Characteristics of Burials in Different Periods

Characteristics of Burials in Different Periods Stone Age The discovery of the Shanding Caveman burials in Zhoukoudian, Beijing, shows that in the late Paleolithic period, there was a system of burying the dead in a certain way. In the Neolithic period, there was a certain system of burials. The burial mound was generally a rectangular or square vertical pit. In the communal cemeteries of clans, hundreds of pits were arranged in an orderly fashion. Most of the tombs were single burials and many were joint burials. In the Yangshao and pre-Dawenkou culture tombs, there were often "double burials," in which a number of bodies that had already been buried were relocated and buried in the same pit. These deceased were members of the same family, reflecting the close blood relationship in matrilineal clan society. In some of these tombs, there were two or more complete corpses buried together, and they were of the same sex, so they must have been brothers or sisters. The joint tombs of the late Dawenkou culture, the Longshan culture and the Qijia culture contain two adult men and two adult women, which indicates that in the patrilineal clan society, there was already a relatively fixed marriage relationship; and the joint tombs of the Qijia culture prove that there was a situation in which the men were buried with their wives and concubines after their deaths.

In the Peiligang culture, Yangshao culture, Dawenkou culture and Longshan culture in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, the way of placing the bodies in the tombs was mostly tilted up and straight-limbed, with occasional bent-limbed and bent-legged burials, the latter of which may be due to the murderous deaths. In the Majiayao and Qijia cultures in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, besides the tilted body and straight limb burials, the bent limb burials were also popular. In the Yangshao culture tombs, the heads of the corpses were mostly oriented to the west; in the Dawenkou culture tombs, the heads of the corpses were mostly oriented to the east. All these show that different tribes had different burial customs.

The Neolithic burial pits were generally small and shallow, and could only hold the bodies. In the late Neolithic, wooden coffins were used in some areas. In the late Dawenkou culture, a few burial pits were very large, and the interior of the pits were built with wood along the four walls, and the tops were covered with wood, constituting wooden coffins, probably because the owners of the graves had a special status in the society. Young children were buried near the house or under the foundation of the house, and pottery was used as a burial tool, which was called "urn coffin burial".

Pottery vessels were the most common burial objects in the tombs, followed by stone and bone tools, decorative objects and sometimes grains and domestic animals. In some graves, stone axes, stone shovels, and stone knives were found in men's graves, while pottery or spinning wheels were found in women's graves, showing the division of labor between men and women in production activities. Due to the different regions and tribes, the types and quantities of burial objects in the tombs varied from place to place. However, in the same graveyard, there was not much difference in the quantity and thickness of the burial goods in each grave, which shows that the economic status of the clan members was equal in the primitive society. However, in the later period, the phenomenon of the rich and the poor were differentiated. For example, in a few large tombs in the later period of the Dawenkou culture, there were as many as more than 100 pieces of pottery buried with them, and as many as more than 10 pigs' heads, which indicated that the tomb owners possessed far more wealth than the general public.

The Shang Dynasty The Shang Dynasty was the height of the Bronze Age in China. The productivity of the society was highly developed, and the slave-owning aristocracy led by the Shang king ruled a huge country. Therefore, there were strict class and hierarchical differences in the burial system of the Shang Dynasty, and the tombs of the ruling class were of a very grand scale.

