From April to May in 2018, salvage archaeological excavation of south part of Shangshihe Cemetery in Yima City, Henan Province was conducted by Sanmenxia Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. During this excavation, 21 earthen shaft pit tombs with rectangular plane and 6 sacrificial horse pits were cleared. Almost 500 pieces of all kinds of artifacts were unearthed, ranging from potteries, bronze, jade artifacts and so on. According to results of excavation, it’s predicted that the cemetery from Shangshihe Village should be a rather concentrated medium-small sized aristocrat cemetery from early-middle phases of Spring-autumn periods.

Tomb M33

Burials and grave goods 

21 excavated tombs from this season are all earthen shaft pit tombs. Tomb openings are all rectangular in plane. However, vary in scale. Based on size of tomb opening, they can divide into two kinds, medium-sized tombs and small-sized tombs. Among them, there are 8 medium-sized tombs and 13 small-sized tombs.

All tombs are south-north oriented, except for M27, which is east-west oriented. Contemporary tombs haven’t broken or overlapped each other at all, which suggested that the cemetery had been planned ahead under rather strict burial rules. All earthen shaft pit tombs excavated have straight walls and flat bottoms. There is a waist pit in the middle of tomb bottom in a few tombs. Around tomb bottoms, there are platforms made of mellow soil, which vary in width. Tomb chamber is always in the middle, while inner and outer coffins are placed within chamber.

Funeral furniture found from all tombs of this season has already been heavily decayed, except for M22 whose furniture hasn’t been recognized at all. According to traces in tombs, it’s known that there should be inner and outer coffins in tombs. Only M33 has an outer coffin and several inner coffins. The rest 19 tombs all have an inner coffin and an outer coffin. As for burial form, there are only 2 tombs having no skeleton and one tomb being uncovered with heavily disordered human skeleton, unable to figure out its position at all. There is one skeleton in each of the rest 18 tombs. The deceased from tombs are all lying on their backs with straight limbs. Skeletons of tomb owners are basically well-preserved.

Relatively a few grave goods are unearthed from tombs, most of which are put on covers of coffins, or between inner coffins and outer coffins, or within coffins. Only 2 tombs don’t have any funeral gifts at all, the others all have burial gifts varying in quantity. There are 7 kinds of raw materials for artifacts, including bronze, jade, stone, clay, bone, shell and seashell. Among them, bronze artifacts are the mainstream following by jade artifacts, stone artifacts and bone artifacts. Bronze artifacts include ritual artifacts, weapons, shovels and harnesses. Ritual artifacts have tripod-ding, xu-serving vessels with a cover and two stands, plates, yi-wine vessels, fu-cauldrons and so on. Bronze weapons contain daggers, arrowheads, shields and etc. Harnesses conclude linchpin heads, bits, bells, belt buckles, rings and so on. Jade artifacts have bi-round jades with a hole in the center, huang-semi-annular jade pendant, daggers, jue jade ring, string decorations made of agate and jade pendants, bird-shaped pendants, jades in mouth and etc. What’s more, there are also other kinds of burial goods being found in tombs, ranging from stone artifacts, bone artifacts, potteries and shells. Specifically, stone artifacts include stone gui-elongated pointed tablets, stone-made and so on. Bone artifacts conclude bone nails, bone gui-elongated pointed tablets and etc. Pottery artifacts contain li-vessels with three stands, jars and beads and so on. Shells have round shell decorations with bird pattern, clamshells and sea shells and etc. 

Tomb M34

Sacrificial Horse Pits

6 sacrificial horse pits have been cleared during this season’s excavation, all south-north oriented. They are all small-sized horse pits with same structures and similar scales. Their openings are all rectangular in plane. Among them, 4 are relatively large pits. There are 6 horse skeletons in the bottom of each large pit. Only 2 pits are rather smaller ones, each of which has 2 horse skeletons in the bottom. There are a few harnesses being uncovered from two pits for sacrificial horse.

Sacrificial horse pit MK6 

There are bronze ritual vessels being found from tombs, including bronze tripod-ding, bronze xu-cauldrons with a cover and 2 stands, bronze plates, bronze yi-wine vessels and so on, whose shapes are basically the same with those discovered from Guo State Cemetery in Sanmenxia City. Design depicting simplified and abstract animal images (qiequ pattern) and double rings pattern and etc. decorated on bronze vessels are quite popular in early phase of Spring and Autumn Period. Weapons, including bronze daggers, bronze spearheads, bronze arrowheads, bronze shields and so on. They are also the same with those from Guo State Cemetery in Sanmenxia City. Therefore, it’s predicted that tombs in Shangshihe Cemetery should belong to early-middle phases of Spring and Autumn Period.

Shangshihe Cemetery is another small-sized aristocratic cemetery from early and middle phases of Spring-autumn period in Sanmenxia region after discovery of Guo State Cemetery uncovered in Shangcunling in Sanmenxia, which has relatively large scale. Its discovery and excavation have provided precious archaeological materials for research on funeral system and burial practice of west part of Henan Province during Spring and Autumn Period. (Translator: Ma Huanhuan)