Han Tomb Of The Three Gorges Is A Preliminary Study

With the world famous hydropower project of Three-Gorges Dam starting, another massive rescue operation, which aims at saving the area's abundant cultural relics before they are lost below the rising water, follows on its heels. Up to now, the work of archaeological excavations in Three-Gorges have made remarkable achievements. Many important sites and remains have been unearthed by archaeologists, with numerous Han tombs as one of the most important parts of them.Han tombs in Three-Gorges area, according to the design, can be divided into several types, including shaft-grave, brick-chamber, stone-chamber, rock-cut, cliff-chamber, etc, different designs were popular with different time. As far as Western Han period was concerned, tombs were characterized by shaft-grave, while in Eastern Han, the design of tombs saw the dramatic changes, cliff-chamber tomb and brick-chamber tomb with ramp-way or corridor arise, which, to some extent, can be attributed to the change of people's view to life and death. For burial artifacts, the Han tombs in Three-Gorges area which can be dated before mid-Western Han seemed to contain a large proportion of local cultural elements. However, the local cultural elements decreased rapidly and even disappeared after mid-Western Han. Compared with other areas, the burial artifacts of this period were largely identical but with minor differences, with the development from the early ritual assemblages to the funerary objects which consisted of Cang, Jing, Zao and various kinds of pottery figures, indicating undoubtedly that Han Empire's culture was dominant throughout its territory in contemporary China. Based on the analysis of the design and burial artifacts of Han tombs, this article divided the Han tombs into eight periods in time order: the beginning of Western Han, the early Western Han, the mid-Western Han, the late Western Han, New Mang period, the early Eastern Han, the mid-Eastern Han, and the late Eastern Han. Furthermore, the present study also revealed the cultural elements contained in Han tombs in Three-Gorges area, and discussed the perception of funeral of that time.