EXCAVATION OF A HAN DYNASTY TOMB

AT CHUNGKING

David Crockett Graham

In July, 1936, it came to the attention of Rev. C. B. Rape that some laborers who were making a motor road on the grounds of the Chungking Middle School, of which Mr. Rape is missionary-in-charge and Mr. Yang Chung His杨重熙 is principal, had torn open three ancient Chinese tombs made of ornamented bricks typical of the Han dynasty. The tombs contained glazed images of men, women, dogs, pigs, houses, tables, etc., and glazed and unglazed bowls or jugs. As soon as Mr. Rape heard about it, he stopped the digging in the tombs and endeavored to secure and preserve the objects. 

In December 1936, while passing through Chungking, Mr. Rape showed me the bricks and other objects from the tombs, and me made an agreement that as soon as possible I should return and excavate the tombs.

On March 28, 1938, I returned to Chungking and was entertained in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Rape. Next day, with the help of a school servant and some hired coolies. I staked off the site into five-foot squares and began the excavation. The tombs were almost parallel and were on the top and north-east side of a hill that sloped from the south-west to the north-east.  They were made of large bricks ornamented on one side, and the bricks on and near the top were doubly dove-talled together and shorter on one side than on the other so that the tops of the tombs wee true arches. The ornamented faces of the bricks were on the inside of the tombs, which consequently presented a very attractive appearance. 

On the top of the hill is a layer of red clay less than three feet thick, under which is red sandstone which is more or less escaped and decomposed near the surface. The tombs had been dug down through the clay into the sandstone and covered over on top so as to be invisible. 

There were many Han dynasty Chinese tombs in Chungking and recently many have been destroyed. The coming of over a hundred thousand refugees into the city, has resulted in a building boom. This has caused the destruction of many Han dynasty Chinese graves. There is an empty Han dynasty cave-tomb under the Canadian Mission hospital. Several years ago I saw some Han dynasty Chinese cave-tombs that were being destroyed by the construction of the new motor-road to Chengtu, and during this visit I saw several more being destroyed by the widening of the same road. Mr. Rape and I saw the brick from three Han dynasty Chinese tombs on the property of the Sheng Sheng Company 生生公司. A Chinese military official, Mr. Liao, built part of his new house with ornamented bricks from Han dynasty Chinese tombs that were destroyed on this ground, and plastered over the bricks so that the ornamented surfaces could not be seen. Several Han dynasty ornamented brick tombs were recently destroyed on the south side of the Yangtse River from Chungking. Some policemen who came to see the excavation said that many similar graves had recently been destroyed in Chungking, but that nobody appreciated their value, so that nothing was preserved.

Our tools were the surveyers’ level and measuring rod, the plane table, shovels, picks, coarse and soft brushes, sharpened chopsticks instead of orange sticks, a steel tape, etc. Each stake was gives a number, and each square was given the number of the stake on its lower right-hand corner. A map was drawn, and the level at the base of each stake was taken and recorded before the evocation began. Each object was given a field number, and was record with its number, depth, location, and other observations in the field note book. An ideal datum plane was eastablished, from which all depths were computed. The aim was to preserve the materials and all the observations that would aid in the interpretation of the materials.

In one respect the work was disappointing. The first three tombs had been entirely emptied of their contents, and not enough brick had been left in place in the first tomb to tell its size or the location of its mouths. More brick were left in place in the second and third tombs. The fourth tomb had been discovered by the laborers who made the road, but at some previous time the top had been torn off by the farmers, so that rain-water had constantly run into the tomb kept the objects in it water-soaked. As a result the earthenware objects in it were so fragile and soft that they often broke into pieces even when they were carefully handled. Recent rains caused the dirt in the tomb to be so wet and sticky that it was difficult to walk or to stand and work in it.

Because only the top was missing and it was full of dirt and sand, we entertained hopes, that we would find all the objects where they originally been placed, but we were disappointed. Probably within a few decades of the time when the grave was made, thieves tore a large hole through the northeast corner, entered the tomb, the carried out all the valuable objects and probably the coffins and skeletons. The river sand which they found on the bottom was thrown by them into the southwest end, covering up some pottery, images, and cash which we found in their original positions. The drawing of the tomb shows where the different objects were found.

