Two Tombs of Nan Tang Dynasty, Jiangsu China

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Two Tombs of Nan Tang Dynasty

The Two Tombs of Nan Tang Dynasty are located in Jiangning Prefecture, Jiangsu Province.

They are the Qin Tomb of the grandfather emperor in Nan Tang Dynasty and the Shun Tomb of the late emperor over one thousand years before. The Qin Tomb is in east and the Shun Tomb in west. These two tombs are like two ancient magnificent underground palaces.

With protrudent piled soil on the tomb, the Qin Tomb is called the Crown Prince Mound by the local people. The scale of the Qin Tomb is quite large and the tomb is divided into front, middle and back three main rooms and ten side rooms. It is 21.8 meters long and 10.4 meters wide.

The three main rooms all imitate the style of wooden house on the ground at that time. There are beam, rafter, arch and so on. On the arch there is colored painting which is one of the colored painting found earliest in Chinese construction.

On the lintel of the central room there is the relief sculpture of two dragons playing pearl, while in down part there are two stone carving of warriors. The back room and the side room are all made of stones, where is the place to park coffins and the construction is very particular.

The sun, the moon and stars are painted on the ceiling of the back room, while on the ground there carved the land, the mountain and rivers, showing the emperor whenever he died or lived knows not only astronomy, but also geography. This is the traditional decoration of emperor's tombs in Chinese from the mausoleum of the first emperor in Qin Dynasty.

In west of the Crown Prince Mound is the little-scale Shun Tomb. It was built under the condition of critical and hard financial, so it cannot compare with the magnificent Qin Tomb completely.

The tomb is divided into front, middle and back three rooms, all made of stone bricks, no back gates, no relief sculptures of warriors and even no the decorations of two dragons playing pearl to show the power. Perhaps due to poverty and carelessness of construction, the colored painting, the picture of astronomy phenomena and the cultural relics buried alive with the dead indoors are all eroded because of moisture. No matter the top or the ground of the tomb appears full of stains.

According to historical materials, after changes of dynasty and history for thousands of years, the Two Tombs of Nantang Dynasty were once robbed for many times. But in recent one hundred years, about 600 cultural relics such as the pottery, wooden articles and porcelains are still uncovered gradually. Among them, the jade grief volume carved with leaves is the most precious one.

This grief volume recorded the funeral orations after the federal emperor passed away. The grief volume like this is almost hard to be seen in past. These two tombs is the precious legacy of Chinese ancient people, from this we can know the construction art, pottery culture and the system of emperor's tomb and so on conditions in Nantang Dynasty.

Although the Two Tombs of Nan Tang Dynasty are the tombs of two ancient emperors, they are the real materials of Chinese royal family's life before over one thousand years, very precious.