In 1976,
Zheng Zhenxiang and her archaeological team were probing the area around
Yinxu with a long shovel, called a , and recovered some samples of red lacquer. The burial pit uncovered, officially numbered as tomb #5, has dimensions and was located just outside the main royal cemetery. The tomb has been dated to and identified, from
inscriptions on ritual bronzes, to be that of
Fu Hao. Her tomb, one of the smaller tombs, is one of the best-preserved
Shang dynasty royal tombs and the only one not to have been looted before excavation. The artifacts in the grave consisted of: • 755 jade objects (including
Longshan,
Liangzhu,
Hongshan and
Shijiahe cultural artifacts) • 564 bone objects (including 500 hairpins and 20 arrowheads) • 468 bronze objects, including over 200
ritual bronze vessels, 130 weapons, 23 bells, 27 knives, 4 mirrors, and 4 tiger statues • 63 stone objects • 11 pottery objects • 5 ivory objects • 6,900
cowry shells (used as currency during the Shang dynasty) Below the corpse was a small pit holding the remains of six sacrificial dogs, and along the edge lay the skeletons of 16 human slaves, evidence of human sacrifice. By connecting the jade artifact in the tomb of Fu Hao to much earlier artifact through stylistic and technical analysis, the archaeological context has identified an early collector, a woman who gathered about her artifacts of a much earlier period. ==See also==