A Chengdu man peeing on the side of the highway discovered three ancient statues on April 24, according to Chengdu Daily News.
Xiao Xu was traveling southeast from work on a highway near the Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital—located in Chengdu in southwest China—about 6 p.m., when the 20-year-old couldn’t hold it any longer.
He pulled onto the side of the highway, got out of his car and started peeing. Once he was done, Xiao noticed a small, ceramic head peering from the soil. Startled, he picked up a stick, and started prodding the ground. After a few minutes, he unearthed three delicate, green statues covered in a brown glaze.
Xiao took them home to clean them. Although faded, the statues all lay prostrate on the ground, with their arms outstretched and eyes fixed forward.
Where were these figures from? Xiao had to know. The next day he took them to Pi County Museum in Sichuan to get the staff’s opinion. Dated to the Song Dynasty, museum members said the figures are funerary objects that were often buried inside ancestor’s tombs to ward away evil spirits.
The museum had two similar pieces. Nearly 750-years-old, the 20-year-old donated his three figures to their existing collection.
