Shushan Kiln Cluster

The Tombs of Zhou Chu and His Family

The Tombs of Zhou Chu and His Family, located at Zhou Mound in Yicheng Town, Yixing City. In 1953 and 1976, the Nanjing Museum excavated six of these tombs.

Zhou Chu (242–297), courtesy name Ziyin, was a native of Yiyang (present-day Yixing) in Yixing Commandery. He was a renowned general of the Western Jin Dynasty and was appointed General Jianwei in the sixth year of Yuankang (296). He died in battle at Liubo (present-day Qian County, Shaanxi) during the western campaign against the Qiang people and was posthumously honored as General Pingxi. The Zhou family was a prominent aristocratic clan in the Jiangnan region from the Eastern Wu to the Western Jin period. Starting with Zhou Chu’s grandfather Zhou Bin, and continuing through Zhou Fang, Zhou Chu, and later Zhou Qi and Zhou Zha, they were known as “a family of five marquises” and “four generations of distinction.”

The tomb site consists of an earthen mound oriented north-south, covering an area of 57,000 square meters. Six tombs are aligned in a row from north to south. Based on their locations, structural features, and inscriptions on bricks, Tomb 1 is identified as Zhou Chu’s tomb from the seventh year of Yuankang (297) in the Western Jin; Tomb 2 as the tomb of his son Zhou Zha; Tomb 3 also as the tomb of his son Zhou Jing; Tomb 4 as the tomb of Zhou Chu’s father Zhou Fang from the second year of Yongning (302) in the Western Jin; Tomb 5 as the tomb of another son Zhou Qi; and Tomb 6 as the tomb of Zhou Fang’s father Zhou Bin.

All the tombs feature brick-chambered structures with passageways. Among them, Tomb 1 and Tomb 5 are the largest, each with front and rear chambers. Tomb 5 has a rectangular side chamber on each side of the front chamber. The burial objects are primarily celadon ware, including household items such as jars, ewers, basins, plates, bowls, fruit platters, and incense burners. Notably, the celadon mythical beast vessel unearthed from Zhou Fang’s tomb and the celadon incense burner from Zhou Chu’s tomb are exquisitely shaped, with glossy and lustrous glazes, making them exceptional works of art. Other items include models of ritual vessels like dous (wine vessels), braziers, mortars and pestles, sieves, buckets, dustpans, and brooms, as well as funerary pottery jars decorated with molded birds and human figures. Additionally, gold ornaments, engraved silver (or aluminum) belt fittings, inlaid bronze parts, and a bronze mirror box containing an iron mirror were also discovered. The excavation of the Zhou family tombs provides important physical evidence for studying the history of the Zhou clan in Yixing.

Behind Zhou Mound stands the Temple of the Zhou King, originally called the “Temple of Heroic Valor,” also known as the “Temple of Marquis Zhou Xiao.” It is dedicated to Zhou Chu. The temple was first built in the ninth year of Yuankang (299) and was destroyed and rebuilt multiple times. It houses 19 stone steles, including the Tang-dynasty “Stele of General Pingxi Zhou,” the inscription of which attributes authorship to “Lu Ji, Clerk of Pingyuan Commandery in the Jin Dynasty,” and calligraphy to “Wang Xizhi, General of the Right Army,” followed by the

Yicheng Subdistrict: The Yicheng Subdistrict Office is the seat of the Yixing Municipal Government and serves as the political, economic, and cultural center of the entire city, as well as the window for Yixing’s opening-up to the outside world. Covering an area of 40 square kilometers with a population of 240,000, it administers 30 community neighborhood committees and 6 administrative villages. The boundary of the Yicheng urban area is the Wushen Canal; the area within the canal adjacent to the city falls under the jurisdiction of Yicheng Subdistrict, while the area outside the canal belongs to the Yixing Economic Development Zone. Within this zone, the community neighborhood committees, villages (groups), and enterprises originally under Yicheng Subdistrict are entrusted to the management of the Yixing Economic Development Zone. Non-established villages (groups) may establish new village committees or be incorporated into neighboring ones... More details about Yicheng Subdistrict ++