定州北庄子商墓发掘简报

Excavation of The Shang Tombs at Dingzhou Freight Yard in Dingzhou

定州市新建铁路货场位于定州市西北郊的北庄子村北,占地面积204亩,京广铁路正从货场南侧穿过。1991年春季,根据定州市有关部门的反映,货场正位于省级保护单位——定州市汉墓群的保护区内,并且“中山简王刘焉墓(即M150)亦当在货场占地范围内。因此,在省有关部门的支持下,由河北省文物研究所组织省、地、县专业人员对货场进行了重点考古钻探和发掘。全部考古工作从6月初至12月上旬结束,实际田野工作历时五个月。共发掘各时期墓葬80座(包括M150),其中商代墓葬42座,大致位于货场的东半部(图一)今把商墓的情况简报如下。

The archaeological work of Dingzhou Freight yard, which was cooperated with the capital construction, was carried out from June to December in 1991. A total of 42middle-and small - sized Shang earth pit tombs were excavated. Besides some small tombs have vertical tomb wall, most of the tombs have rectangular mouth and larger rectangular bottom, there are two two-layer platforms and waist-pits in them, and in minority tombs,there are irregular niches on the two-layer platforms. Theburial tools fall into 3 kinds; one coffin, one coffin and one outer coffin, and one outer coffin. In larger tombs, there are 1 or 2men buried alive with their deceased masters. In the utensils buried with the dead, there are 274 bronze-wares, 18 pottery, 45 jade and stone artifacts. The basic combination of the utensils in the tombs is bronze Gu -goblet, Jue-wine vessel or Gu, Jue, and dagger -axe. The discovery of Shang tomb groups in Dingzhou, and the unearthing of a lot of bronze wares is the tombs, are important discovery of the archaeololgy of the Shang Dynasty in our country, the shape of the tombs, the funeral, the coffin systems , the men buried with the deceased masters, the dogs buried with the deceased masters, and' the kinds, amount and the moulding of the buried artifacts; all manifested that Dingzhou coincided greatly with the central parts of Shang Dynasty, and it isan unseparated component of the Shang culture. In the bronze Ding-tripod, Jue-wine vessel, Dagger-axe, there casted the same writing ' ', which often appeared in documents, but, according to the documents, the unearthing place are not known. Now, we can prove that the central producing area of the writing should be Ding zhou. It is a symbol shared by a group of slaveholders, or may be a clan emblem, but its meaning jjas not been understood. The date of these Shang tombs is well-matched the second and the third period of Yin Dynasty Ruins, one or two tombs maybe later, they may be' the fourth period of the Yin Dynasty Ruins.