The mausoleums of the Shang kings in Anyang, Henan Province, include the "Yazhi-shaped tombs" and the "Zhong-zhi-shaped tombs". The chamber of the Yazhi-shaped tomb was a huge square or Yazhi-shaped vertical pit with a tomb passage on each side. The largest Yazhi-shaped tomb in Houjiazhuang has a chamber area of about 330 square meters and a total area of 1,800 square meters with a depth of more than 15 meters, together with the tomb passage. Similar tombs were also found in Yidu, Shandong Province, belonging to the chiefs of vassals or square states. The chamber of the Zhongzhi-shaped tomb was a large rectangular vertical pit with a tomb passage on each side, north and south. The largest zigzag-shaped tomb in Wuguan Village has a chamber area of nearly 170 square meters and a total area of 340 square meters with a depth of more than 7 meters, together with the tomb passage. Apart from the royal tombs, there were other nobles' tombs in the shape of a zigzag, but on a slightly smaller scale. Among the tombs of the nobles, there was also a kind of "A-shaped tomb", which only had a tomb passage on the south side of the chamber, and its scale was generally smaller than that of the Zhongzhi-shaped tombs. Most of the tombs in the Shang Dynasty were rectangular vertical pits without a tomb passage. Although the shapes were similar, the sizes varied greatly. The size of the tombs of large nobles could be more than 20 square meters, as was the case with the tomb of "Wuhao", the spouse of King Wuding of the Shang Dynasty, which was found in Xiaotun, Anyang. The tombs of small nobles were often less than 10 square meters in size. The tombs of commoners were even smaller, some even less than 2 square meters.

The tombs of the Shang kings and nobles at all levels were made of wood. The outer chambers of the Yazhi-shaped tombs were either Yazhi-shaped or square in plan. For the rest of the tombs, the outer chamber was rectangular in shape. The coffin was wooden and was placed in the center of the outer chamber. For the tombs of commoners, some had coffins and outer coffins, while others had coffins without outer coffins. The body was mainly placed in the upright position with the body on its back. No matter whether it was the tomb of a nobleman or a commoner, the tomb owner was only one person, and no husband and wife were buried together. The burial objects in the tombs of the Shang kings and nobles at all levels were extremely rich and exquisite. They included various kinds of bronzes, jades and stones, pottery, lacquer and wood utensils, bone and horn utensils and so on. Women's good tomb buried a variety of bronze more than 460 pieces, jade and stone more than 750 pieces, more than 560 pieces of bone and horn, and there are nearly 7,000 sea shells (see the color picture 鴞 Zun show pictures, three 甗甗show pictures, even square Yi show pictures, jade dragon show pictures, jade phoenix show pictures, jade eagle show pictures, jade show pictures, jade show pictures, yuyu show pictures, jade dragon and strange birds show pictures, with flow tiger ivory cup (Shang) show pictures). From this, we can imagine that if the tombs of the Shang Dynasty had not been excavated, the burial goods would have reached an even more amazing level.

One of the characteristics of the tombs of the ruling class in the Shang Dynasty was the use of a large number of human beings and livestock for burial. In the tombs of Shang kings and great nobles, there were as few as dozens of martyrs and as many as one or two hundred, including the attendants of the tomb owner, his maidservants, guards and various miscellaneous personnel. There were also "human sacrifices" which were used entirely for killing martyrs. Martyrs were buried in different ways, and many of them were buried on their backs. Horses and dogs were the most common sacrificial animals. In all types of tombs, a small rectangular pit was set up in the center of the bottom of the tomb just below the waist of the body of the tomb's owner, hence the name "waist pit", and inside the pit, a human or a dog was buried as a martyr. Even the tombs of commoners often had pits where dogs were buried (see Human Martyrdom and Human Sacrifice in the Shang Dynasty).

Large gravel stones, presumably the foundation stones of houses, were found on top of the chamber of a Yazhi-shaped tomb in Houjiazhuang, Anyang. In the tomb of Wuhao in Xiaotun, Anyang, and in the pits of two rectangular tombs in Dashikong Village, foundations and foundation stones made of rammed earth were found. This shows that houses were sometimes built on the ground from the king's tombs to the general tombs of nobles. They were probably used for worship, similar to the so-called "hengtang" in later times.

Spring and Autumn of the Western Zhou The tomb system of the Western Zhou was inherited from the Shang Dynasty. Since no royal tombs have been found, it is not known whether there were any Yazhi-shaped tombs at that time. The tombs of the vassals and nobles were either medium-shaped tombs with two tomb passages or "A-shaped tombs" with one tomb passage. The Wei Cemetery in Xincun, Joon County, Henan Province, has many Zhongzhi-shaped tombs, which are similar in shape to the tombs of the Shang Dynasty. Except for the two types of tombs mentioned above, most of the tombs only had rectangular chambers without tomb passages, and their sizes varied greatly according to the status of the tomb owners. Like the Shang Dynasty, most of them had waist pits at the bottom of the tombs.

