BEIJING, May 7 (Xinhua) -- Chinese archeologists have discovered 4,546 bamboo and wooden slips from a grave in a tomb in the city of Jingzhou, central China's Hubei Province, the largest number ever for an excavation of a single grave, according to the National Cultural Heritage Administration.

Dating back to the Western Han Dynasty (202 B.C.- 8 A.D.), these bamboo and wooden slips were unearthed from one of the 18 graves in the tomb, whose excavation started from late 2018, the administration announced at a meeting Monday.

The bamboo and wooden slips, used as writing media in ancient China, record various information such as calenders, laws and regulations in the ancient time as well as a traditional Chinese medicine formula.

The findings are expected to significantly improve research in related fields, according to the administration, which announced the findings from the four archeological sites in Hubei and northwest China's Shaanxi Province at the meeting.