Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Excavation on the Niwan

Site in Weihui City, Henan --------------------------------------------------------------------------(3 )

Sichuan Liangshan Yi Nationality Autonomous Prefecture Museum, Eastern Han Tomb 1

at Yangjiashan in Xichang City, Sichuan ---------------------------------------------------------(19 )

Tang Luoyang City-site Archaeological Team, IA, CASS, 2001—2002 Excavation of the

Yingtianmen Gate-site of the Sui and Tang Eastern Capital in Luoyang City, Henan ------(33)

Li Jun and Li Enwei, Excavation of a Song Period Tomb at Zefengyuan Neighborhood in

Xingtai City, Hebei ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------(39 )

Li Xinwei, Restudy of Prehistoric Indoor Burials in Abandoned Houses -------------------------(50)

Qian Yaopeng, On the Traces of Disasters and the Building near the Square in the Lajia

Settlement ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------(57)

Liu Fengzhu and Dong Xinlin, A Decipherment of the “Epitaph of Grand Tutor Salai Shilu” 

in Qidan Lesser Script -------------------------------------------------------------------------------(69)

Jiang Xiaochun, Some Problems on Gilt Bronze Plaques for Coffins -----------------------------(74)

Chen Xuexiang and Jin Hanbo, A Summary of the “International Workshop on the Shang

     Civilization in 2006 ”------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------(84)

 

 

 

Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Excavation on the Niwan

Site in Weihui City, Henan 

 

KEY WORDS: Weihui, Henan    Niwan site    Longshan culture

ABSTRACT: In 1994, archaeological excavation was carried out on the Niwan site in Weihui City, Henan. In the excavated area of more than 200 sq m, archaeologists cleared out a tomb and seven ash-pits of the Longshan culture, a tomb of the Warring States period and three ash-pits of the Han period. The present paper reports the remains of Longshan culture. The tomb is an earth-pit grave and contains two human skeletons of secondary burial without funeral objects. The ash-pits yielded pottery, stone and bone artifacts, of which the pottery comes first in amount and falls in shape mainly into the Jar and bowl. The unearthed data are of great importance to the study of the Longshan culture in northern Henan.

 

Sichuan Liangshan Yi Nationality Autonomous Prefecture Museum, Eastern Han Tomb 1

at Yangjiashan in Xichang City, Sichuan

 

 

KEY WORDS: Xichang, Sichuan    Eastern Han period    tomb

ABSTRACT: In 1996, a salvaging excavation was carried out to explore Yangjiashan Tomb 1 in Xichang City, Sichuan Province. This is a single-chambered rectangular brick tomb with the bottom paved with decorated bricks and the top made into a vault. Judged by the charcoal traces and wide spot of red lacquer coatings remaining on the tomb bottom, there must have been a coffin in the tomb. No human skeleton was found in the chamber. The unearthed objects total above 90, of which the bronzes come first in quantity, pottery articles next, and iron artifacts, copper coins and gold ornaments occur in a small umber. Dating from the mid Eastern Han, being in a good condition and yielding a number of cultural relics, the tomb provided important data for studying Eastern Han burials in this region.

 

 

 

Tang Luoyang City-site Archaeological Team, IA, CASS, 2001—2002 Excavation of the

Yingtianmen Gate-site of the Sui and Tang Eastern Capital in Luoyang City, Henan

 

KEY WORDS: Luoyang, Henan    Eastern Capital of the Sui and Tang dynasties   

             Yingtianmen Gate-site

ABSTRACT: In 2001 to 2002, excavation cleared out the platform, gateway and related vestiges on the Yingtianmen Gate-site of the Sui and Tang Eastern Capital in present-day Luoyang City, Henan, covering an area of 2,167 sq m in total. The remains on the site can be divided into two phases in the light of stratigraphical evidence. The early vestiges include the traces of platform and gateway and the foundation trench of the western corridor; and the late ones, the remains of platform and eastern gateway. In both phases the gateway had three parallel passages. Among the unearthed objects are bricks, tile-ends and coins. The early phase gate may have been rebuilt in the High Tang period, while the late one, in the late Tang to the Northern Song period. Judged by the fire traces on the rectangular bricks unearthed from the late remains, the late Yingtianmen gate must have been destroyed in flames of war.

 

  

 

Li Jun and Li Enwei, Excavation of a Song Period Tomb at Zefengyuan Neighborhood in

Xingtai City, Hebei

 

KEY WORDS: Xingtai City, Hebei    tombs    Song period

ABSTRACT: In 2001, archaeological excavation revealed four tombs of the Song period in Zefengyuan Neighborhood of Xingtai City, Hebei Province. These graves are all earth caves each with a shaft-shaped passage. Of them three have a coffin each, containing a male skeleton lying in an extended supine position; and the other is unknown in this respect as it was disturbed owing to robbing. The unearthed grave goods include pottery, porcelain and coins, with the tower-shaped pottery jar as the most common object, each tomb yielding a set. This type of vessel is a miniature of the genuine tower and a product of influence from Indian Buddhism, which indicates that the tomb-owners are religious believers. In particular, the tower-shaped jar from Tomb M4 combined Buddhist and Taoist images in a body, providing data for studying the amalgamation of Buddhism and Taoism in the Xingtai area.

