On October 8, the reporter learned from the Shandong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology that the archaeological excavation of the Fumen cemetery in Liaocheng has basically ended, and great results have been achieved.
Aerial photo of the southern area of the cemetery
The Liaocheng Fu Gate Cemetery is located under the former Fu Gate Village, Dongchangfu District, Liaocheng City, Shandong Province. From March to June 2022, in order to cooperate with the renovation project of Fumen shanty town in Dongchangfu District, Liaocheng City, the Shandong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology conducted a cooperative excavation of the tombs explored within the construction land. In this excavation, a total of 35 tombs of the Tang Dynasty were cleared, and more than 110 sets of cultural relics of various materials such as pottery, porcelain, bronze, iron, lacquered wood, mussel, brick and ink epitaphs were unearthed.
Boat-shaped tombs with no tombs
A total of 35 small and medium-sized tombs of the Tang Dynasty were cleared. Among them, small tombs can be divided into three categories according to their shape. The first category is the boat-shaped brick chamber tomb without the tomb passage, a total of 12 tombs. This type of tomb is small in scale, and some of the tombs have coffin marks. They are all buried by a single person with his body upright and his head facing south. Most of the human bones have been identified as minor individuals. The burial objects are mostly white-glazed porcelain bowls, lacquer boxes, tower jars, copper coins, and some are buried with ink-book brick epitaphs. The masonry structure of the tomb is roughly the same as that of the first type of small tombs. In the tomb, double or single people are buried with their heads facing south. The burial objects include white glaze porcelain bowls, tower jars, lacquer plates, copper coins, and some of the burial ink epitaphs.
Boat-shaped tombs with tombs
The third type is the horseshoe-shaped (oval) brick tombs with tombs, a total of 4. In the second half of the tomb, there is a low brick coffin bed. The two people were buried with their backs upright and their heads to the west. There is a phenomenon of relocation. The burial utensils include red pottery double-series pots, grey pottery pots, white glazed porcelain bowls, copper coins, and some epitaphs in ink books.
Horseshoe-shaped tombs
Medium-sized tombs can be divided into two categories according to their shape. The first type is a round dome-domed brick-chambered tomb, with a total of 7 tombs. It consists of a tomb passage, a tomb gate, a corridor and a tomb chamber. In the middle and rear of the tomb and the tomb, a semi-circular or "concave" coffin bed is made of bricks. The outer wall is tiled with bricks, filled with soil, and covered with bricks. Part of the outer wall of the coffin bed is carved with a gate, and the left and right walls of the tomb have lamps. , mullion window and other brick imitation wood structure decoration. Human bones are all buried together by husband and wife, with their heads facing west, so there is a phenomenon of relocation. Most of the burial objects are placed under the coffin bed or in the southwest corner of the coffin bed. The objects include tower pots, white-glazed porcelain bowls, lacquer plates, bronze mirrors, copper hairpins, copper belts, some burial ink books, epitaph bricks, etc.; the second category It is a tomb with a tomb with a side chamber and a square arc edge, a total of 1 tomb. It consists of a tomb passage, a tomb gate, a corridor, the main tomb and two left and right side chambers. In the middle of the east and west walls of the tomb, a plane is built to form a boat-shaped side chamber. There is a "concave" shaped coffin bed at the back of the main tomb. Because of the water in the tomb, the human bones were scattered, and the head orientation was unknown. In the left and right ear chambers, scattered human bones are also buried. After cleaning up, there were 4 human bones buried in the tomb. The burial utensils were all destroyed, and the identifiable types of the utensils were red earthenware pots, white-glazed porcelain bowls, iron shovel buckets, etc. In addition, one side of the ink-written epitaph was cleaned up in the sealing bricks.
M1 tomb unearthed utensils combination
provides new material for the study of in Liaocheng area of in the late Tang Dynasty funeral customs
According to reports, this excavation has cleared out a total of 15 epitaphs in ink books of the year, the earliest dated to the second year of Tang Chuigong (686). , at the latest in the fourth year of Qianning (897), and based on the stratum of the opening of the tomb, the type of the tomb, and the type of the unearthed burial objects, it can be basically determined that all the tombs in the Fumen cemetery are also within this time period.
M16 Unearthed utensils combination
The Provincial Institute of Archaeology said that of the 35 Tang Dynasty tombs excavated this time, 15 of them have a clear age, which provides an important benchmark for the dating of Tang tombs in Luxi and even in Shandong. In addition, the tombs have various shapes and a large time span, which provides important physical data for the study of the evolution of small and medium-sized brick tombs in the Tang Dynasty in Western Lu.
Bronze mirror
The chronological tombs excavated this time are two years of vertical arches at the earliest and four years of Qianning at the latest, and there is no overlapping between the tombs to break the relationship. It can be seen from the side that the topography of the northern suburbs of Bozhou City in the Tang Dynasty did not change much. Combined with the previous archaeological information (mainly the materials of the Shengzhang site in Liaocheng in 2020), the existence of the Bozhou city site in the current location of the Tuhai River Rubber Dam Park is presumed to be more than 200 years from the late Tang Dynasty. And through the records of the unearthed epitaphs, 1 li, 1 field, 1 grass market, 3 villages, 1 river and 1 road were added to Bozhou in the Tang Dynasty, which enriched the historical and geographical information of the northern suburbs of Bozhou in the Tang Dynasty.
Tower jar
Although the number of relics unearthed in the tombs is not very rich, the combination of artifacts in the small and medium-sized tombs in the late Tang Dynasty is basically the same—tower jars, white porcelain bowls, and lacquer plates. This provides new materials for the study of funeral customs in the late Tang Dynasty in this area. The epitaph unearthed in the cemetery records the age of the tomb owner, which plays an important role in correcting and editing the age identification by modern scientific means. (Jinan Daily reporter Zhao Xiaolin)
Editor: Zhang Yu
