Quying Han Tombs

Quying Han Tombs

The Quying Han Tombs are a cultural heritage site protected by Yingkou City.

The Quying Han Tombs are located northwest of Jiulongdi Village, Jiulongdi Town, Gaizhou City, covering an area of over one million square meters. Originally known as the Qujia Cemetery, hence the name.

The Quying Han Tombs were originally a raised earthen mound but were later leveled due to soil extraction. Locals used bricks from the Han tombs to build courtyard walls and pigsties. In the autumn of 1972, an archaeological team from the Liaoning Provincial Museum excavated the site, unearthing pottery cups, pottery basins, wuzhu coins, bronze belt hooks, silver cups, and a large number of inscribed bricks. The inscriptions on the bricks are in small seal script or Han clerical script, mostly prayers and eulogies, with decorations such as sun patterns and feather motifs. The tomb cluster dates roughly from the mid-to-late Western Han to the Eastern Han Dynasty.

During the Han dynasties, affected by warfare, the Han people living in the Yingkou area moved frequently between the interior and frontier regions to escape conflict. With the migration of Han people from the Central Plains came advanced agricultural and handicraft technologies. After over two hundred years of development during the Warring States period, the Yingkou region, rich in resources and fertile land, attracted significant attention from the Western Han government. To manage the area more effectively, the Western Han established four counties here: Pingguo, Anshi, Wen, and Fang. The nationwide administrative planning, including the establishment of commanderies and counties, was well-organized and a result of comprehensive consideration by the Han government. The placement of county seats in our region was also strategically distributed, with appropriate density, leading to further population growth and economic development, creating a thriving scene in the Yingkou area during the Han Dynasty, along with a large number of tomb clusters.

Burial customs in different historical periods of China reflect the social realities of their time, each with distinct characteristics. The burial culture of the Han Dynasty evolved to a new stage, influenced by the social custom of treating the dead as if they were alive, leading to the selection of auspicious geomantic locations for tombs. Han tombs began to feature murals, with the most typical examples being stone carvings and brick reliefs. Bricks inscribed with the simple and unadorned clerical script of the Han also emerged, and bricks with clear inscribed dates are particularly valuable, providing reliable evidence for dating.

In 1984, the Yingkou Municipal People's Government (Ying Zheng Fa [1984] No. 108) designated the Quying Han Tombs as a municipal-level cultural heritage site. The protected area and construction control zone announced by the Yingkou Municipal People's Government (Ying Zheng Fa [1990] No. 38) are as follows: the tomb cluster extends from the northern bank of the Xiongyue River in the north to the protective forest belt in the south, with a 50-meter buffer on the east and west sides as the protected area; the area within the tomb cluster protection zone is classified as a Class I construction control zone.

Source: Municipal Bureau of Culture, Sports, News, and Broadcasting. Contributor: Dong Wenjie.