In 2013, archaeologists excavated a cache of Buddhist statues in Jingchuan County, Gansu Province. Artifacts unearthed include more than 260 Buddhist statues, a pottery casket, as well as pottery vessels, porcelain sherds, bricks, tiles and the like. The Buddhist statues, mostly made of stone and mainly singular statues, were arranged in an orderly manner in the cache. There are also votive steles, dating from the Northern Dynasties to the Song Dynasty. Dated statues include a standing Buddha statue of the sixth year of the Tianhe Era of the Northern Zhou Dynasty(571 CE) and a Bodhisattva statue of the fourth year of the Kaihuang Era of the Sui Dynasty(584 CE).There were a lacquer box for relics of the Buddha, a glazed vase for sarira, and other artifacts inside the unearthed pottery casket. According to the record in the inscription on a brick, the remains were buried by Longxing Temple, Jingzhou Prefecture in the sixth year of the Dazhong Xiangfu Era of the Song Dynasty(1013 CE).
