The local people have a number of stories to tell about Li Shiyong, director of a relics museum in Tengzhou, in Shandong Province.

One is about how it took Li nine years to get back four decorative stone pieces dating back to the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). It is said that he visited the person holding the State relics some 30 times.

The museum Li manages possesses a collection of 409 decorative stone pieces from the Han Dynasty, arguably the largest in the country.

According to history annals, people began to decorate tombs and temples with engraved stone slabs some 2,000 years ago.

The practice became popular in the third century AD, thus nurturing numerous creative stone masons.

Some were adept in carving, some in engraving and others in bas relief sculpting. These techniques enriched the history of ancient Chinese art, says historian Gu Sen.

Ancient stone carvings offer a peek into the life and beliefs in China centuries ago.

They show how the aristocracy interacted and went hunting, how the soldiers fought and the fishermen fished and also the kind of music and dance popular at the time.

Tengzhou once served as a prefecture capital, with booming trade and a rich folk culture. This explains the unearthing of ancient engraved stone pieces when the residents built new houses, tilled farmland or dug canals.

Li said most of the museum's collection came from donations made by locals.

One of its latest additions comes from Ma Qinxi, 54, a farmer in Binhu Township, some 30 kilometres from Li's museum in the centre of Tengzhou. "I found it when I was digging the foundations of my new house," he told Li.

Another piece featuring a cow ploughing the field comes from a town under the jurisdiction of a neighbouring city.

The ancient carved stones became collectibles in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Early last century, a church from the United States was trying to build a Christian school in Tengzhou, when workers dug out a dozen or more pieces of carved stones of the Han period. The then Shandong museum immediately arranged for the collection of these stone relics.

Li said that Huang Youbin, 63, of Beiguan Village, Tengzhou, at one time had 12 stone relics at his home, handed down by his great-grandfather.

Unearthed in 1933, they were considered State relics. Huang's great-grandfather, Huang Tongyuan, used them for art classes at the school where he was teaching.

When the Japanese occupied China, Huang senior buried the pieces in his backyard intent on protecting them for posterity.

In 1996, when Li's public museum was founded, Huang junior turned over the 12 pieces to Li.

Today the museum has some of the best carved stone pieces in the country, while quite a number from Tengzhou also grace major museums across the country.