The Han Tombs Tombs of Xi'an

We've been seeing our share of tombs lately.  It started in Nanjing, with the tomb of the first Ming Emperor.  Then our first stop in Xi'an was the terracotta army near the tomb of the first Qin Emperor.  Our last stop in Xi'an was, and the subject of this post is, the tomb of Emperor Liu Qu of the Han Dyanasty.  Things come in threes, they say.

Each of the tombs is, in essence, a big pile of dirt with a dead king underneath.  Originally, the mound would have been shaped like a pyramid.  Weather and gravity have, over the years, rounded off the corners and subtracted from the height.  But if you look at Liu Qu's tomb, in the top photo behind Theresa, you can almost see a pyramid shape in there somewhere.

You have to wonder what led the ancients all over the world to build pyramid tombs and temples.  The Egyptians and Aztecs and Chinese all did it.  Independently they came up with the idea, it seems, since they were on three widely-separated continents.  Was it because these civilizations were founded by the survivors of Atlantis?  Or maybe they were all taught by the same visitors from outer space?

The answer, I think, is much more primitive.   Back in those days, if you were going to bury your king then you were going to bury a lot of good stuff....expensive stuff...in the tomb with him.  A lot of people would like to steal that stuff.  So, the most obvious way to protect the good stuff from the thieves is to pile a bunch of dirt or stones on top of it.  A LOT of dirt and/or stones.  If it takes 20,000 people and several years to pile the stuff up, then it's going take a long time for a few thieves to unpile it.  The math is against them.

And while you're making the pile, why not shape it like a pyramid?  It's attractive to the eye.  And it's probably a lot easier than building a perfectly round cone.  Straight surfaces are easier to manage than curved ones.

China has more tombs than you can shake a stick at, and it's just now getting around to seriously excavating them.  Most of the really good stuff is gone - long stolen by tomb robbers. (The big pile of dirt was a good idea, in theory, but it required guards to come around periodically to chase off the people with shovels.  And the guards eventually got tired of guarding the big mounds of dirt.  Time was on the side of the thieves.)  There is still a lot of good stuff left, though.  Not gold and jewels, but stuff that is priceless in its own way. 

They've started to excavate the tomb by tunneling in from the sides.  For the tourists, they've converted some of the excavations into permanent displays.  (It's actually a very nice underground museum, complete with rest rooms and gift shops.)  The second photo shows one of these excavation pits.  Those aren't bones in the pit, but rather they are the scattered remnants of clay dolls.  Each of the dolls looked to be about two feet high.  The third photo shows them a little more clearly.  An multitude of little, armless, naked people with their farm animals.

Now, the thought of Chinese emperor buried with little naked dolls might sound a bit repulsive and maybe even prosecutable.  But understand that originally all these dolls were fitted with wooden arms, silken clothing, and painted faces.  But nearly 2000 years of being buried under a big pile of dirt has caused the wood to decay, the silk to rot away, and the paint to fade.  At one time, it was a fabulously colored display of the king's happy and prosperous subjects.  The photo immediately above shows a scene of dolls restored to their original specifications.

In the scheme of things, the burial objects of the Han tomb mark a well-evolved level of culture when compared with the ones that came before.  The objects in this tomb are all happy farmers and ordinary citizens.  The Qin Tomb, which came 300 or 400 years before, included a life-sized army of fierce soldiers.  The tombs which came 500 to 1000 years before that are all filled with human bones.   So there you see the arc of civilization....from human sacrifice to military statues to peaceful figurines.

The photo above doesn't come out very well, because of the dim lighting.  (Try clicking on it to enlarge.)  It shows a parade of animals - dogs, sheep, cows, and elephants.  There are thousands of them marching in straight rows.  The emperor must have wanted to have representations of all his subjects, whether beast or human.