According to the records, the coffin system of the Zhou Dynasty had a strict hierarchy, that is, the so-called "seven coffins for the son of heaven, five for the vassals, three for the great doctors, and one for the scholars". Archaeological excavations have shown that some large and medium-sized tombs had double coffins inside the outer coffins, so the records are generally credible. The burial objects in the tombs of the vassals and nobles were still mainly bronze ritual vessels, but compared with the Shang Dynasty, the number of drinking vessels decreased and the number of eating vessels increased. Among the various kinds of eating utensils, the tripod was the most important. The ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty stipulated that the Son of Heaven used nine tripods, the vassals used seven tripods, the great doctors used five tripods, and the scholars used three tripods or one tripod. In the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, it was nine tripods for the Son of Heaven and the vassals, seven tripods for the ministers, five tripods for the great doctors, and three or one tripod for the soldiers. For the use of tripods, the nine tripods with eight, seven tripods with six, five tripods with four, and three tripods with two, were also clearly stipulated. This has also been proved in archaeological excavations. For example, in the Shangcunling State of Guo Cemetery in Shaanxi County, Henan Province, there are some large and medium-sized aristocratic tombs with seven tripods, five tripods, three tripods, or one tripod, and the size of the tombs was reduced in turn. Among them, the "Tomb of Seven Tripods" has been proved to be the tomb of the Prince of Guo.

As in the Shang Dynasty, there were often "car and horse pits" near the tombs of vassals and nobles, the size of which depended on the status of the tomb owners. For example, in the tomb of the Prince of Guo, there were 10 carriages and 20 horses buried in the carriages pit, and in the two "Five Tripods Tomb", there were 5 carriages and 10 horses buried in the carriages pit. The largest of the pits in the Tomb of the Marquis of Wei in Joon County buried 12 vehicles and 72 horses. Martyrdom was still very common in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, and it was slightly reduced after the middle period. But until the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, some large tombs still used martyrdom.

Excavations proved that the Western Zhou already had a system of joint burials, in which husbands and wives were buried in two pits next to each other, the so-called "different hole joint burials". The discovery of the tomb of Bo and his wife Jing Ji in the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty in Rujiazhuang, Baoji, Shaanxi Province, provides evidence of this. During the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Periods, this system of joint burials in different caves became more common. For example, in the Jin and Han cemeteries at Changzhi watershed in Shanxi province, all large and medium-sized aristocratic tombs were buried in pairs, side by side, with one male and one female buried together, which were undoubtedly husband and wife.

Warring States From the late Spring and Autumn period, China entered the Iron Age. Around the time of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, China began to change from a slave society to a feudal society. This change was also reflected in the burial system.

During the late Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, many of the tombs of the ruling class had mounds built on the ground. The mounds were generally made of rammed earth, some in the shape of a square cone, some in the shape of a clear, the highest surviving one reaches more than 10 meters. The tomb of King Zhongshan in Pingshan, Hebei Province, and the Wei Cemetery in Guwei Village, Huixian County, Henan Province, built "hengtangs" on the floor of the burial chambers, which should be regarded as an inheritance of the old system since the Shang Dynasty.

During the Warring States period, the tomb rooms were still in the same shape as those of the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties, and some of the large tombs even retained the waist pits. Some of the tombs of kings and nobles, such as the tomb of King Zhongshan in Pingshan, the tomb of King Wei in Hui County, and the tomb of the nobles of the State of Zhao in Handan mentioned above, were equipped with tomb passages on both sides of the chamber, similar to the middle-shaped tombs of the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties. The tombs of some rulers, such as the Tomb of Marquis Cai in Shouxian County, Anhui Province, were the same as those of many aristocrats, with only one or no tomb passage. The tomb of Marquis Zeng in Suizhou, Hubei Province, which was excavated in the rocks of the hills, was very large in scale, but there was no tomb passage and the shape of the chamber was irregular, which was a rare exception. Tomb of lords and nobles, it was still popular to have carriages and horses pits attached. In addition to the chariot and horse pits, there was also a boat pit near the tomb of King Zhongshan, in which a boat was buried. At this time, large tombs were often fortified with stones and charcoal inside the chamber to protect against humidity. In the tomb of King Wei in Huixian County, a large amount of sand was deposited in the Xieng Khouang to prevent theft. In the southern part of Chu, it was popular to fill the coffins with a white or gray clay to protect the body and burial goods from decay. There was still a strict hierarchy of coffins. Large tombs of vassals and nobles used multiple coffins. The outer chamber of the tomb of Zeng Hou Yi in Suizhou is huge and divided into four parts, and the double wooden coffins are painted with lacquer and colorful paintings, which are very delicate.

