Ancient Han Dynasty Tomb Discovered in Lujiang County, Anhui Province, China

Ancient tomb found in Lujiang

Updated: 2013-04-11   A tomb dating back around 1,700 years is excavated in Lujiang county of East China's Anhui province on March 29, 2013.（Photo from Anhuinews.com） A tomb dating back around 1,700 years was unearthed in Lujiang county of East China's Anhui province on March 29, with the coffin inside well preserved and showing few traces of rot, Hefei Evening News reported. The tomb, measuring about 3 meters by 3 meters, was found by a local worker when he was operating an excavator on a construction site. Large as it is, only a dozen funeral objects were dug out and many of them turned out to be pottery ware. "Many burial objects are supposed to be unearthed in such a big tomb, but as we excavated it, we found an opening suggesting it had been raided," Yang Biyu, head of the Lujiang administration of cultural relics said regretfully, adding that judging from the hole, the tomb suffered a raid as early as the Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD). Inside the tomb, a 2.5-meter-long coffin has been surprisingly preserved intact, with few signs of decay found in its 20-plus planks. It will not be known for whom or in which year the tomb was built, nor its historical value until all the antiques are studied by archaeologists. "The objects will help us to get a glimpse of the county in the Han Dynasty if any writing is discovered on them once the centuries of dirt is rubbed off," the official said.

Fifty-Three Han, Tang and Song Dynasty Tombs Uncovered

The report is rather understated, I think!  This is in incredibly important discovery. I sincerely hope the government will do everything (and I do mean everything) to protect those tombs and, as is quite apparent from the photographs that accompany the article, the artifacts that have already been removed from the tombs, including one or more absolutely priceless Han Dynasty bronze "mirrors."  Sad to say, the originals of these artifacts have probably already disappeared into the "private collections" of high mucky-muck Communist Party Politburo princes. 

From China Daily
Han Dynasty Tombs Found by Accident
Updated: 2012-04-13

More than 50 ancient and rare relics were uncovered in a tomb excavation in Guxian County, Anhui province. The 53-tomb complex is believed to have been under construction over many dynastic periods dating back to the Eastern Han Dynasty nearly 2,000 years ago.

The tomb complex was discovered accidentally on a construction site. It contains over 50 brick tombs from the Eastern Han, Tang and Song dynasties.

Experts identified the type of people who were buried there.

Zhao Lanhui, deputy researcher of the Bengbu Cultural Relics Institute, said, "lying south to north would perhaps be people of four generations. Due to its size, we know the tombs come from the Song Dynasty. It's small with a simple style.

The tombs hold a unique character that were built in an animal shape."

Though some tombs have been plundered over the years, precious relics have emerged, such as bronze mirrors, gold and silver garments, along with pottery boxes.



This is a photo from the article.  Not captioned, so it could be "any" Bronze Mirror rather than one
 recovered from one of the Han Dynasty tombs.  Bronze Mirrors went out of fashion at the
end of the Han Dynast; they were tied to Taoist philosophy and the Queen Mother of the West, and were
 used for divination. I am not able to tell from this photo if this is a TLV mirror or a "cloud" pattern mirror.

Many people buried here were considered common people, until the discovery of a special, delicate and well-preserved mirror.

Zhou Chongwen, archaeologist, said, "It's a relatively large bronze mirror, which means the owner held social status."

An archeological study is continuing on into its history and the people who lived here.

It's generating much interest in local heritage and cultural identity.

Ancient 'Defense Minister' Tomb Uncovered in China

Shades of xiang qi! 
Tomb of ancient China's "defense minister" unearthed in northwest China
English.news.cn 2010-01-29 18:08:32

XI'AN, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- The family tombs of an high-ranking general of the Han Dynasty (202 B.C.-220 A.D.) was unearthed in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, providing evidence to China's military history, archaeologists said Friday.

The tomb in Weiqu Town of suburban Xi'an, provincial capital of Shaanxi, belonged to Zhang Anshi (?-62 B.C.), a major general of Han Dynasty and he was conferred the titled of Liehou, top level of entitled officials of the dynasty, after helping Liu Xun (91 B.C.-49 B.C.) to become the emperor, said Zhang Zhongli, vice president of Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology.

The identification of the tomb owner was confirmed by the archaeologists based on the discovery of the official seals and the seal carved with the family name Zhang from the tomb, which is only six kilometers away from the emperor's tomb, Zhang Zhongli said.

The main chamber of ancient Zhang's tomb, surrounded by more than a dozen of tombs, is 35 meters long and 24.5 meters wide, and has been robbed before, Zhang Zhongli said.

The whole tomb faces the direction of the emperor's tomb, which shows the respect of the general toward his king, Zhang said.

More than 2,000 pieces of cultural relics, including exquisite bronze and ceramics decorations, bronze seals and appliances which represent the high rank of the general, had been unearthed over the past year.

However, the body of the owners had not been unearthed in terms of better protection, Zhang said, without revealing the schedule.

The structure and size of the tomb and the large amount of unearthed appliances are all significant to archeological researches, Zhang said.

The military appliances and the carriages might be the remarkable discovery of the Chinese military history, as the general was considered the "national defense minister" of the Han Dynasty, he said.

Although the tombs of Zhang Anshi's and his wife's had been robbed and burnt before being discovered by the archeologists, they had provided abundant evidence to the research of the Han Dynasty history, he said.

Editor: Lin Zhi