CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

TOMB 1
AT MASHAN,
JIANGLING,
HUBEI PROVINCE
In 689 BCE King Wen moved the capital of Chu from Danyang to Ying (near present-day
Jiangling in Hubei province). Traces of its surrounding wall are all that remain of the ancient
city, but until its conquest by the Qin state in 278 BCE, Ying was center of political and cultural
life in central China. 1 The twenty-eight hundred tombs discovered between 1961 and 1982 on
the site of the city and its environs are an indication of its importance. 2 Nearly a third of
these tombs were each furnished with a large wooden outer coffin (guo) and one or more inner
coffins (guan); well-preserved tombs from the sites at Baoshan, 3 Yutaishan 4 and Mashan 5 have
yielded a dazzling array of tomb furnishings: bronze ritual vessels, bells, and weapons; horse
armor and trappings; chariot fittings; leather and jade objects; sculptures of imaginary beasts
rendered in bronze or wood; funeral inventories and other documents written on bamboo slips;
colorfully decorated lacquerware; coffin mats; and exquisite silk clothing and shrouds.
Tomb i at Mashan was discovered in January 1982 in the brickyard of the Mashan commune,
located approximately sixteen kilometers north of the present-day city of Jiangling and
eight kilometers north of Ji'nan. The tomb — an oblong pit with vertical walls containing an
outer coffin and a single inner coffin placed along an east-west axis — was a comparatively
modest type common among low-ranking aristocrats known as shi (knights). 6
The tomb's "outer coffin" — a chamber (guoshi) 248 centimeters long, 106 centimeters
high, and 149 centimeters wide — was built of massive, i8-centimeter-thick boards cut from
the center of a Chinese variety of zelkova (ju; Zelkova schneideriana). A herringbone-patterned
mat (renziwen), 330 centimeters long and 189 centimeters wide, lined the interior; lime mortar
sealed the coffin and preserved its contents from the depredations of water, insects, tomb robbers,
and, to some extent, decay. 7 The outer coffin comprised three separate compartments:
the largest compartment contained the inner coffin, which held the corpse of the deceased; a
long side-compartment held grave goods, bamboo baskets and mats, a variety of pottery vessels,
grave figurines, and the skeleton of a small dog. The third compartment, located at the head of
the corpse, contained an extraordinary imaginary beast carved from a root, a neck-rest of woven
bamboo, two bamboo boxes containing bronze and lacquer vessels, and several wooden
figurines of attendants dressed in silk.
The inner coffin (200 centimeters long, 67 centimeters wide, and 61 centimeters high)
was made of Chinese catalpa (zi, Lindera zimu, Hemsl). The lid and sides were covered by a dark
brown plain silk casing (huangwei) 8 ornamented with lozenge-pattern trimmings, held in position
by three hemp bands. A twig of bamboo, still green when the outer coffin was opened,
and a piece of fine, plain silk (originally painted) lay on top of the casing.
The unnamed woman buried in Mashan Tomb i died between the age of forty and fortyfive,
sometime between 340 and 278 BCE. She was approximately 160 centimeters tall, and her
outstretched body (of which only the skeleton and hair, covered by a wig, remain), was wrapped
in cloth, placed on a board carved with geometrical patterns, and encased in a woven bamboo
mat. She belonged to the lower aristocratic class of shi, who probably were not entitled to wear
32O
I CHU AND OTHER CULTURES