Tombstone evidence of early Christians

Research conducted on a tombstone dating back to the ninth century has shown that Christianity was probably popular in China around the time of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), an archaeologist said yesterday.

The incomplete and damaged stone, unearthed in Luoyang, Henan province, in 2006, features scriptures of the Jingjiao, or Nestorian Christianity, and images of crosses, Luo Zhao, a religious researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.

"To be exact, the Christian text was a thesis about Christian theology written by a prelate who had been living in China in the late eighth century."