Recently, villagers in Qixin Village, Jinlong Township, Zhijin County, Guizhou Province, inadvertently found a bowl burial tomb when renovating their old house, which attracted attention. What is a Bowl Burial Tomb? What does it mean? Are there other special burial customs in Guizhou? The reporter first interviewed Li Kui, an archaeologist of the Guizhou Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, who participated in the excavation, and Hu Changguo, director of the information office of the Provincial Archaeological Institute who participated in the excavation of the Zhenning Bowl Tomb in 2004.
The entire burial chamber has 960 bowls
The owner of the tomb has a certain economic base
Tianyan News: What was the situation of excavating the tomb of the weaving gold bowl at that time?
Li Kui: When the archaeological team arrived at the site, a corner of the tomb had been destroyed by the villagers when they repaired the foundation, but the tomb was not stolen and excavated. The tomb is a rectangular arch bowl tomb, the burial chamber is made of several columns of inverted stacked earthen porcelain bowls and a large amount of lime glutinous rice paste bonded, the left and right bowls of the tomb wall when stacked to a certain height, to the middle, the entire burial chamber uses about 960 porcelain bowls. The coffins and human bones inside the burial chamber are very poorly preserved, and there are no burial items. After excavating the tomb and recording the data, we moved the entire tomb to the Zhijin County Cultural Relics Bureau for collection and protection according to the protection plan discussed with the Zhijin County Cultural Relics Department. The tomb found in this weaving gold is not large, which is indeed very rare in Guizhou, but it has also been found in other regions such as Sichuan and Chongqing, and some researchers call it a bowl tomb.
Weaving gold bowl burial tomb (courtesy of Li Kui)
Sky Eye News: How was this bowl burial tomb built?
Li Kui: When burying, the site is first selected to dig the grave, then the coffin is put in, and finally the bowl is built according to the tomb and the coffin. Charcoal is laid underneath the coffin, which may play a moisture-proof role. Each bowl is bonded by lime glutinous rice syrup, and a large amount of lime glutinous rice syrup is used throughout the tomb.
Equivalent to the complete use of the coffin as the inner mold to build the outer side of the bowl mold, the coffin and the outer bowl linden basically fit, the coffin burial and the construction of the bowl rafter must be carried out at the same time, it is impossible to repair the tomb in advance, and then put the coffin in it during the excavation process, we found that there are more coffin patent skins left on the wall of the bowl tomb during the excavation process.
Tianyan News: Can the tomb of the weaving gold bowl reflect the identity of the owner of the tomb?
Li Kui: There is no archaeological evidence to prove the political status of the owner of the tomb, but it should not be ordinary people, because the number of bowls is quite large, and it needs to have a certain economic strength to build.
There are currently two bowl burial tombs in the province
Bowls, may just be a building material
Tianyan News: Has Guizhou ever found a bowl burial tomb before?
Hu Changguo: In 2004, we found a bowl burial tomb in Zhenning, and I was involved in the excavation. Zhenning Bowl Burial Tomb is slightly different from the Weaving Gold Bowl Burial Tomb, it belongs to the joint burial tomb, there are bricks at the bottom of the arch coupon, the top of the coupon is arched layer by layer with bowls, each row is about 100 bowls, and there is a tombstone, which records that the burial time is Daoguang Seventeen years (1837), and the Weaving Gold Bowl Burial Tomb is all bowl coupons, and there is no text. In the bowl tomb excavated twice, the coffin and human bones have been decayed and weathered, which shows that the sealing of the bowl tomb is not ideal.
Weaving gold bowl burial tomb cross-section (courtesy of Li Kui)
Sky Eye News: What is the emphasis on bowl burial tombs, and why is there such a form of burial?
Hu Changguo: It is unclear whether the bowl burial tombs in Guizhou are related to ethnic customs. But if it is a national burial custom, we will find many such tombs, rather than the current case. So I think the bowl may be like bricks and stones, just a building material, and has no special meaning.
In some late tombs, including the custom and culture of burying grain and shade pots, a jar or bowl is buried on the side of the burial chamber, representing the meaning of the shade of the descendants to use grain for food. In this sense, the grain shade jar is more representative, and the gold bowl burial tomb should still be used as a building material.
Moreover, there are still differences between the two bowl burial tombs found in Guizhou, but they are only differences in building materials, but whether they are deliberately so cannot be determined for the time being.
Tianyan News: What kind of research value does the weaving gold bowl burial tomb have?
Hu Changguo: The age of the woven gold bowl burial tomb is relatively recent, the bowl used is relatively ordinary, there is no burial product found in it, and the human bones do not exist, but anything that exists in human history has value, and now archaeological research is divided more and more carefully, and the research value of the woven gold bowl burial tomb needs to be further excavated.
Tianyan News: Can the weaving of gold bowls and burial tombs reflect the porcelain-making techniques of that time?
Hu Changguo: We can rewind that there must have been kilns nearby at that time, because the traffic situation in ancient times was not good, and people would not run hundreds of kilometers to buy bowls, which must be local kilns. However, the history of Guizhou kiln is very early, the Han Dynasty has begun to burn bricks and tiles, along the river Hongdu and other places have found han Dynasty brick kilns, we did some archaeological excavations in Dejiang, Tianzhu and other places also found the Song, Yuan, Ming era porcelain kiln sites, unearthed porcelain bowls porcelain pots and other porcelain. There is also a more famous white bowl kiln in Xingyi, built in the late Qing Dynasty and still in use today. Therefore, porcelain kilns in Guizhou are actually very common. The bowls found this time are only ordinary earthen bowls and do not reflect the manufacturing techniques of the time.
The porcelain bowl used to weave gold bowls for burial tombs was used to build bowls
Slate tombs, hanging burials, bone washing burials...
There are also many forms of tombs in Guizhou
Tianyan News: Are there other burial customs in Guizhou?
Hu Changguo: Guizhou is a multi-ethnic province, and there are many ethnic burial customs, which are very special and reflect different ethnic cultures.
For example, in many Miao and Yao areas, cave burials are popular, coffins are not buried in the ground, directly placed in natural caves or cliffs, like Pingba Coffin Cave is very famous, there are more than 500 coffins placed. Hanging coffin burial is to chisel holes in the rock wall to nail wood, and the coffin is placed on the wood, but the hanging coffin is not buried in Guizhou much, the age is earlier, mainly found in Songtao and Cen Gong. There are also slate tombs of the water tribe that are also more special, and the ground burial chamber is built with a flat stone slab imitating the "dry rail" housing system. In the early years, it was also popular to hang burials in Lipingdi, and children were not buried after they died, and hung among the vines were naturally weathered.
Ancient historical books also record that the seedlings are not buried after death, and are naturally weathered by wrapping up in vines, which is somewhat similar to hanging burials, but we cannot see it now, nor can we be sure whether there is such a burial custom. Ancient books also mention the bone washing and burial of bone washing seedlings, posterity encounters bad things, will think that it is disrespectful to the ancestors will happen, to dig out the bones of the ancestors buried in the ground, wash white and then bury them. According to the records, it can be washed up to seven times, and if something bad happens after seven times, it means that it is not caused by disrespect to the ancestors.
In addition, there are coffins to be buried, if you can't choose a burial day for a while, park the coffin in the field and wait for the right time, which may be stopped for decades. In some of our previous archaeological excavations, we have also found secondary burials, that is, the bones of the deceased are buried twice or more times, most of which are buried in situ.
Guizhou Daily Tianyan news reporter Yue Duan
Edited by Xu Ran
Editor: Min Jie, Shi Yuling