Because of the development of production and handicrafts, the burial objects in the tombs of the nobles reached an unprecedented level in terms of variety, quantity and quality. At that time, lacquer wares were already beautifully made and their proportion in the burial goods increased significantly. However, ritual vessels and musical instruments were still regarded as the most important burial objects by the ruling class. For example, in the tomb of Zeng Hou Yi, there was a chime, ***64 pieces (see color chart Chimes and Bells (Eastern Zhou Dynasty) Show image), and a chime, ***32 pieces, which showed that the feudal lords performed rituals and made music in a grand manner. Among the bronze ceremonial vessels, there are 9 pieces of "ascending tripods" and 8 pieces of "ascending tripods", which corresponds to the status of the tomb owner as a state ruler. The lower nobles and the upper commoners were buried with ceramic "ritual vessels" imitating the bronze ritual vessels in their tombs. In a large number of small tombs of the Warring States period excavated in various places, there were few burial objects, but there was a group of pottery imitating bronze, such as tripods, beans, pots and so on. The only exceptions are the Qin tombs in the Weihe River Valley, where the pottery was used for daily necessities such as li, boxes, jars, and urns, rather than ceremonial vessels, probably because the Qin had fewer influences from the ceremonial system and had its own burial customs.

In the small tombs of the late Warring States period in Guanzhong and the Central Plains, there were horizontal cave-type tomb chambers, and there was also a huge hollow brick coffin chamber instead of a wooden coffin. These horizontal cave tombs and hollow brick tombs were not common at that time, but their appearance signaled a change in the traditional tomb system since the Shang and Zhou dynasties. Martyrs still existed in some large tombs in the late Spring and Autumn period and the early Warring States period, but in general, they were less common in the Warring States period than in the Shang Dynasty and the Western Zhou Dynasty. The custom of using wooden figurines and pottery figurines for burials was already prevalent, which could be regarded as an alternative to human martyrdom. Since the Shang Dynasty and Western Zhou Dynasty, the bodies of the tomb owners were mostly on their backs with straight limbs. In the Warring States period, except for the southern state of Chu, the burial of the limbs was popular to varying degrees in the Yellow River basin states of Qin, Han, Wei, Zhao, and Yan. Especially in the western state of Qin, the limb-burial tombs occupy a large proportion of the tomb, the body lying on its side, limbs curled up. This may be influenced by a special burial custom in the upper reaches of the Yellow River since the Neolithic period.

Qin and Han Dynasties The Han Dynasty was characterized by the use of horizontal caves as burial chambers, and the use of bricks and stones to build burial chambers, which imitated real-life houses in terms of their shape. This was an epoch-making change in the ancient Chinese tomb system. This change began mainly in the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, first in the Yellow River Valley, and then spread to all parts of the country. In the Qin Dynasty and the early Western Han Dynasty, the aristocratic and landowning classes still used the vertical cave-type earth pit tombs with wooden coffins. In the Yangtze River basin and the remote areas in the south and north, the vertical wooden coffin tombs continued to be used until the latter part of the Western Han Dynasty, and even in the early part of the Eastern Han Dynasty. In the vertical wooden coffin tombs of the Qin and Western Han dynasties, the system of coffins and outer coffins followed the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty, with a strict hierarchy. Some of the Han tombs also used the so-called "yellow gut

Chinese".

