Mural Tombs in Liaoyang

Mural Tombs in Liaoyang

The Han Dynasty Mural Tombs in Liaoyang are located in the area of bangtaizi, sandaohao and Beiyuan in the north of Liaoyang City, Liaoning Province. The tombs, discovered in the early 20th century, are Mural Tombs with stone chambers at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty and between the Han and Wei dynasties. The owners of the tombs are all dignitaries of Gongsun's regime in Liaodong at that time. In the 1950s, Liaoning Provincial Museum and other units organized the excavation of the tombs and cleaned up several tombs. All the tombs are made of stone slabs.

Liaoyang Mural Tombs, large tombs by the front room, back room, cloister, left and right ear room and the number of different cloisters in the chamber composition, the whole tomb plane is slightly square, length and width are about 7 meters. Small tombs are composed of anterior and posterior chambers and left and right auricular chambers, with a length of about 4-5 meters. The funerary objects of the tombs have been stolen and dug up in the early years.

In Liaoyang Mural Tombs, the murals are directly painted on the stone wall of the tomb. The content mainly shows the theme of the tomb owner's experience and life. The distribution and rules are as follows: the two sides of the tomb door are doormen and dogs; the front room is mostly painted with huge scenes of Baixi and music and dance; the back room and the corridor are painted with the tomb owner's riding pictures; the back corridor is generally painted with Baixi, menque, courtyard and subordinate officials; the ears are painted with the murals The room and the small room are painted with the banquet and kitchen of the tomb owner, and the top of each room is painted with the flow cloud pattern.

The Mural Tombs in Liaoyang, with rigorous composition, vivid image and bright color, are precious material to understand the economy, culture, life and other aspects of aristocratic families in Eastern Liaoning at that time.

Stone slab construction

Before and after the founding of the people's Republic of China, many tombs were found. The top of the tombs was sealed with high earth. The plane of the tombs was square and built with stone slabs. There were ear rooms and corridors on the left and right. The murals in the tombs were painted directly on the stone walls, mainly showing the experience and life of the tomb owner. Most of them are travel map, kitchen map, music and dance map, acrobatic map, etc., with bright colors, and some pictures have ink inscriptions.

The stone chamber Mural Tombs of Eastern Han, Wei and Jin Dynasties in China are distributed in bangtaizi, Beiyuan, sandaohao, xiaoqingduizi, dongtaizi and Nantaizi on both sides of Taizi River in the northern suburb of Liaoyang City, Liaoning Province. Liaoyang was the seat of Liaodong county during the Eastern Han, Wei and Jin Dynasties. Gongsun family had been under separate rule for 50 years during the Han and Wei dynasties. Among them, a number of large multi chambered tombs belonged to the prominent family of Gongsun's regime.

Cultural relics protection

At the beginning of the 20th century, it was found that during the Anti Japanese War, the Japanese had made an investigation, and some tombs were excavated in the 1950s. In 1961, the State Council of the people's Republic of China announced it as a national key cultural relics protection unit.

The Mural Tombs have high earth seals. The tomb is made of stone slab, with white ash pointing. The plane is slightly square. The length and width of the large tomb are about 7 meters, and the length and width of the small tomb are 3-4 meters. Generally, it is composed of tomb gate, front chamber, coffin chamber, front corridor (or cloister) and left and right ear chambers. There are 2-6 coffin chambers, and there are window type cavities on the stone slabs between the coffin chambers. The Eastern Han tombs had stone coffins with the same size of the left and right ear chambers, while the Wei and Jin tombs had corpse beds with different sizes of ear chambers.

Funeral custom

Funerary utensils include well, stove, pot, plate, floor and other pottery ware, copper belt hook, bronze mirror, gold ring, silver thimble, iron scissors, bone hairpin, bone ruler and other daily utensils, as well as half Liang, five baht, goods spring and other copper coins.

Murals are painted on both sides of the tomb gate, the front porch (or cloister), the ear chamber and the top of the tomb chamber. The content mainly shows the experience and life of the owner of the tomb, including doorman and dog, music and dance, chariot guard of honor, banquet and kitchen, pavilion and courtyard, military warehouse, etc. There are 175 people, 127 horses and 10 vehicles in the chariot guard of honor of bangtaizi tomb. The scene is magnificent. The frescoes are painted directly on the stone slab, outlined with ink lines, and then painted with vermilion.

Rehabilitation measures

Mural Tombs in Liaoyang were stolen many times in the early years. After the founding of the people's Republic of China, painters copied the important murals in the tomb and sealed the stolen tomb. After 1961, the cultural and Museum Department of Liaoning Province reviewed the tombs many times, took restoration measures, delimited the scope of protection, established cultural relics protection organizations, and adopted scientific methods to protect the murals.

Address: Baita District, Liaoyang City, Liaoning Province

Longitude: 123.17392258648

Latitude: 41.319550988571

Chinese PinYin : Liao Yang Bi Hua Mu Qun