1,000-YEAR-OLD TOMBS OF MAN AND WIFE FOUND IN EAST CHINA

Construction workers in east China's Anhui Province have discovered a pair of conjoined tombs believed to be more than 1,000 years old, the local culture heritage administration said Saturday.

The tombs were found in Chuzhou City on March 27, when construction workers for a major development project unearthed a large number of ancient bricks.

Cultural heritage specialists confirmed the tombs belonged to a couple who lived in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127).

They unearthed more than 20 pieces of sacrificial objects from the tombs, including a mirror, hairpins, dainty porcelain vases and kitchen ware, said the city's cultural heritage chief Zhu Zhenwen.

Zhu said the tombs had been robbed before and the coffins were badly damaged.

BRICK CARVINGS REVIVE ANCIENT CHINESE FAMILY LIFE

Archeologists in northwest China's Shaanxi Province have unearthed nearly 100 bricks engraved with scenes of family life from a tomb that dates back at least 1,000 years.

Most of the bricks were 52 cm long and 30 cm wide each. They were engraved with men, women and children eating, cooking or herding horses, said Hao Mingke, curator of the Weibin District Museum in Baoji City.

Hao said one brick carving showed a woman steaming buns that looked similar to what many Chinese northerners eat today.

He said the tomb probably belonged to someone who had enjoyed a high social status and lived during the Jin (1115-1234) or Yuan (1271-1368) dynasties.

The bricks were found in a village of Baoji's Gaoxin District, where a concrete producing plant was being built. They are now kept at the museum.

WORLD BANK-FUNDED ARABIC TRAINING IN NINGXIA

A team of 63 Arabic teachers in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region are being trained on how to teach the language to workers in the service and trade sectors, in a program funded by the World Bank.

In addition to Arabic language teaching, the training also covers law, international trade, etiquette and Islamic culture.

Muslims account for more than one-third of Ningxia's 6.18 million people.

In Ningxia, many parents send their children to mosques to learn the Koran in Arabic.

Incomplete figures indicate more than 2,000 people from Ningxia are working as Arabic translators and interpreters in coastal cities including Guangzhou, Yiwu in the eastern Zhejiang Province and Shishi in the eastern Fujian Province.