The Archaeology Study Of Han Tombs In Xiajiang Area

Xia-Jiang area is an area that is lied from the west of Nanjinguan in Yichang, Hubei Province to the east of Chongqing city where Yangtze River flows, and this area also includes basin perimeter of Yangtze River's chief branches, namely Yichang - Chongqing. With the hydropower project of Three-Gorges Dam starting, another massive rescure operation has accumulated abundant data about the tombs in Han Danasty. But our process of research falls behind the the work of archaeological excavations and the accumulated data severely. At the present time, the known studies on Xiajiang Han tombs focus on a small area or on a topic, but a comprehensive study based on all sided archaeological data has not been developed.In this article, I will absorb former research results, and then use new archeological date and the method of archeological typology, cultural elements of analytical method to study the tombs in Xiajiang area. Han tombs are divided into seveal types: haft-earth pit-grave, shaft-rock pit-grave and traverse grave, brick-chamber, stone-chamber, brick-stone-chamber, cliff-chamber. Analyzing the law of development about various tombs and the cultural elements included; laying heavy stress on funeral china, bronze vessels to do typological study, and surveying the development of inclusive cultural elements; on the base of analyzing the design of the tombs and burial artifacts, Han tombs in this area can be divided into eight periods, through analyzing the meaning and the development of cultural elements at every period, and also getting the reasons for this development from historical background to get such a result: various development in this area is an expression of blending into Han culture and the establishment of Han culture at Xianjiang area; according to the differences among the design of the tomes, the combination of burial artifacts and also the interment system, in combination with different constitution of cultural elements to devide Han tombes into three inferior districts, and analyze cultural difference and relation among every districts, then we will believe that the cultural dissemination of Xianjiang area in Han Danasty is not from the upstream to downstream following Yangtze River or the opposite, but it converges from the two sides to the middle, and then form a cohesive pattern.