Archaeologists working in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have found three leatherpolo balls that are 2,400 to 2,800 years old, indicating polo wasbeing played in China up to 800 years earlier than previouslythought.

The balls, discovered in the ancient Yanghai Tombs in Turpan,are each about the size of a fist, with a red cross painted on thebottom. They were made of sheep skin and stuffed with leatherscraps and wool, said Chen Xinyong of Chinese academic institutionAcademia Turfanica on Monday.

They are a very similar design to ones unearthed from a WesternHan Dynasty (202BC-9AD) tomb in Dunhuang City of northwest China'sGansu Province, Chen said.

Archaeological team leader Lyu Guo'en said the polo balls datedback to the Spring and Autumn Warring States period (770BC -221BC), even earlier than China's first record of the sport, in theHan Dynasty (202BC - 220AD).

Along with the polo balls, the archaeologists also found eightlong-handled mallets that are clearly recognizable from paintingsof the Tang Dynasty (618-907), when polo was popular and frequentlydepicted in art.

Similar mallets were also seen in the hands of terra-cotta poloplayers excavated from the Astana Tombs in the region.

The new items are further evidence of a thriving polo culture inXinjiang. In recent years, a polo field measuring 6,600 squaremeters has also been found in the region's Tashkurgan TajikAutonomous County.

Dating back 3,000 years, the Yanghai Tombs are the grandesttombs discovered in the Turpan Basin and nearby regions. Since digsbegan at the site in the 1970s, archaeologists have found largenumbers of well-preserved items. Enditem