It is hard to believe that Xiaotianxi Village affordable China tours
in Fuling, Chongqing, was the final rest place of the ancient Ba aristocrats of about 2,000 years ago.
In this small village built on a mound near the Wujiang River, with dozens of households, however, a large amount of bronzes and jade wares typical of Ba culture were unearthed. The findings are unparalleled in the Three Gorges Reservoir area, either in quality, diversity or amount.
According to Fang Gang, an archeologist with the Chongqing Cultural Relics Institute who was working at the site, the Xiaotianxi Village Ruins were found by accident in 1972. The village became famous overnight because of the bronzes found here. It was the first time that such abundant bronzes of the Ba people were found in the Three Gorges area. It coincided with the depiction in Records of the States South of Mt. Hua: “Most of the mausoleums of its (Ba’s) former kings were in Zhi.” Zhi refers to Fuling.
Between 1972 and 1993, four salvage excavations were conducted on the Xiaotianxi Ruins Yangtze River tour
and cultural relics from nine of the tombs were collected and studied. In 1994, the Sino-Japanese Archaeological Physical Exploration Experimental Research Team employed the CT technology in exploring underground relics and received abnormal signals, so they guessed they might have found the mausoleums of the Ba kings. Meanwhile, numerous bronzes were unearthed. The most important of those, a set of 14-piece chime bells, is now preserved in the Fuling Museum.
Fang said that the current excavation has cleaned up 11 shaft tombs, ranging from the early Warring States Period to the early Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220). From these tombs, large quantity of bronze and jade articles were dug out. There were also two skeletons, including a complete one, and two Chu-style jade swords which were found for the first time in Ba tombs. From Tomb No. 12, archeologists unearthed the most diversified high-class bronzes. On the surfaces of kettles and vehicles, handicraft with inlaid silver filigree was witnessed; while on chunyu (a kind of ancient bronze musical instrument), dagger-axes, bells, Ba-style swords and spears, archaeologists found patterns such as hair bun, hand palm, clouds, tiger, boat and fish.
In a small tomb China Educational tours
measuring no more than four meters long and two meters wide, a strange bird-shaped vessel was found one meter underneath the ground. The vessel has duck-web feet, cock’s nib and bird’s wings. Though many feathers have fallen off, the excellent workmanship stands out clearly. The remaining feathers show traces of finely polished nail-sized turquoises which were stuck on the bird’s body.
Were these mausoleums belonging to the former Ba kings?
Though among the findings from these tombs are chunyu and zheng, two musical instruments used by ancient rulers to call on their troops, and other high-class belongings, such as chime bells and jade swords, they were not items exclusively possessed by Ba kings. What’s more, the bird-shaped vessel in some way features the Central Plains culture. All the tombs are not in a very large scale, and most of them are of the middle and late Warring States Period. From these facts, Sun Hua, professor from the School of Archaeology and Museology of Peking University, concluded that the tombs should have belonged to the aristocrats who remained on the land after the Ba Kingdom was conquered by the Qin State, who later united China.
Then, where are the true mausoleums of the ancient Ba kings?
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- 2014/09/01(月) 12:22:18|
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