Richly decorated 1000-year-old brick tomb discovered in China (9 photos)

According to the Shanxi Institute of Archeology (Province of China), a brick tomb was discovered by workers carrying out repairs storm drains, in mid-2019 near Dongfengshan village in Yuanqu County, about 650 km southwest of Beijing.







Three bodies were found in the tomb - two adults and a child, and also some pottery and a "land certificate" with inscriptions, indicating that the tomb was built between 1190 and 1196 AD era when the region was under the rule of the Jurchen state Jin.



Land certificate

Archaeologists have excavated. The front side of the tomb has similarity to other tombs of that time found in the region. For example, the ceremonial "gatehouse" on its northern wall, which, according to the report, quite simple, found in all such tombs.






Fragment of the burial chamber with the remains

The structure consists of a "grave road" to a staircase leading down to the door to the inner burial chamber, which represents a square room 2 by 2 meters long under a complex octagonal ceiling of stepped bricks.



Ceiling of the burial chamber

The whole chamber is lined with bricks in the form of carved wood, which, according to archaeologists, were not painted. The walls of the tomb are decorated lions, sea anemones, flowers, and two figures that believed to represent guardian spirits.






Figures on the walls

In the tomb were found the remains of two adults aged from 50 to 60 years old and one child aged 6 to 8 years. Some experts believe that the buried were Han Chinese, and not ethnic Jurchens - nomads, under whose authority was region at that time.



Adult remains