The venue where appears East Zhou Dynasty huge tombs is blocked in Jingzhou, city of central China's Hubei Province on Wednesday, August 13, 2009. [Photo: Cnhubei.com]

A group of tombs from East Zhou Dynasty, which was recently found in Jingzhou, an ancient city in central China's Hubei province, has been partly destroyed by random construction, Chutian Metropolis News reports on Friday.

The huge tomb group, which was exposed on August 11, contains around 120 tombs from the East Zhou Dynasty with more than 2,700 years of history.

However, ten of the tombs were destroyed by a construction team that went ahead with their project without permission. The site which is three to four football fields' large has been blocked so far.

A copper mirror and copper sword have been found in the opened tombs which illustrate that this may be a lower-class noble family's tomb group and it's very possible more tombs may be found nearby. Such a big tomb group of the East Zhou Dynasty is very rare in the whole country, according to experts from Jingzhou archaeology institute.

Zhangjiashan county of Jingzhou city, where the huge tomb group was found, is a county-level culture relics protection site. This is also the site where more than 400 other tombs from the Warring States Period were unearthed.

This huge loss is caused by the construction enterprises which ignored the protection demand from the cultural relics department in Jingzhou and began construction without authorization.

The archaeology personnel are carrying out a salvaging excavation now.