A Study On The Tomb Of Tang Dynasty Around Xi'an

In the past 60 years, Chinese archeologists have made a tremendous achievement in studying on the tomb of Guanzhong (关中) district (around xi'an). In this region, up to the present, more than 3000 tombs have been excavated. These tombs with excellent mural, burial articles and epitaph provide profound data for further study of Tang dynasty tombs in this region, even the whole empire. This thesis is intended to analyze 200 tombs, focusing on the archeological discovery and the classical documents.The ground facilities of tang dynasty tomb in Guanzhong district include the wall, watch tower, mound, inscription, stone carving, sacrificial place and tomb tree. Only a few royal members and nobles are entitled have this facilities. There are two gates of the tomb before AD 649, the one is on the south, and the other is on the north. After AD 649, there is ordinarily one gate of the tomb, except the tomb of Lixian (李宪). There are four mounds in the corner of Ordinary officials' tomb. Tomb in the shape of trapezoid is of the highest rank, which applied to important member of royal family. These tombs always are attendant tomb of the imperial mausoleum. Tomb in the shape of circular cone is very popular in Tang dynasty. The tomb in shape of mountain or in the mountain is special type for most important and respectable royal umbers and military officials. The stone carving before the tomb conforms to the classical document. The stone carving of the tomb whose owners rank is under the 6th level has lost. The numbers and kinds can only be speculated according to the original data.The definitions of "bianfang"(便房) in Tang dynasty document and Han dynasty are completely different. The under ground construction can be categorized as following four kinds: double room brick tomb, double room cave tomb, single room brick tomb, and single room cave tomb. The double-room brick tombs emerge around A.D.658 and disappeared before AD741. The single-room brick tomb, whose owners are mostly above the 12th level, lasted longer than any other. After Lushan Rebellion, there has been a trend to simplify under-ground construction. The vertical pavement replaced the long tilt pavement. Niches are reallocated on the side from the pavement to the tunnel under the tomb room. The numbers of the niches are fixed to 12, in which the 12 animals are placed. The transformation of the under-ground construction underwent the following period: AD618-AD657, AD658-AD710, AD710-AD748, AD748-AD809, AD809-AD906.The funeral instruments of Tang Dynasty include two kinds: stone outsider coffin and timber coffin. Before AD705, the stone outside coffins whose owners are royal members or attendant are various in shape, space and width. After AD705, the stone outside coffins are in the uniform in the shape with hip-roofed, regardless of the owners' social status, including prince, princess, official, even primary soldier. After 741, except the emperor, none entitled to use the stone outsider coffin. The original stone coffin can be traced to Han-Wei time. Timber coffin is the most common burial instrument. There are two kinds, one is rectangle, and one is trapezoid. Most common coffin platform is made of brick. Only the officials above 6th level are allowed use stone platform. The ordinary people don't even use platform. The shape of the platform is rectangle, and later trapezoid emerged. The tomb door varied with the owner's status. Stone door is of the highest rank.Burial articles include burial objects, owners personal belongings, vessel of offerings. This paper made a detailed typological study on these two kinds. Based on this analysis, location, group, dating are studied. According to the filed study, we compared with what is recorded in classical document. The number and height of the figure in tomb were reduplicated.After analyzing the designation style of the Li shou (李寿)tomb, Changle(长乐) princess tomb and Xincheng (新城) princess tomb, the author believes that the mural of Lishou tomb represents the early style, the Changle's represents the transition style, the Xincheng's represents the classical style.The location of attendant tomb of Zhaoling (昭陵) depended on the death time. The earlier were buried in the north. This discovery makes the established view that civil officials were buried in the left and the burial place is distributed according to the place where they worked invalid. The designation of family cemetery is inherited from their ancestors. The citizen of Changan city would be buried in the place close to their home. This is a case of the foreigner. Through analyzing 7 pieces (宫人斜) poem,it is clear that the tomb of maids in the imperial palace were located in Sanmin village(三民村). Lingaoyi(临皋驿) was close it.In the end, this thesis discussed the influence of Daoism and Buddhism in tomb, the under-ground construction of Qianling(乾陵), double-room tomb, hierarch and it's contents.