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- Ill Tomb Chambers
The underground tomb chambers of China offer a tremendous variety of sizes and shapes depending on the status of the deceased, the dynasty, the local character�istics, and the material used for its construction. Tombs were built either for a single occupant or for a man and his consort, and, sometimes, a site served as a cemetery for a large number of burials.
The earliest graves in China were simple burials in the ground. Often funerary goods, varying in quantity and quality according to one�s wealth, were placed with the deceased for use in the next life The underground tombs of the Shang emperors all had the same basic design of a deep, squarish pit with sloping ramps leading in from the sides (fig. i). A small, square hole, which symbolized the gateway to the underworld, was located in the centre of the pit. An armoured warrior was sacrificed here to become the gate guardian. Timber was then placed on the floor and sides of the iarge pit forming a massive wooden chamber. The deceased emperor or royal family member was placed inside surrounded by treasures, and then the chamber was roofed with timbers. On top, numerous humans and animals were sacrificed. During the Shang and Zhou periods, auxiliary pits with sacrificed horses and chariots were also found near important tombs.
During the latter part of the Zhou period, the tombs of the Qin state continued the use of sloping ramps to wooden tomb chambers, but some, which have been recently excavated at the royal Qin necropolis at Fengxiang, are larger than ever before. The largest of these stretches about 300 metres in length from one ramp end to the other.
One of the greatest subterranean tombs in China is that of the First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang (259-210 B.c.). It has not been excavated, but there are ancient literary sources which relate the following description of it. The floor of the underground palace contains a huge relief map of China with small replicas of buildings all modelled in bronze. Large trenches representing China�s two great rivers �the Yangzi and Yellow rivers �as well as the ocean were filled with mercury. [Recent scientific tests in 1981 and 1983 have revealed a high level of mercury inside the tumulus.] On the ceiling was a huge map of the night sky showing the moon and constellations. Some tomb chambers in later dynasties also adopted the concept of having a map of China of the floor and a diagram of the constellations on the ceiling. To the east of Qin Shi Huang�stumulus, three underground pits, or vaults, were found containing thousands of life-size terracotta warriors and horses.
Over ten thousand tomb chambers, belonging to the elite of the Western and the Eastern Han periods (206 b.c -a.d. 220), have been excavated in China since 1949. Thus, we have a very vivid picture of the styles and shapes of their tomb chambers which greatly vary in size, number of chambers, construction materials and decora�tion. The most famous Han tomb chambers thus far excavated are the rock-hewn cave tombs of Prince Liu Sheng (d. 113 b.c.) and his consort, Dou Wan, which were carved side-by-side in a mountain at Mancheng, Hebei (fig. iv). Most of the excavated Han tomb chambers, however, are constructed of wood, grey clay bricks or stone blocks.
Western Han tomb chambers originally followed the model of the earlier Warring States in that they had shaft burials with several layers of coffins within coffins. According to ritual texts, the number of layers, as well as the quantity of grave goods should reflect the rank of the deceased. Every available space between coffins was filled with grave goods: food, clothing, medicine, books, miniature figurines, musical instruments, inventories of the tomb�s contents and even deeds to the land where the tombs were located.
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