Research On The Colored Painting Wooden Coffin During The Pingcheng Era

The decoration technique of colored painting appeared early in the tombs during the Han Dynasty.The famous Tombs at Zenghouyi had excavated exquisite painting coffins.Throughout vicissitudes in history,this technique later appeared in the tombs at Loulan and Hexi during Wei and Jin Dynasty.After the Northern Wei Dynasty,colored painting coffins primarily appeared in Pingcheng region,such as Northern Wei Tombs at Datong Zhijiabao,Northern Wei Mural Tombs at Shaling,and Tomb 1 at eastern Datong Lake.Considerable entity materials in specific periods make colored painting coffin a proper research subject.The foundation and development of Northern Wei is accompanied by diverse cultural integration.While incorporating traditional culture from Han nationality,Xianbei nationality also exerts prominent influences,which could be obviously found from relevant archaeological materials.Accordingly,researchers could conduct the analysis from typical utensils,mural painting in tomb chamber,and tomb forms.While colored painting coffin could also be taken as an entry point for researchers to witness the development and communication of Xianbei culture and carry out some more in-depth studies on specific details.In the end of the last century,a group of important Northern Wei tombs had been excavated,including Northern Wei Tombs at Guyuan,Tomb 1 at eastern Datong Lake,Northern Wei Tombs at Datong southern suburbs and Northern Wei Tombs at Zhijiabao.Colored painting coffin becomes a research hotspot in funeral art along with the successive excavation in these tombs.This thesis primarily takes colored painting coffin in North Wei Dynasty as the research subject and relevant tomb excavation reports as the main reference materials in combination with colored painting wooden coffins and stone funeral utensils in periods before and after North Wei Dynasty to compare the similarity and difference among all colored painting wooden coffins in image,tomb grade,and mural contents in the tomb chamber and their connection in time and space.The purpose is to probe into the cultural element represented by colored painting wooden coffins,the origin,development,communication of this cultural element and the connection between colored painting wooden coffins and tombs murals.The thesis is composed of four parts.Contents of each part have been presented as follows.The first part is introduction which expounds the research background and research methods of colored painting wooden coffins in periods before and after North Wei Dynasty and summarizes previous research findings.The second part presents colored painting wooden coffins in North Wei Dynasty and continuous usage in Qinghai region,including colored painting wooden coffins in North Wei Dynasty and colored painting wooden coffins in North Wei Dynasty in Tuyuhun Kingdom and Tubo Period.The third part observes some problems of colored painting wooden coffins,including the origin and conversion of colored painting wooden coffins.It will start from the perspective of the appearance,decoration techniques and funeral system of colored painting wooden coffins to set forth the cultural origin of colored painting wooden coffins in North Wei Dynasty and explain the development history of colored painting wooden coffins throughout the conversion of images and coffin chamber painting space.The final part makes a summary for the thesis and sums up the origin,development and conversion of colored painting wooden coffins in North Wei Dynasty.It points out that colored painting wooden coffins in Pingcheng era suffered from the influences of traditional Han culture,Hexi fashion and old customs of Xianbei,and sought primary development in early North Wei Dynasty.The images of colored painting wooden coffins started to change after Pingcheng era.Subject to the intense influence from external factors,colored painting wooden coffin with novel images did not popularize for a long term and eventually dropped out from the historical stage of North Wei after being replaced by popular stone funerals in contemporary era.