Decorated Tombs And The Pictures In Southwest China In Han Dynasty

In Chinese history, to decorate the tombs with pictures is most prevalent in Han dynasty. Southwest China is the only area in southern China that the decorated tombs prevailed. The main study object in this book is Han dynasty's pictures and decorated tombs that were discovered mainly in Sichuan Basin in the past hundred years, which include findings in Sichuan Province, Chongqing City, northern Guizhou Province and northern Yunnan Province. The time of some tombs are late to Shuhan and West Jin periods. The tombs bears vivid local characteristics and there are different types include decorated brick tomb, stone relief tomb, pictured cliff tomb, pictured sarcophause and pictured stone watchtower etc.Basically, there are two parts in this book.In the first part, the author firstly did field survey and copied the pictures that still remain in southwest area. Then, having based on the study of the formers, sum up the data of the pictures and decorated tombs systemically, while divided them into different types as decorated cemetery tomb, decorated cliff tomb, pictured sarcophause, decorated watchtower and studied every tomb as single unit. The author also did textual research.In the second part, the author studied Han dynasty's pictures and decorated tombs holistically and synthetically. The study includes types of the pictures, the theme and combination of the pictures, the methods of how to made the pictures, the forms of the pictures, the art characters and achievements of the pictures, sorcery and the pictures, early Daoism and Buddhism and the pictures, the district and distribution of the decorated tombs, the date and the time of the decorated tombs, the origin of the decorated tombs, the rise and thedownfall of the decorated tombs, the shape and the bury customs of the decorated tombs, the owner and which class they belongs to of the decorated tombs.No matter the textual research or the holistically study, the pictures are always treated as one part of the decorated tombs and a phenomenon of the bury customs. The author adequately understands the basic meaning and the function of the pictures in the tombs and studied the pictures with other part of the tombs. Therefore, in the book the pictures are the main study role and the decorated tombs are studied as a whole. The author not only pays attention to the connections of the pictures and decorated tombs in southwest area and other places all over China, but also understands the local characteristics of Han culture in southwest area well, as well as the background of the long history tradition and rice planting culture of this area. To study area archaeological cultures in Han dynasty in different area, which is also called area culture of Han culture, is one of the important tasks of Han dynasty's archaeology, even though it is not regarded adequately. The study in this book is an attempt in this field,and the author intent to arouse the attention of others.