There are not many well-preserved ancient buildings in China, except for some brick and wood structures. The ancient Chinese paid attention to the harmonious coexistence of man and nature, so the home is a wooden building, including a coffin after death. When reading some archaeological articles, the coffin is basically mentioned, which is the large coffin that is set on the outside, and there will be a lot of funerary burial inside.
In those years, when Cixi was buried, those who carried it were changed, and there were too many treasures in it, and finally they were cheaper than others. However, there is also a way to bury, which is an urn coffin. Generally only for minors. In the consciousness of the ancients, it was still quite taboo for children to die, and in the past, medical and health conditions were poor, and this kind of thing happened very frequently. Many families wait for children to grow up to a certain age before giving a big name.
An urn is a kind of pottery that holds things. The urn coffin, as the name suggests, is to buckle two pottery utensils into a coffin. In 2016, a large-scale archaeological research work was carried out in the Beijing area. Among them, there are adult urn coffins found, and it is 23, which is the first time in Beijing. This time the discovery was in Tongzhou, within the range of more than 70,000 square meters, found more than a thousand ancient tombs, of which 79% according to research, the time should be in the Warring States period to the Western Han Dynasty, which will push forward the history of Tongzhou's city for nearly a thousand years.
According to archaeologists, this archaeological discovery, in terms of its size, is also the largest urn burial in the country. This discovery is of great archaeological value, this way of tombs, rarely used for adults, according to the general practice of urn coffins, that is, the two urns are buckled, directly as a coffin. For adults, this urn should be specially made.
This archaeological project is one of the 13 projects of that year, and the location is selected in the ancient city of Xihanlu County in Tongzhou. Historically, this was the center of the north at that time, as a political, military and transportation role, is the only Qinhan city site found in the local area, with the deepening of archaeology, a large number of pottery fragments, tiles, and animal bones, have become the best physical evidence to understand the past history of the city.
According to archaeologists, the current achievements in archaeology only prove that more than 2,000 years ago, there were quite prosperous human activities here, and it can roughly determine a range of the city at that time. However, it is necessary to delve into the physical evidence of these excavated cultural relics in a city. However, it provides a direction for archaeologists, who still need 5 to 10 years to carry out active excavation archaeology to truly understand some basic information of this city.
China's ancient cities and pools will basically have moats, so where is the border of this moat? After the change of time, will it be landfilled or other changes will occur. After these questions have been solved one by one, the next question can be answered, what changes have been experienced in a very populous city, and what is the layout of the city. Of course, these will be adjusted accordingly according to the current situation of archaeology.
This time the archaeology is still targeted, mainly concentrated in several villages in Tongzhou District, such as Houbeiying Village, Hu Gezhuang Village, etc., the 62 urn coffins from 2,000 years ago are in the Hu Gezhuang cemetery. Urn coffins have also been found in Beijing before, but they are all children, and this time the discovery is up to 2 meters long, which is obviously an adult.
There is also a detail that shows that the identity of the person in this tomb may be unusual. This "urn" also has a "mother-son buckle", two urns buckled together, not easy to open, if not specially made, no one will design this on the urn. Similar urn coffins have been found in Liaoning, Hebei and Shandong, but they are all individual phenomena.
Most of the remains in these urns are still there, but it is estimated that it will take a long time to identify them. According to experts, this burial method is a unique cultural phenomenon in the Northeast Asian Han cultural circle, so why is there not much in the number of archaeological discoveries? This should be related to the characteristics of the urn, which is easy to be destroyed, more for burying minors, and the choice of tomb site will not be so elaborate.
Any archaeological discovery with obvious cultural characteristics is of high research value to the archaeological community, and the spread of culture is studied through these excavated cultural relics. Now for archaeologists, finding a kiln for firing urn coffins should be the next step, and perhaps many of the problems of these adult urn coffins can be solved.
The ancients attached great importance to tombs, from the site selection to what coffin wood to choose, it will take a lot of thought, especially the imperial family, but also to be buried in the mountains and rivers. It is also with these that we have more passages to see the world of the ancients, to understand some of the history, culture and even economy of their lives, and many excavated cultural relics make everyone marvel at the production process of the ancients. Just like this adult urn coffin, it will also cleverly add a "buckle", naturally to protect the lord inside.
Resources:
【Urn Burial", "Northeast Asian Han Cultural Circle"】