Eastern Han Family Tomb in Shanxi Reveals Burial Practices

Archaeologists in Shanxi Province have discovered a middle-to-late Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 CE) family cemetery in Xia County, shedding new light on burial customs and social organization in the Central Plains region during this pivotal period of Chinese history.

The Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology recently published excavation data from five well-preserved Han tombs at Peijie Village, located in Yuncheng City. The tombs — designated M21, M22, M23, M1, and M26 — are brick-chambered multi-room structures with long sloping passages, a design characteristic of the Eastern Han period. According to CCTV News, the tombs are arranged in pairs in parallel pits, suggesting they represent family joint burials.

Context and Background

The excavation was conducted from January to August 2021 by a joint team comprising the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, the Yuncheng Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Center, and the Yuncheng Archaeological Team. The project, led by Li Baiqin, was a rescue operation prompted by construction activity in the area. In total, the team cleared 27 tombs spanning multiple dynasties — including 6 Han Dynasty tombs, 11 Song-Jin Dynasty tombs, and 10 Ming-Qing Dynasty tombs — and unearthed 147 pieces or sets of burial objects.

Xia County holds exceptional archaeological significance. Its name derives from the legendary Xia Dynasty, China’s first dynasty according to traditional historiography, and the area has been continuously inhabited for at least 6,000 years. The nearby Shicun site yielded a 6,000-year-old stone-carved silkworm chrysalis, one of the earliest known pieces of evidence for sericulture in China.

Key Developments

The five Han tombs share a consistent architectural layout: a tomb passage, tomb gate, corridor, front chamber, and rear chamber. All had been looted in antiquity, with most ceilings damaged and human remains and burial objects severely disturbed. Despite this, archaeologists recovered a rich assemblage of artifacts.

As China News Service reported, the most notable artifact is a glazed pottery peacock lamp standing 58 centimeters tall. The lamp features a two-tiered design with an upper section shaped as a peacock with raised head and spread wings, carrying a lamp on its back. This type of artifact, known as a “multi-branch lamp” or “nine-linked lamp” when it holds multiple oil dishes, reflects the luxurious material culture of the Eastern Han period. Comparable examples in the Shaanxi History Museum and Hancheng City Museum stand 89 cm and 126 cm tall respectively, indicating a widespread artistic tradition across the Guanzhong and Hedong regions.

Other significant finds include a glazed pottery granary model, a glazed pottery kui vessel (a type of ladle), bronze wuzhu coins — the standard Han Dynasty currency — and an iron plowshare, which points to the family’s likely agrarian background. The burial objects are primarily pottery and glazed pottery, with smaller numbers of bronze and iron items.

Analysis and Implications

Since no materials with clear chronological inscriptions were unearthed, archaeologists determined the tombs’ dates through analysis of tomb form and artifact assemblages. After the mid-Eastern Han period, multi-room brick tombs with sloping passages gradually became popular in the Central Plains. By the late Eastern Han, tombs with two or more side chambers became increasingly common, and family joint burial tombs became mainstream.

The artifact assemblages — including glazed pottery vessels such as hu (jars), guan (jars), cang (granaries), zao (stoves), jing (wells), an (tables), bei (cups), and pan (plates) — are consistent with middle-to-late Eastern Han characteristics. The consistency in tomb form and artifact style across all five tombs indicates they are close in date, reinforcing the family cemetery interpretation.

Project leader Li Baiqin noted that “this discovery provides new materials for studying burial customs, burial systems, and grassroots social relations and organizational structures in the southern Shanxi region during the middle-to-late Eastern Han period.” The family cemetery arrangement offers valuable insights into clan-based social structures at the grassroots level during a period of significant social change.

What’s Next

The discovery adds to a growing body of evidence that the Xia County area has been continuously occupied for millennia, from Neolithic times through the Shang, Zhou, Han, Song-Jin, and Ming-Qing periods. Several questions remain open for future research: What was the specific social status of the families buried here? Could DNA analysis confirm the family relationships suggested by the tomb arrangement? And how does this site relate to Wei-Jin period tombs discovered nearby in 2023?

As China continues to balance rapid development with cultural heritage preservation, rescue excavations like this one remain vital. Each discovery fills another piece of the puzzle in understanding the rich tapestry of Chinese civilization.