A photo of a pottery figure with Chinese text has been posted on Weibo by the Palace Museum's online store on Nov 30, 2015. [Photo/Weibo]

A pottery figure with his left hand holding his ear, also from the Eastern Han Dynasty says: "I think I heard someone say I'm handsome."

A photo of two pottery palace dancers with English text has been posted on Weibo by the Palace Museum's online store on Nov 30, 2015. [Photo/Weibo]

Two pottery palace dancers, each with one arm stretching upward, are captioned: "give me five."

The pictures have been forwarded 17,141 times, and received 4,195 likes and 2,358 comments in less than 24 hours. Many readers couldn't help but laugh and some suggested they are "emojis from our ancestors".

"How can I stroll calmly in the museum in future after seeing these pictures?" said a Weibo user named soso_721.

"Stop being naughty! My office is so quite that I literally will result in internal injury for holding back my laughs," said another.