After the excavation I spent some time repairing the three tombs opened in 1936: --

Three broken bowls made of orange-yellow clay and covered in places by green glaze.

Fragments of a gray earthenware fish pond containing a leatherback turtle, two fish, one frog, and two snails.

Pieces of a low table made of gray earthenware.

Pieces of a low table made of gray orange-yellow clay.

Two grey earthenware hoofs and a piece of a leg of a horse.

Two pieces of gray, cord-marked tile or drainage pipes.

Orange-yellow fragments of men.

Two glazed bowls of orange-yellow clay.

One large and one small eliptical bowl with ridges on each side.

A gray earthenware images of a pig , length 236 millimeters, width 236 millimeters.

Legs and other pieces of a dog made of orange-yellow clay.

A plate, the upper surface covered with green glaze.

A gray earthenware dog, flat nosed, tail curling up over its back, a band about the chest and one around the neck meeting at the back of the neck where a leash is tied with which to lead the dog. Length 260 mm, height 213 mm.

The base of a stem bowl covered with greenish-yellow glaze.

The following objects were secured by excavation. All but the first two were found in the fourth tomb:--

A poorly-made smooth-stone implement. It was found in the debris thrown out of one of the tombs by the road-diggers. Tit is the third of the kind that I have known to come out of a Han dynasty Chinese tomb. One was found in an ornamented brick tomb on the Standard Oil Company’s compound at Wanhsien 万县, and one in a cavetomb at Pan Pien Chieh 半边街 near Pengshanhsien 彭山县. I have no idea why they were put into the tombs.

A rock that was not originally in a tomb, and may be a peleolith. It has a cutting edge and a smooth place at the top that could serve as a hand hold.

A smooth, round ,gray handleless bowl larger at the top than at the bottom. It was in the north-east corner of the entrance or passage-way of the tomb.

A small gray-clay fish pond containing a leatherback turtle, a fish, a frog, a flower, a duck in the act of diving (?) etc.  The duck and the flower were partly colored red.

A large bowl of gray pottery, cord-marked, round at the bottom, and with a small opening at the top.

Two small earthenware house of gray clay, one placed on each side of the passageway near the main chamber of the tomb. One was single-storied and the other had two stories. The roof of the one-stories house has upturned ends. Each of the houses has two of the braces which have figured so largely in Chinese architecture from the Han dynasty to the present time. This brace is one of the most common decorative designs in the Han dynasty cave-tombs of Szechwan, another link of evidence that they are Chinese grave. 

Two dogs made of orange-yellow clay. Unfortunately their heads broke off with the surrounding dirt when they were excavated.

One pig made of the same material. So far I have mot seen or heard of objects made of this orange-yellow clay in Han dynasty Chinese tombs in other province of China. It may be peculiar to Szechwan and due to the fact that the clay is to be found in Szechwan and the color, which could be called golden-yellow, is attractive.

Rice bowls made of gray clay and larger food bowls of similar shape and of the same material.

Two low tables and fragments of a third table, of gray clay. One of these was above the other with six small bowls between them. The bowls are obal or elliptical with ridges on both sides.

Soft orange-yellow clay images of men and women. Because they were water-soked and the dirt was packed tightly around them, the adhesion of the clay in the object was sometimes not so great as that of the clay in the object and the surrounding clay. About half the figures were successfully preserved. One servant was ambitious and wished to help, so he dug out several while I was not present, and every one was spoiled.

Several gray clay handleless jugs found in the passageway and in the main room of the tomb.

Three bronze legs of a large bronze vessel. They were removable and evidently dropped off when the looters carried away the bronze vessel.

About two thousand cash. They were bound together into strings and all were wu chu coins, date 9-23 A. D. This indicates that the tomb was made during the time of Christ or nit very long afterward.

One silver bracelet. I surmise that the bodv had decaved so that the bracelet came off easily and was missed in the dark tomb by the looters. Besides the bracelet not a single object was found in the south end of the tomb, but there was dark clay on both sides that was probably decayed clothing and other material from the coffins. No bones or bone fragments were found.

In one jug were some iron objects that had rusted beyond recognition, and some twisted wire ornaments that ere so decomposed that I could not tell whether they were lead, pewter, or silver.

The common kinds of ornamented bricks were used in all four of the tombs. This makes it seem likely that they were erected a comparatively short time apart.

