The family tombs of a high-ranking general of the Han Dynasty (202 B.C.-220 A.D.) was unearthed in the Chang’an district of Xi’an, the capital city of ancient Western Han Dynasty, providing evidence to China’s military history, archaeologists said Friday.
The tomb in Weiqu Town of suburban Xi’an, provincial capital of Shaanxi, belonged to Zhang Anshi (?-62 B.C.), a major general of Han Dynasty and he was conferred the titled of Liehou, top level of entitled officials of the dynasty, after helping Liu Xun (91 B.C.-49 B.C.) to become the emperor, said Zhang Zhongli, vice president of Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology.
The identification of the tomb owner was confirmed by the archaeologists based on the discovery of the official seals and the seal carved with the family name Zhang from the tomb, which is only six kilometers away from the emperor’s tomb, Zhang Zhongli said.
The main chamber of ancient Zhang’s tomb, surrounded by more than a dozen of tombs, is 35 meters long and 24.5 meters wide, and has been robbed before, Zhang Zhongli said. The whole tomb faces the direction of the emperor’s tomb, which shows the respect of the general toward his king, Zhang said. The location of the tomb is consistent with the records of Zhang’s burial site, and giant stamps engraved “Zhang,” and “Military Nobel Stamp” were also unearthed, both of which helped proved his identify.
The main tomb is surrounded by six pits of different sizes, which are filled with mortuary objects such as pottery and wood figurines. The pottery figurines, approximately 60 centimeters tall, were all naked, with some fragments of helmets, bronze arrowheads, and swords scattered around them. The organs on their faces were clear, with red lips and thick eyebrows.
“Although there are hundreds of pottery figurines, you could hardly find two identical faces,” said Shi Quanping, a local archeologist in Shaanxi. He believes that the pottery figures ought to be imagined as soldiers protecting the owner of the tomb.
“The pottery figurines were standing in formation when they were initially made, wearing helmets and armors, with a variety of weapons in their hands,” Shi said. “You can imagine the magnificent scene of such an army escorting the owner of the tomb.”
More than 2,000 pieces of cultural relics, including exquisite bronze and ceramics decorations, bronze seals and appliances which represent the high rank of the general, had been unearthed over the past year.
However, the body of the owners had not been unearthed in terms of better protection, Zhang said, without revealing the schedule.
The structure and size of the tomb and the large amount of unearthed appliances are all significant to archeological researches, Zhang said.
The military appliances and the carriages might be the remarkable discovery of the Chinese military history, as the general was considered the “national defense minister” of the Han Dynasty, he said.
Although the tombs of Zhang Anshi’s and his wife’s had been robbed and burnt before being discovered by the archaeologists, they had provided abundant evidence to the research of the Han Dynasty history, he said.