Among the great tombs of the nobility, the Han tombs at Mancheng in Hebei province and at Jiulongshan in Qufu, Shandong province, can be taken as representative of the new horizontal cave tombs of the middle Western Han dynasty. They were called "cliff tombs" because they were huge caves cut into the cliffs of the mountains to serve as burial chambers, and their shapes and structures were exactly like those of houses. In the Yellow River basin and the northern region, the general horizontal cave tombs were underground earth-cave tombs, smaller in scale, simpler in structure, and the tomb owners belonged to the lower class of landlords. This kind of cave tomb was popular for a long time in all the periods after the Han Dynasty. The new tomb system of the Han Dynasty was also manifested in the "hollow brick tombs" around the central plains. It was popular only in the Western Han Dynasty and basically became extinct in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Around the middle to late Western Han Dynasty, tombs built with small bricks, generally called "brick tombs", began to appear in the Central Plains and Guanzhong. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, brick tombs became the most common type of tombs throughout the country. The brick tombs of the aristocrats and bureaucrats were large and complex, and their layout was modeled after that of their mansions. Many of the tombs were also painted with colorful murals (see color charts: Mural painting of a Western Han tomb in Luoyang, Henan Province, show photo; Mural painting of a Han tomb in Wangdu, Hebei Province, show photo; Mural painting of a Han tomb in Wangdu, Hebei Province, show photo; Mural painting of a Han tomb in Hailin, Inner Mongolia, show photo; Mural painting of a Han tomb in Liangshan, Shandong Province, show photo; Mural painting of a Han tomb in Chunyi, show photo; Mural painting of a Han tomb in Liaoyang, Liaoning Province, show photo; Mural painting of a Han tomb in Chunyu, show photo; Mural painting of a Han tomb in LiaoYang, show photo). Stone tombs began to appear in the late Western Han Dynasty and flourished in some areas during the Eastern Han Dynasty. The tombs were carved with portraits, hence the name "stone tombs with portraits". The structure and layout of the tombs were also modeled after real-life houses. Some of the stone tombs were painted with colorful murals. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, brick tombs in Sichuan Province were often embedded with another type of brick molded with portraits, called "portrait brick tombs". Cliff tombs were also popular in Sichuan during and after the Eastern Han Dynasty.

Ancient Chinese coffins and coffins were both funerary objects. After the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, all kinds of horizontal tombs, especially the Eastern Han Dynasty's brick tombs and stone tombs, had their own coffins, so they were called "brick coffins" and "stone coffins," while the burials inside the tombs had coffins but no outer coffins. In the early and middle period of the Western Han Dynasty, the joint burial of husband and wife was still in the form of "joint burial in different cavities". After the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, the system changed, and except for imperial tombs, couples were generally buried together in the same tomb. The horizontal chamber of the tomb provided a convenient way to bury couples in the same tomb.

Compared with the Warring States period, the burial objects in Han tombs were less bronze and more lacquer. In order to store large quantities of food and drink, there were often many large pottery vessels in the tombs. In the early and middle part of the Western Han Dynasty, mainly utility wares were buried. After the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, various kinds of ceramic objects specially made for burials were added, including models of barns, stoves, wells, mills, pavilions, and idols such as pigs, dogs, and chickens. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were more and more types and quantities of pottery. This is a big change in the burial goods of ancient Chinese tombs. In the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, in the tombs of the aristocrats, there were still carts and horses buried as martyrs, but the carts and horses were buried in the tombs and tomb passages, instead of setting up separate cart and horse pits near the tombs. After the late Western Han Dynasty, real carts and horses were no longer used for burials, but wooden or ceramic models of carts and horses were used instead. In the southern region, there are also buried with wooden or pottery boat model (see colorful copper shellfish (Western Han Dynasty) show pictures, lacquer box show pictures, lacquer plate show pictures, lacquer washbasin show pictures, lacquer show pictures, lacquer dish show pictures, lacquer plate show pictures, lacquer cases and cups and plates show pictures, glazed ceramic tripod show pictures, glazed ceramic pavilions show pictures, painted ceramic jugs show pictures, ceramic boat show pictures).

