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The Yuanzhou Archaeological Joint Excavation in 1996

 

    During the years 1995, the Yuanzhou Archaeological Excavations in China, funded by the Monbusho (Japan Ministry of Education) Grant – in Aid for International Scientific Research, was a Joint Project by China and Japan.

    During 1996, the tomb of the Northern Zhou dynasty prime minister Tian Hong, who died and was buried in 575 A.D., was discovered.

The burial mound is round shaped, and measures about 35 meters across. It contains a cave – chamber tomb, which measure 12 meters deep from the top of the mound. Because the tomb chamber had been broken into by thieves on a large scale in the past, only remains broken into pieces were excavated.

    The three remains had laid in the wooden coffins in the chamber. One of them was Tian Hong’s coffin found in the back chamber, another one was his wife’s found in the main chamber. They had been left intact, but the third one had been scattered by thefts.

    Originally the tomb contained a large quantity of wall paintings. Some of them were found in good condition: about 13 ministers, colored in red, white and black. The rest were lost due to the roof and wall caving in.

In the chamber tomb various painted pottery figures were found: some equestrians in the eastern side chamber, one cook and two dogs in the fifth shaft of a tomb gallery. In addition to these, five Byzantine gold coins were found: one Leo I, the Thracian (457 – 474 A.D.) coin, one Justin I (518 – 527 A.D.) coin, two Justinian I, co – regent (527 A.D.) coins, and one Justinian I, the Great (527 – 526 A.D.) coin. Jade ornaments, numerous gold leafed glass beads and mica foils with papercutted gold were also recovered.

    These discoveries would be helpful to our understandings of the relationships among the Byzantine, west – central Asian, Chinese, and Japanese cultures during this time.