The objects secured and preserved from these tombs are not as numerous as those from the Suifu tombs which I excavated in 1936, but this trip and the excavations made the following definite and worth-while contributions to our knowledge of the Han dynasty Chinese graves and the culture which they represent.

1. The existence of cave-tombs and tombs of ornamented brick side by at Chunking and in other parts of Szechwan, and containing the same objects, furnishes further evidence that both are Han dynasty Chinese tombs, and that the cave-tombs are not man tzu tung 蛮子洞 or aborigine dwellings.

2. It evident that the types of Han dynasty Chinese grave goods found at Suifu, Kiating, Pengshanhsien, and Chengtu are not mere local variations, but are generally distributed over all Szechwan. In fact, they closely resemble the Han dynasty Chinese grave goods in other parts of China.

3. Further light has been shed on the method of constructing Chinese tombs during the Han dynasty. It was formerly known that at that tong well-to-do Chinese buried their dead in cave-tombs carved into the sides of hills in solid rock, and also in tombs of ornamented brick placed on the surface of the ground and covered over with dirt so that it resembled a small hill, a method that sometimes concealed the grave. A third method, described in this paper, and used in the tops or sides of hills, was to dig a pit into the soil and rock. Make the tomb of ornamented brick, then cover the grave with dirt so that it could not be seen.

4. Han dynasty green and silver-glazed pottery has been found in Chinese tombs in Szechwan before, but this is the first time that yellow or yellowish-green glazed objects have been discovered in Szechwan, although they have been found in Chinese tombs in Sian and in other parts of China.

These materials would have been entirely lost had it not been for the cooperation, interest, and efforts of Rev. C. B. Rape and Principal Yang of the Chungking Middle School. It is their plan to completely restore and preserve the fourth tomb, and to make the objects from the tombs the beginning of an archaeological and educational museum to be located in the Middle School.

Fig.9.  Plan of tomb number 4 showing the location of objects. Those on the southwest side, beginning at the front of passageway are, in order, an artifical fish pond, a gray bowl with a small mouth and a round cordmarked bottom, a small bowl, a small twostorey clay house, four bowls, and about two thousand coins. On the northeast side in the same order are a round gray bowl smaller at the bottom than at the top, a small house with up-turned ends, two bowls, two orange-yellow clay images of dogs, an orange-yellow image of a pig, two small gray earthenware tables one above the other between which were six small elliptical bowls, and numerous orange-yellow images of human beings. Near the center was an ornamented brick.

Fig.10.  Drawing of the gray earthenware artificial fish pond found in the passageway of tomd no.4. It contains a fish, a frog, aleatherback turtle, a snail, a water beetle, a flower(?), a duck diving into the water(?), and an unidentified teiangele in a circle. Length 418 mm., width of rim 44 mm., height 43 mm., width 287 mm.

2.  Drawing of a one-store house from tomb 4. Note the upturned ends of the roof, and the two braces. Length 422 mm., width 178 mm., height 20 mm. These houses were intended as homes for the souls of the dead. 

3.  Gray bowl from tomb 4. The bottom is round and mat-marked. The upper part has rope-decorations. Height 196 mm, diam. of mouth 112 mm., maximum diam. 310 mm.

Fig. 13.  1.  Top of a low table, gray earthenware. unglazed, from the Han dynasty Chinese tomb number 4 at Chungking. Length 362 mm., width 240 mm., width of rim 17 mm.

3.  Handleless jug of gray from tomb 4. Height 60 mm. Diam. of mouth 98 mm. Maximum diam 188 mm. Diam of base 132 mm.

Fig. 14.  A conical lid of a bowl from tomb 4. It is covered on the outside with yellow-orange glaze. Han dynasty pottery covered with yellowish glaze had not previously been found in Szechwan.

Fig. 15.  1.  End and top view of an oval or elliptical bowl of unglazed gray clay from tomb four at Chungking. Length 115 mm., Width 90 mm., thickness of rim 7 mm., thickness elsewhere 2 to 4 mm. There were several bowls of this size. The dimensions of a larger bowl of this shape are length 138 mm., width 108 mm., height 35 mm.

Fig. 17.  Edge and side view of a sherd found in tomb 4. Similar ornamentation is often seen on large Han dynasty earthenware bowls.