The women adorned their hair with pins with gold pendants, and the men wore gold and jade belts and crowns. They enjoyed a noble life and expected to continue it after death, so they were entombed holding jade pig sculptures symbolizing fortune in their hands.

They were from the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 317-420), and the pendants made of gold foil shaped into flowers, hearts and birds — of sizes smaller than a thumbnail — show the exquisite level of craft more than 1,600 years ago.

“It was the first time archeologists had unearthed gold from the Eastern Jin Dynasty in Zhejiang Province,” said Liu Weipeng, director in charge of excavation of the Wugui tombs in Sanqiao Village, Hangzhou.

The golden foil hanging from a pin or crown, named buyao (meaning “step swing,” because it swings when people walk), was popular among dignitaries as a symbol of power and fortune.

Last week the Hangzhou Institute of Archeology published a list of work they’ve done during the year, including the discovery from the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

A new Liangzhu Culture site, named Jiru, was also discovered at Gongchen Bridge in north Hangzhou.

Liangzhu was an ancient city, and the Liangzhu Culture (3400–2250 BC) was the last Neolithic jade culture in the Yangtze River Delta.

The Liangzhu Culture previously was detected in Yuhang, Hangzhou.

But the discovery in May extended the range of Liangzhu and its culture.

The civilization was highly stratified, as jade, ivory and lacquer artifacts were found exclusively in elite burial sites, while pottery was more commonly found in the burial plots of poorer individuals. The newly found, 800-square-meter site, with little jade, was the residence of commoners.

Archeologists discovered some houses built with sets of three footings for three-layer walls and a series of postholes, suggesting that “the local Neolithic folk already knew to dig holes, use poles and then build walls to enhance houses,” said Yang Xi, chief archeologist of the institute.

Another highlight of the year is the Tianmu Porcelain found in a group of kilns at banks along Tianmu Stream in Lin’an City.

The findings include some white-and-blue porcelain and black-glaze porcelain tea cups, which are specially used to observe matcha tea’s light green foam.

Matcha, finely milled green tea, is believed to have originated in China’s Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) and is popular in Japan today. According to archeologists of the institute, in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) the tea ceremony for enjoying matcha was to boil it, add some salt and spices, and observe it.

The point of observing is to appreciate the foam — some people even made patterns such as birds and flowers, similar to today’s latte art. Monks from Japan took the tea tools including black-glaze cups back to their country and developed their own version of the matcha ceremony.

Today in Japan, several pieces of black-glaze cups, brought back from China in the Song Dynasty, are viewed as a national treasure. It is not known exactly which part of China those pieces came from.

Because black-glaze cups have been found in several places all over China, archeologists cannot tell whether the Japanese relics were from Lin’an.

Other archeological findings in Hangzhou this year

• Tiger Cave Site in Xiaoshan, Hangzhou

At this site, there is one unearthed tomb in the shape of the Chinese character 凸  (tu, meaning sticks out). This special tomb is well appointed and includes what looks like a drain. One side of the drain is connected to the tomb, but the other side is pointed upward like a vertical chimney. The function of this drain is not drainage. It is thought that there is a religious belief behind this design, with the chimney-like drain implying a channel for the soul.

Tiger Cave Village now has vast stretches of tea gardens and green fields. But under the soil is a buried village that existed more than 3,000 years ago.

“The residences were built in the late Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC), used in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) and abandoned in the Warring States Period (476-221 BC),” said Yang Jindong, an archeologist with the Hangzhou Institute of Archeology. “The discovery of the Tiger Cave site fills in the blanks of the archeology of the Shang and Zhou dynasties in Hangzhou.”

The ancient village is estimated as large as 10,000 square meters. Based on relics unearthed from this site, archeologists say that the residents were rich peasants.

• Chailing Hill Tombs Site in Xiaoshan, Hangzhou

The most exciting finding at this site is Xiaoshan Chailing Hill earth-pit tomb, which is the largest brick tomb unearthed in Zhejiang and one of the best kept ones found in southern China.

The entire tomb covers as much as 600 square meters. “All the tomb walls were built with the smoother side of bricks facing inside, tilting inward at a 10-degree angle. The entire tomb was built in a regular pattern,” said Yang Jindong. The top is covered by stone slabs, 1 meter long and 0.6 meters wide. The remaining six stone slabs each required eight strong men to move.

The structure of the tomb is like a real house, with a door, a hallway, a wall and so on. Also, at the entrance of the tomb, archeologists found a special stone door frame, unlike most tomb doors, which are simply sealed with stone.

This tomb site is on the top of a hill that is the only one in the vicinity. Such privilege implies the occupant was an ancient aristocrat. When connected to other unearthed relics like porcelains and a kiln, the occupant is believed to have been from the Yue State in the Spring and Autumn Period. 

• Yongxing Floodgate Site in Xixing Town, Hangzhou

In ancient times, floodgates worked as important transportation and water allocation mechanisms. Yongxing Floodgate is one such device in the Hangzhou section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

In 1587 in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Yongxing Floodgate connected Xixing Canal and the Qiantang River. Now it provides groundbreaking technological support for the canal’s application to be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. According to archeologists, the floodgate is 4.4 meters wide north to south with double gates, capable of allowing the passage of a 20-meter-wide ship.

The Yongxing Floodgate was designed to discharge flood that ancient residents living along the canal suffered.

During the work, archeologists noticed a special Chinese character, “富”(fu, meaning rich), carved in a key wood component of the floodgate, indicating prosperity.