Dating back over 2,000 years, about 40 "wraps" stuffed with grain food in the shape of modern-day rice dumplings were discovered in their entirety in a tomb in Xinyang, a city in central China's Henan Province, according to the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology.

The tomb where the discovery was made belongs to a noble of the ancient state of Chu during the mid-Warring States Period (475 BC-221 BC).
The plant used as wrapping was determined to be Quercus leaf, which tallies with the present-day custom practiced in the west and south of Henan of wrapping Zongzi with Quercus leaf.
"You see this part, the leaf margin of this leaf resembles the one I am holding now. You can see more lobes on the upper part of this leaf. All this, coupled with the venation of this leaf, suggests that it is a Quercus leaf," explained Lan Wanli, researcher with the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology.
"Among all the wraps that we've found, 40 are relatively intact. We unwrapped two of them for further study. Food was wrapped by multiple layers of leaves. A wrap has a diameter of about 15 centimeters and is about three to five centimeters thick. So it's about this big. Threads or straws are used to secure the shape," Lan explained.
Using microscopes, archaeologists found 39 out of the 40 "wraps" were stuffed with uncooked rice still with husks on, and one stuffed with a kind of millet.
"We speculate from how and where these wraps were positioned that they served as food. Every wrap contains about 200 grams of grains, which is exactly the amount of food for an adult. China's culinary culture runs deep and has rarely been disrupted in its continuity. It's fair to say that such 2,000-year-old food wraps are the predecessor of the zongzi we eat today," Lan said.