in the study of local people's funeral customs of that period.

(Xinhua News Agency October 8, 2003)