Archaeological excavation of Bushang Han Tombs in Chefushan Town

      Bushang Han tomb group is located in Bushang village, northeast of Chefushan Town, Pizhou City, about 2km away from Liangwangcheng site and the Eastern Han Dynasty cemetery, Shantou, Pizhou City. In April 2013, due to the expansion of school safety project of Bushang primary school, it was necessary to carry out rescue excavation of underground cultural relics in the construction area. Xuzhou Museum and Pizhou Museum carried out a preliminary archaeological investigation of the construction area, and was sure that the construction area has the Han tombs and excavation was needed; in September 2013, Xuzhou Museum applied to the State       Administration of cultural relics for the excavation project, and after the approval of the State Administration of cultural relics, the field archaeological excavation work was carried out. The excavation work was completed by the end of October. According to the geographical and geomorphic characteristics of the tombs and the requirements of archaeological work, the northwest corner of the existing teaching building was taken as the base point, and the east-west direction of 10 × 10 units was distributed.       There are 24 square meters of exploration area, the actual excavation area is 2600 square meters, the garbage surface is about 1 meter thick, and the entrance of the tomb is mostly overlapped under it (plate 1, exterior view of the tomb group before excavation). In this excavation, 26 tombs were excavated, including 18 pit tombs in the Western Han Dynasty (No. 2013pbm7-2013pbm14, m16-m20, m22-m26); 8 brick chamber tombs in the Eastern Han Dynasty (No. 2013pbm1-2013pbm6, M15, M21); and one architectural site on the tomb (No. 2013pbf1). (Figure 1: distribution of tombs of Han Dynasty on the port.).

      1、 Shikeng Tomb of Western Han Dynasty

The main body of the Han tombs excavated this time is the Western Han Dynasty stone pit and vertical cave tombs, with a total of 18 tombs, which are mostly stacked under the secondary soil rock mixed layer, and the sealing soil has not been preserved. Some tombs are stolen and disturbed by people. There are domestic garbage and broken pottery fragments in the backfill of the stolen holes.

      The tombs of the Western Han Dynasty are mostly arranged in the east-west direction of the mountain. Most of the tombs are in the north-south direction. The stone walls are not finely chiseled, and there is no trace of patching on the walls. Because of the uneven mountain, some of the tombs are built with block stones. There are different sources of the filling soils in the vertical cave. Small tombs are backfilled with mountain stone mixed with mountain soil when the pit is dug, and the rest (deep vertical cave and couple's tomb) are backfilled with light yellow soil. Some tombs are backfilled with rammed Soil. In the fill of the vertical cave, there are iron pickaxe, which are mostly rusted; the length of the vertical cave is generally 2.7-4, 1.5 wide and 3-4m deep, such as M11, with a total length of 360 from north to south, 290 from east to west, and 2 residual depth 80cm, 95 ° in direction, including single tomb and joint tomb of husband and wife, most of which are wooden coffins, mostly rotten, some of which are painted with red paint, such as M26; the number of funerary objects varies, with only one pottery pot, such as M17; the number of more than 10, such as M26 (plate 2, M26 joint tomb structure of husband and wife).

      More than 140 pieces of (glazed) pottery, bronze, iron, jade and coins were unearthed from the tombs of the Western Han Dynasty. The types of artifacts include bronze like pottery wares such as tripod, case, pot, pan, etc. in the early period of the Western Han Dynasty, model wares such as storehouse, stove, well, mill, and other living burial objects such as clothing hook, eyebrow brushes, and trousseau cases. At the same time, jade Bi, jade rings and other funeral jade (plate 3) were also unearthed , jade Bi and jade Huang unearthed in M19).

      2、 Brick chamber Tomb of the Eastern Han Dynasty

      The Eastern Han tombs are mainly in the western part of the excavation area, such as m1-m6. The tombs are in the north-south direction, parallel distribution between the East and the West; the plane is in the north-south direction with a shape of "A" or rectangle. In the collapse and accumulation of the tomb, wedge-shaped bricks are found to collapse and accumulate. The walls of the tomb are mostly paved with rectangular bricks staggered or laid horizontally or vertically. The tomb bricks are multi-mode printed with curtain patterns, persimmon patterns and palindromes. The middle is separated by cross patterns, Chinese characters”中” patterns and grid patterns. The upper and lower layers of the tomb walls are combined into wavy patterns or concentric circles. The bottom of the tomb is rectangular brick, wedge brick, square brick.       Most of the tombs are cut a rectangular slope shaped tomb path at the mountain in front of the tomb (South). The location near the tomb door of the tomb path is mostly blocked by large blocks of stone (plate 4, Eastern Han Dynasty tomb arrangement). Due to the early destruction, there are not many burial tools, and only part of the limb bone remains in the tomb. Take M1 as an example to illustrate its basic structure:

      M1 plane is in the shape of the Chinese character "中", which is composed of tomb path, front room, main tomb room and sacrificial niche room. It is 741 in length from north to south, 216 in width at the widest part, 128 cm in residual depth, 175 ° in direction. The inside of the tomb is silted up with tesselated soil. The rectangular slope tomb path is sealed with rectangular stone plates. The south and north of the middle room are built with stone plates. The north part is sealed with wooden doors (the wooden doors are rotten). The East and west walls are tiled with rectangle bricks with pattern, which are mostly semicircle pattern or concentric circle pattern. The concentric circles between the two connected bricks are combined into water ripples. The curtain pattern brick is 38 cm long, 24 cm wide and 9 cm thick (plate 5, M1 tomb structure of the Eastern Han Dynasty). The main tomb was built with rectangular blue bricks. The funerary objects are located in the middle room, including more than 10 pieces of pottery mill, green glaze pottery pot, green glaze toilet, green glaze pottery stove, copper buttons, bone hairpin, coins.

      About 70 pieces of funerary objects of the Eastern Han Dynasty were excavated, mostly placed in the corner of the front room or main room. The typical set is the green glazed storehouse, stove, well, mill, toilet and other funerary objects. There are coins, falchions, iron swords and other living funerary objects (plate 6, M2 funerary objects combination).

      3、 Discover the excavation

      Through this excavation, the group of tombs in the Han Dynasty are overlapped and break the time and space limitation of the dynasties. Mainly, the brick tombs in the Eastern Han Dynasty are stacked on the tombs of the Western Han Dynasty (mainly M2 → M26, M18; M21 → M22; M5 → M24). The age span is large, for example, M21 breaks the west wall of M22, and M22 unearthed the currency of Banliangqian, which is the tombs of the early Western Han Dynasty while M21 is the brick chamber tombs of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The tombs of the Eastern Han Dynasty are mainly burial objects such as storehouse, stove, well, mill, and toilet. There are few small tables or table that belongs to the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The lower limit of the tombs is the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

      The Shikeng tombs in the Western Han Dynasty are basically distributed side by side. The number of the tombs declines from the West (the top of the mountain) to the East (the foot of the mountain). The brick chamber tombs in the Eastern Han Dynasty are mainly distributed side by side from the east to the west, and the combination of burial objects is similar. It can be seen that the cemetery here is a family cemetery in the Han Dynasty.

      It is worth noting that, in the pottery unearthed in the early Western Han Dynasty, the tripod is of high foot and shallow body, and the pot is of disc-shaped bottom foot. Unlike the early deep body tripod and slanting straight foot found in Xuzhou area, there is not many wine vessels in the early period, which may be greatly influenced by the customs in Southwest Shandong Province.