Discoveries give the ancient past a future

Seals and wooden slips reveal an elaborate and efficient administrative system, Deng Zhangyu reports in Kunming.

In 1956, a golden seal with a snake-shaped decoration was unearthed from ancient tombs at the Shizhaishan site in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province.

Bearing the inscription "Seal of the King of the Dian Kingdom", the artifact stands as compelling evidence of the ancient Dian Kingdom's existence, a regional state that thrived more than 2,000 years ago on China's southwestern frontier.

The gold seal dating to the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24) was granted by Emperor Wu of Han to the King of Dian after the local regime pledged allegiance, according to Western Han Dynasty's historian Sima Qian's Shiji, or Records of the Grand Historian.