During the Han Dynasty, it was illegal to bury people as martyrs. Therefore, in archaeological excavations, with a few exceptions, human martyrdom was no longer seen. The cruel system of human martyrdom, which began in the Shang Dynasty, was basically terminated by this time. Wooden and ceramic figurines were placed in large numbers in the tombs of the ruling class as substitutes for slave girls.

On the ground, the tombs of the ruling class were commonly built with mounds. In front of the mound, there was often an ancestral hall for worship. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was common to build stone queues in front of the tombs and to place stone statues of people and animals; it was also popular to erect stone tablets on the graves to record the date of death of the owner, his family lineage, and his life story.

The Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang in Lintong, Shaanxi Province, was the first imperial tomb in China. The mausoleum is rectangular in plan and is surrounded by two walls, one inside and one outside. The mound is in the southern part of the mausoleum and is square in shape. In the northern part of the mausoleum, there was a bedchamber, which was the first precedent of having a bedchamber in an imperial mausoleum. The mausoleums of the Western Han Dynasty, with the exception of Emperor Wen Di's Baling, which was "hidden in the mountain", were all built with a square mound in the form of an overlaying dipper, which was located in the center of the mausoleum. The plane of the mausoleum is square, surrounded by a wall, each side of which is opened a "Sima Gate", outside of which there are two queues. The Han Dynasty inherited the Qin system and set up a bedchamber in the mausoleum. In the Han Dynasty, the emperor and the queen were buried together, with the same grave but different mausoleums. The later mausoleum was beside the emperor's mausoleum and its scale was smaller than that of the emperor's mausoleum. Starting with the original temple built at the Changling Mausoleum during the reign of Emperor Huidi, all the mausoleums of the Western Han Dynasty had their temples built near the mausoleums. The mausoleums of the Eastern Han Dynasty, starting from Emperor Ming's Xianjie Tomb, did not build walls around the mausoleum, but used "Xingma" instead, and built stone halls in front of the burial mounds for worship and enjoyment. From the Hianjie Tomb, there were no more temples built near the mausoleum (see Qin and Han tombs).

Wei-Jin-South-North Dynasty The burial system of the Wei-Jin-South-North Dynasty was largely inherited from the Han Dynasty. However, after the war at the end of the Han Dynasty, the social and economic situation was severely damaged, and the ruling class was forced to change the style of generous burials.

Archaeological investigations and excavations have proved that since the Wei and Jin dynasties, large-scale and exquisitely carved portrait tombs have been rare. The tombs of aristocrats and bureaucrats were generally brick tombs, sometimes with stone doors. Compared with the Han tombs, the layout of the tombs was simplified and the area was reduced. However, there were some new developments in the detailed structure and facilities of the tombs. For example, there were corner pillars and arches in the tombs of the Western Jin Dynasty in Luoyang, and straight latticed windows in the tombs of the Eastern Jin Dynasty in Nanjing. From the end of the Han Dynasty and the Wei and Jin Dynasties, it was popular to have coffin beds in the tombs. In the Jin tombs in the Yangtze River Valley, there were sometimes lamp niches and tables. These structures and facilities were made of bricks, which made the tombs more like real-life apartments. In the Yellow River Valley, brick tombs had long tunnels, and the part near the tomb was a section of tunnel. With the passage of time, the tunnel was gradually lengthened. In the Northern Wei Dynasty, some tombs had openings at the top of the tunnels that led to the ground. In the latter part of the Northern Dynasty, the tunnels of some large tombs were as long as 20 meters, and there were as many as three or four patios. This was an imitation of real-life houses. The more patios there were, the more it appeared that there were many doors and houses, and that there were many courtyards. At the time of Wei and Jin, the great families in the remote areas of Liaodong and Heshi followed the old system of the Han Dynasty and built masonry tombs with colorful paintings on the walls and brick surfaces of the tombs, which were mostly similar to the murals of Han tombs. In the Central Plains, few tombs were painted with murals; however, in the Northern Wei Dynasty, murals became popular again. During the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties in the Yangtze River Valley, it was popular to decorate the walls of tombs with bricks molded with portraits.

