Study Of Spatial-temporal Distribution Of Cliff Tombs Of The Han Dynasty In Sichuan And Chongqing Area

Cliff Tomb is a relatively common form of burial in Sichuan and Chongqing region. According to the third national cultural relics census results and the existing research results, cliff tomb almost throughout the whole Sichuan and Chongqing area,not only appears abundantly in the plain area of Western Sichuan, but also in the Hilly Region of the Middle Sichuan and paralleled ridge-valley region of East Sichuan.From the view of form and scale, there are significant imbalancement in regional development of cliff tombs, in addition to the plain area of western Sichuan, the development degree of the hilly region of the middle Sichuan is the highest, followed by the paralleled ridge-valley region of east Sichuan. The number of cliff tombs of western Sichuan region is large, so is the scale of them, many huge cliff tombs are concentrated in this region, and at the same time, the cliff tombs in this place have complicated forms. The cliff tombs in Santai-Zongjiang area located in the north of the plain area of western Sichuan is composed by multiple burial rooms which arranged in front and back order. The cliff tombs in Chengdu-Pengshan area located in the middle of the plain area of western Sichuan has an elongated corridor with several coffin chambers distributed on both sides of it. The cliff tombs in Leshan area located in the south of the plain area of western Sichuan has several elongated coffin chambers and there is a funerary temple in front of them. There are also a large number of the cliff tombs in the Hilly Region of the Middle Sichuan and the paralleled ridge-valley region of East Sichuan, but most of them are much smaller,and they are affected by the cliff tombs in the plain area of western Sichuan.We can explore the internal structure of cliff tombs further based on the typical forms of Santai-Zhongjiang region, Chengdu-Pengshan region and Leshan region.According to the combined modes of coffin chambers, we can analyze the forms of cliff tombs by typology methods, by dividing them into mass layout, strip layout and cluster layout, according to the number of the main room, each of them have four types, and so, there are twelve types in total. Then combined with the existing research results and some tombs with dated inscriptions, the cliff tombs of Han Dynasty in Sichuan and Chongqing area can be divided into the end of the Western Han Dynasty to the early Eastern Han Dynasty, the early Eastern Han Dynasty, the mid Eastern Han Dynasty, the late Eastern Han Dynasty to the end, then we can know that cliff tombs of Han Dynasty appeared in a wide area in the beginning, but the north of the plain area of western Sichuan was the only one place where formed atypical cliff tomb shape and got a quick development, and at the same time, spread it to the surrounding areas, and during this time, the middle of the plain area of western Sichuan and the south of the plain area of western Sichuan formed two typical cliff tomb shapes separately under the influence of the shape of the north of the plain area of western Sichuan. Three typical cliff tomb shapes influenced each other, learnt from each other, and developed with each other together.Cultural differences of cliff tombs were reflected by the different space. Etiquette ideology of cliff tombs of Santai-Zhongjiang region can be summed up according to the form of them. Comparing the layout of Santai-Zhongjiang region to the layout of Chengdu-Pengshan region and Leshan region, we can see a kind of phenomenon that the latter focus on practicality in the layout and lack of restraint of etiquette, and the possible explanation to the phenomenon is that Chengdu-Pengshan region and Leshan region distance from the center of the Han culture of the Central Plains, and the extent of chinesization was lower.