Archaeologists have discovered a group of 75 ancient tombs in eastern China, some of them 2,000-years-old from the Han Dynasty.
Between April and December 2024, research teams from the Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, in cooperation with the Qianshan City Cultural Relics Protection Center and Qianshan City Museum, excavated a total of 75 tombs and 4 kiln sites within the project site, according to a news release published on June 6.
The finding has been dubbed the “Hupu Tomb Group” and it is located in Qili Village, Meicheng Town, Qianshan City, Anqing City, Anhui Province, in eastern China.
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The news release noted the Hupu tombs “are mainly from the Warring States Period and the Han Dynasty, with a small number from the Six Dynasties and the Song Dynasty.” Decay has affected most of the burial objects and human bones in the tombs, “leaving only traces of coffins, grooves in sleepers and some burial objects.” And while most of the tombs were “seriously disturbed” by robbers, archaeologists were still able to unearth more than 300 relics, including bronze, iron, lacquer wood, jade, and pottery.
While most of the tomb owners were civilians, and a few may be low-ranking nobles of the scholar level, the news release noted the large size of some of the tombs, and the “exquisite burial objects”, possibly due to the owners being wealthy landlords.
The excavation also unearthed coffins with door leaves, lacquered wooden flat pots, and flat round box-shaped pottery irons, rare items compared to past excavations in this area, “and have added new physical materials for the study of the long-term funeral customs and cultural evolution, social changes and development in southwestern Anhui.”
The four kilns officially from the Sothern Song Dynasty are also the first ones from that time period formally excavated in the city of Anqing. “They are also of great value in studying the evolution of kiln technology in the region, the history of Anqing city building, and the official system of the Southern Song Dynasty,” the news release said.
A report about the excavation noted seven out of 37 tombs from the Warring States Period had “relatively well-preserved coffins” with many burial objects, with heads chambers and side chambers built with square wood. The burial objects included utensils, jade, lacquered wood, pottery, and a variety of pots, jars and washbasins made of copper.
The results of the excavation joins “hundreds of tombs” from the Warring States and Han dynasties that have been excavated in Qianshan over the years.
The news of the discovery was first reported by the Miami Herald.
