Following the discovery of an ancient city and its dams, considered to be the earliest hydraulic project found in China, archaeologists studying the Neolithic Liangzhu culture are now preparing to unveil hundreds of pictographs for the public in December, and asking even foreign experts to help decode them.
Liangzhu relics in Hangzhou, the capital of East China's Zhejiang province, is widely thought to be a strong evidence that the Chinese civilization is more than 5,000 years old. Remains of Liangzhu culture in the Yangtze River Delta region is thought to date back 5,300 years.
Since parts of the Liangzhu site was discovered 80 years ago, more than 630 pictographs have been found on unearthed jade artifacts, pottery pieces and stoneware, including those with shapes similar to the English letters X and Y, says Chen Shoutian, deputy director of the Liangzhu site management committee.
"To some extend, decoding the pictographs is more important than the discovery of dams and the ancient city," Chen said at a forum last week in Hangzhou, adding that archaeologists needed to find out if those were the origin of words in China.
The forum was organized by Zhejiang Provincial Archaeological Research Institute and Liangzhu Museum.
