The watch ring was discovered as archeologists were making a documentary with two journalists from Shangsi town.
"When we tried to remove the soil wrapped around the coffin, a piece of rock suddenly dropped off and hit the ground with a metallic sound", said Jiang Yanyu, former curator of the Guangxi Autonomous Region Museum.
"We picked up the object, and found it was a ring. After removing the covering soil and examining it further, we were shocked to see it was a watch."
The time was stopped at 10:06am, and on the back was engraved the word "Swiss", reports the People's Daily.
Local experts say they are confused as they believe the tomb had been undisturbed since it was created during the Ming dynasty 400 years ago.
They have suspended the dig and are waiting for experts to arrive from Beijing and help them unravel the mystery. An archeologist joked saying "whoever traveled back in time, had lost his watch."
The event dates from December 2008, so this is actually a pretty old story. And a dodgy one. There's precisely one source for it, which was not picked up by any respectable media outlet, which leaves three possibilities:
- It's a hoax, a quick-and-dirty way to get a project into the public eye, or
- An animal brought the ring into its burrow above or inside the tomb, or
- The tomb was disturbed a few years earlier than first assumed.
Whatever the case may be, it's a sensationalist fait-divers, perhaps a cautionary tale about site disturbance, but hardly something worthy of SLAM.
I loved the title Chewie came up with. Nice Doctor Who reference.
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.
Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
Remember the "oldest viable seeds in the world" thing which turned out to be bull but legitimately presumed? The same general thing could be responsible for this, assuming it's not a hoax.
"The rest of the poem plays upon that pun. On the contrary, says Catullus, although my verses are soft (molliculi ac parum pudici in line 8, reversing the play on words), they can arouse even limp old men. Should Furius and Aurelius have any remaining doubts about Catullus' virility, he offers to fuck them anally and orally to prove otherwise." - Catullus 16, Wikipedia
