An archeological team from Vietnam Archaeology Institute found fivestone axes believed to come from the 3,000-year-old Sa Huynh Culture at aKhue Bac communal house garden in the central city of Da Nang.

The communal house lies at the foot of the Ngu Hanh Son Mountains (Marble Mountains), 15km from the city centre.

HoTan Tuan, Director of the city's Heritage Management Centre, said onMay 31 that the team unearthed the axes on May 27 while digging a secondpit in the garden.

"The excavation, which began on May 16,provides more details on the appearance of the Sa Huynh Culture and theearly Cham in the area," Tuan said.

"The team is digging a larger pit in the hopes of finding more items in this second excavation of the garden."

Tuan said archaeologists found hundreds of coins, ceramic pieces and stone fragments at the first 100sq.m pit, dug in 2001.

ArchaeologistPham Van Trieu said the stone axes, ceramics and stones would have comefrom the Early Cham in the second and third centuries.

"Itemsfound from in the two excavations prove two cultures – the Early Chamand the Sa Huynh – existed in the garden of the Khue Bac communalhouse," Trieu said.

"The discovery also revealed that the upper layer was the Early Cham and the second was the Sa Huynh."

Trieu said figures on the coins also proved that Chinese traders did business in the region in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The excavation also proved the existence of people before the Sa Huynh, and the connection between the Sa Huynh and Cham.

The archaeological team will continue to search the garden, and announce their final results early next month.

Between2012 and 2014, archaeologists from Hanoi's University of SocialSciences and Humanities and Da Nang's Cham Sculpture Museum foundfoundations of Cham tower complexes in Qua Giang and Phong Le village inHoa Vang district.

The towers were built to honour the Champa King, who ruled the region between the fourth and 13th centuries.-VNA