Mirror workshop discovered in China

A 2,000-year-old bronze mirror workshop has been excavated in east China's Shandong Province, the first such discovery in China, archaeologists announced on Wednesday.

More than 100 stone moulds, as well as foundry pits, wells and blastpipes have been unearthed at the site in a village near Zibo City, said Bai Yunxiang, deputy director of the archaeological institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The workshop is believed to have been active in the early period of the Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD), when the once-costly bronze mirrors gradually became household objects, according to Bai....