Jade burial clothing on show in UK

Robbers looted the tomb of a Chinese prince about 2,000 years ago, but left a fascinating jigsaw puzzle for modern archaeologists and now culture vultures at a British museum where the burial site's artifacts will soon be exhibited.

Prince Liu Yingke of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) was buried wearing a suit made of more than 4,000 pieces of jade and sewn with gold threads. Britons will get a rare chance to see it and a second Chinese jade burial suit, as well as another 180 relics dating back to the Han Dynasty, when they go on show at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge from May 5 to November 11.

Together, the touring exhibits will provide great insight into ancient Chinese burial custom. Han Chinese believed jade could prevent the body from decaying.

The tomb was robbed shortly after the body was interred. The thieves drew out the gold wire, but left the jade tablets, so precious that only royalty could own it. The robbers would have feared the suspicion of being captured with jade -- and the death penalty that would have come with it.

The jade tablets scattered in the tomb had to be pieced back together by the archaeologists who unearthed the prince's mausoleum on Mount Shizishan in Xuzhou city of east China's Jiangsu Province in 1995.

The intricate jigsaw puzzle was not solved until 2003. It took six experts 20 months to restore the jade clothes, with 4,248 jade tablets and gold wires weighing 1,576 grams.