Burial artifacts of this period were mainly ceramics such as cups, plates, bowls, jugs, fruit boxes and other eating utensils, and smokers, spatulas, tigers and other household utensils. Its shape often varies from region to region, and some wares are only found in the south but not in the north. Generally speaking, the number of porcelain wares proliferated, especially in the Yangtze River Valley. The popular ceramic models of barns, stoves, wells, mills, etc. and the ceramic idols of poultry and domestic animals continued to be used in the Han Dynasty, but they were often small in size and crude in production. The main burial objects in the tombs of the aristocratic and bureaucratic classes were all kinds of terracotta figurines. From the two Jin dynasties to the North and South dynasties, the later the era, the more types and numbers of figurines. At first, there were a few male and female attendants and warriors, and from about the period of the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms, there were a large number of cavalrymen, foot soldiers, clerks, soldiers, and drummers, and so on. In addition to domestic servants, most of them were the ceremonial guards of the tomb masters on their journeys, which were obviously military in nature, and reflected that the rulers of various places at that time possessed their own private armed troops. The ceremonial figurines in the tomb of Sima Jinlong in the early Northern Wei Dynasty in Datong and the tomb of Yuanmao in the late Northern Wei Dynasty in Luoyang amounted to hundreds of pieces. In the late Northern Wei Dynasty, on both sides of the door of a tomb, there was often a pair of exceptionally tall figurines of door guards. In the southern region, in addition to ceramic figurines, there are porcelain figurines, but the culture of using figurines for burial is not as prevalent as in the north. From the end of the Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the ruling class often rode in oxcarts, and the custom remained unchanged for a long time. In the era of the two Jin and the North and South Dynasties, pottery models of oxcarts were often used in the tombs of nobles and bureaucrats. The above mentioned ceremonial procession composed of various terracotta figurines was centered on the oxcart. The use of ceramic "tomb-suppressing beasts" for burials began in the Western Jin Dynasty. In the tombs of the Western Jin Dynasty, there was only one tomb-suppressing animal, which was four-legged and upright. In the Northern Wei Dynasty, the beasts in the tombs were in pairs and were placed on both sides of the door of the tombs in the form of crouching and crouching. In the late Northern Wei Dynasty, the two beasts in the tombs, one with animal face and the other with human face, were made to sit in a crouching position. In the tombs of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Dynasties in the Yangtze River Basin, the beasts in the tombs were mostly kept in the same form as in the Western Jin Dynasty and lacked changes. In the era of the Wei Jin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, tombstone inscriptions were built into the tombs. Tombstones of the two Jin dynasties were either made of stone or brick, and were mostly rectangular in shape, while the earlier Western Jin tombstones found in Luoyang were made in the shape of monuments, which can be seen to have evolved from tombstones. It was only in the late Northern Wei Dynasty that stone tombstones in the shape of a square with a cover became popular. From then on until the Sui and Tang dynasties, they were customized. The Fangshan Yonggu Tomb of Empress Feng of the Northern Wei Dynasty and the Wannian Hall of Emperor Xiaowen in Datong, Shanxi Province, are the tombs of the Northern Wei Dynasty emperors. The tombs are divided into two chambers, one at the front and the other at the back, which shows the special scale of the imperial tombs compared to the general aristocratic tombs which have a single chamber. The stone hall in front of the grave mound of Yonggu Tomb is the successor of the Eastern Han Dynasty's mausoleum system. The mausoleums of the Southern Dynasties were located in Nanjing and Danyang, Jiangsu Province. In front of the mausoleum, there is a long sacred path, and on both sides there are stone beasts, stone pillars and stone tablets. Tomb rooms are single room, the interior of the large "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove" and "White Tiger" and "Lion" picture made of molded picture bricks (see Nanjing area molded picture bricks tomb, with the Compared with the popular style of colorful murals in the tombs of the Northern Dynasties, it shows the characteristics of the Southern Dynasties tombs in the decoration of the tombs.