青海循化苏呼撒墓地

SUHUSA CEMETERY IN XUNHUA, QINGHAI

苏呼撒村属白庄乡,位于青海省循化撒拉族自治县东南,距县城25公里。墓地位于苏呼撒村北一座东西长270、南北宽200米的椭圆形台地上。当地村民称台地为苏何坦白何(撒拉语"黄土包"之意),台地高出现河床25米左右(图一)。

The Suhusa cemetery was excavated twice, with 116 tombs discovered. Of them 65 belong to the Banshan culture of the Neolithic Age, 22 to the Kayue culture of the Bronze Age, and 29 are unclear in date. The Banshan tombs are mainly distributed in the northern half of the cemetery. Apart from an earth catacomb, they are earth shaft pits; 39 of them are furnished with wooden coffins. In burial manner, there are primary, secondary and crematory burials; most of the dead are buried singly secondarily, joint burials occur only in three cases. Among the funeral objects, pottery vessels are the first in number, next come ornaments, and tools of production are very rare, The pottery falls into a clay ware and a sandy one, both being vessels. About half of the clay ware is painted. The clay pot, ear-on-neck jar and basin and the sandy jar are characteristic of the Banshan complex of the ceme- tery. Chronologically, these tombs correspond to the Banshan remains at Dibaping of Guanghe and at Liuwan of Ledu. The Kayue tombs lie principally in the southern half of the cemetery. The main tomb form is the earth shaft pit; 3 urn burials and 1 catacomb are discovered besides. Most of the shaft pits contain coffins of birch planks. The urn coffin is made of two jars jointed mouth to mouth. The chief burial manner is the secondary burial in disorder, being mainly single, and two joint burials of adults also belong to this sort; a few tombs contain single burials in an extended supine position. The dead are accompa- nied with pottery, bronze, stone and bone objects, the first being the main grave goods, and the second, all ornaments.