CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

TOMB 1 AT
TIANXINGGUAN,
JIANGLING,
HUBEI PROVINCE
Tianxingguan Tomb i, at Jiangling in Hubei province, was excavated between January and
March of 1978. Like many other vertical-shaft burials of the Middle Warring States period in
the region, the tomb was built as a multi-chambered wooden crypt placed at the bottom of a pit
(12.2 meters deep), with three internested coffins in the central chamber, surrounded by sidechambers
filled with burial goods. Although the tomb had already been robbed at the time
of excavation, archaeologists recovered more than 2,500 artifacts, including well-preserved
bronzes and lacquerware. The distribution of the burial goods in the various chambers did not
follow a strict division by category, but the eastern chamber held the majority of the many musical
instruments placed in the tomb, and the western chamber contained most of the weapons
and military equipment. The fantastic lacquered wood figure (cat. 118) was found in the southern
chamber along with a second lacquered figure — a bird standing on a tiger-shaped base
with a pair of antlers jutting from its body just above the wings.
One of the two bamboo-slip manuscripts found in the western chamber is a tomb inventory.
From it we learn that the deceased was named Pan Cheng, a man who held aristocratic
rank as Lord of Diyang. The inventory further reveals that many of the burial goods were gifts
from relatives, friends, and colleagues of Pan Cheng. The second manuscript — a record of turtle
divination, milfoil divination, and sacrificial offerings performed by specialists on behalf of
Pan Cheng during his lifetime (cat. 119) — provides information that suggests a mid-fourthcentury
BCE date for the burial. D H
345 | TOMB 1 AT TIANXINGGUAN, JIANGLING