About 400 pieces of cultural relics were excavated from an ancient tomb dating from over 600 years ago in Zhongxiang city of central China's Hubei Province.

The unearthed cultural relics include quite a number of gold and jade items, lacquerwork and porcelain utensils, in which five or six pieces were of state-level, said professor Yuan Wenqing of the Hubei Institute of Archaeology.

Many objects have rotted in the tomb because they had been in water for so long.

"This tomb is the imperial one in the early Ming Dynasty which remains intact and shows clear information of burial date and persons," said Wang Hongxing of the institute.

The imperial tomb was constructed for Zhu Dong and his wife. Zhu, also known as Yingjingwang, was the twenty-third son of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

The tomb was damaged by the Japanese invaders in 1937 and grave robbers coming afterwards. The local archaeology bureau began to excavate the tomb in 2005 and the tomb will become a museum.

(Xinhua News Agency January 9, 2006)