  

 

 

 

Li Xinwei, Restudy of Prehistoric Indoor Burials in Abandoned Houses

 

KEY WORDS: prehistoric times   abandonment of houses   indoor burial    Lajia site

ABSTRACT: Although there have been several published papers discussing customs concerned with abandoned houses in prehistoric China, the problem of how to recognize ritual behaviors among the remains of houses is still unsettled in field work. The present paper focuses on indoor burial, the most common custom with abandoned houses in prehistoric China. Based on published data of the Lajia site, especially the quantity, position and completeness of the human skeletons and pottery vessels found on the floors of houses, the author argues that the dead may have been intentionally put on the floors before the residents left their settlement rather than were killed by the collapse of houses in an earthquake. Moreover, he points out that indoor burial may have widely prevailed in the territory of Qijia culture

 

 

 

Qian Yaopeng, On the Traces of Disasters and the Building near the Square in the Lajia Settlement 

 

KEY WORDS: Lajia site    Qijia culture    traces of disasters    construction of houses

ABSTRACT: The Lajia settlement-site of the Qijia culture is an important discovery in recent archaeological investigation; and the traces of disasters in groups drew special attention from researchers. Among the factors of the disasters, such as earthquakes, mountain torrents and floods, earthquakes must have been the most important, though the structural shortcomings of prehistoric cave-style dwellings are not to be ignored. Judged by the information on production and life reflected from Vestiges F3 and F4, sudden disasters may have happened in the autumn. Vestige F20, the remains of a surface building close to the square, might have been concerned with certain handicraft production, and F21, the vestige of a dwelling on piles, is probably the remains of a watch post.    

 

 

 

Liu Fengzhu and Dong Xinlin, A Decipherment of the “Epitaph of Grand Tutor Salai Shilu” in Qidan Lesser Script

 

KEY WORDS: Qidan lesser script    epitaph of Grand Tutor Salai Shilu    Liao period

ABSTRACT: In 2000, an epitaph in Qidan script was unearthed from Tomb 4 of the Liao period in the Shuiquangou cemetery at Yihebei Township in Jarud Banner, Inner Mongolia. It has a Qidan lesser script title in two seven-character lines, which can be deciphered as “Epitaph for the Tomb of Grand Tutor Salai Shilu.” The text is written also in Qidan lesser script and composed of 164 characters in 13 lines, of which ten characters are damaged or missing. The first line is a statement about the tomb-owner, from which only the words “Shilu, son of Grand Tutor Salai” can be deciphered. The second to eleventh lines tell of Grand Tutor Salai Shilu’s three sons, especially of the first son Temei. The date “sixth year of the Shouchang reign” provided important evidence for dating.

 

 

 

Jiang Xiaochun, Some Problems on Gilt Bronze Plaques for Coffins

 

     KEY WORDS: gilt bronze plaques for coffins   Three Gorges region   tombs of the Han period

ABSTRACT: Gilt bronze plaques for coffins are distinctive funeral objects in Han tombs. They appeared no later than the mid Western Han and were distributed principally in the Ba-Shu cultural area of the Han period, especially in the Three Gorges region. Their origination was closely related to the custom of decorating coffins emerging in the Central Plains of the Western Zhou period; their evolution went on under strong influence from the practice of adorning the frontal end of pictorial sarcophagi; and their motifs around the Queen Mother of the West and the Heaven gate were formed in the mid and late Eastern Han. Judged by the facts that the tombs with bronze coffin-plaques are larger in scale and their mourning goods are greater in quantity, it can be inferred that their owners must have belonged to the local official or wealthy stratum.

 

 

 

Chen Xuexiang and Jin Hanbo, A Summary of the “International Workshop on the Shang Civilization in 2006”

 

KEY WORDS: Shang civilization    international workshop   archaeology of the Xia, Shang and Zhou periods    Shandong University

ABSTRACT: On August 7-9, 2006, the Center for East Asian Archaeology of Shangdong University held the “International Workshop on the Shang Civilization in 2006” at Jinan City and Weihai City, Shandong Province. More than 50 Chinese and foreign scholars attended the meeting, and 43 papers were sent to the symposium. The attendants carried out exchanges and discussions on the Shang remains of the Daxinzhuang site in Jinan City, the archaeology of the Shang period in the Hai-Dai region, archaeological researches on the Xia, Shang and Zhou periods in other areas, the integration of Shang archaeology with literal records and the study into the ideology of the Shang period in the light of oracle-bone inscriptions.