楚雄万家坝古墓群发掘报告

EXCAVATION OF ANCIENT TOMBS AT WANJIABA IN CHUXIONG,YUNNAN PROVINCE

楚雄万家坝古墓群是一九七四年三月在农田基本建设中发现的,楚雄县文化馆许朝龙同志反映后,我队于一九七五年五月发掘大墓一座(M1)。同年十月至一九七六年一月正式发掘,先后参加发掘工作的有云南省第二期考古训练班学员、云南大学历史系、昆明师范学院史地系、楚雄中学学生和省博物馆工作人员二百余人。此外,还得到当地驻军。

A cemetery of ancient tombs at Wanjiaba in Chuxiong County,Yunnan Province was excavated by the Yuunan Provincial Archaeological Team from 1975 to 1976,uncovering alto- gether 79 tombs of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States period. Among the 79 tombs,13 are large ones with coffins cut out of single trunks of trees ab- out one meter in diameter.Wooden stakes lining the tomb walls served as outer coffin with wood blocks propped up underneath.Some of the coffins have no cover and look somewhat like boat-coffins.No coffin was found in the medium and small tombs.Some of them are provided with a waist-pit and a second-tier platform,resembling the Yin Dynasty tombs in the Central Plains.The bottoms of some of the tombs were filled with white clay.Funerary ob- jects in some of the tombs were buried in the filling earth near the tomb entranre,a special feature of the medium and small tombs. Funerary objects in the large tombs are very numerous.Tomb No.1 contained 28 sets of farming implements composed of hoes and axes,and Tomb No 23 yielded over 500 pieces of bronze funerary objects,but the medium and small tombs have very few funerary objects, or even none at all The Wanjiaba tombs seem to suggest the early class polarization of the clan members of a slave society in its early stage. The funerary objects unearthed total 245 pieces,the bulk of which are bronzes incluling such weapons as ge,spear,double-edged sword yue,arrowhead,armor and shield orname- nts;tools as chisel and awl;cooking and other such utensils as cauldron,pot,plate,ladle, etc;musical instruments as drum,bell and small bell;and ornaments as bracelets,beads,etc, made of different materials. The 5 bronze drums unearthed from Tomb No.23 are so far the earliest of its kind with a definite date.The set of bianzhong or chime bells unearthed from Tomb No.Ⅰ are well preserved and intact,featuring strong local color.Tin plates,tin tubes and openwork tin ro- naments from the coffins in three of the tombs,provide important material for the study of the history of the early tin-mining in Yunnan Province. A study of the distribution,superimposition and intrusion of these tombs and the com- positions of the funerary objects shows that these tombs may be divided into two groups:the early and the late,The former are dated back to the early and middle Spring and Autumn Period,and the latter to the late Spring and Autumn Period to the early Warring States pe- riod.The early period tombs are close to the bronze culture of Western Yunnan,and those of the late period bear the special features of the bronze culture of the Dianchi Lake areas.