Ancient City Han Tombs

Ancient City Han Tombs

The Ancient City Han Tombs are a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The Ancient City Han Tombs are located to the north of Sunlou Natural Village, Gucheng Administrative Village, Tiefu Town, Suixi County. The current earthen mound is nearly elliptical in shape, with a remaining height of about 5 meters and an area of approximately 2,160 square meters.

Excavated in 1992, the tombs are of the shared-mound, separate-chamber type. Both tombs beneath the mound face west. The southern Tomb No. 1 is a multi-chamber brick tomb, measuring 16 [missing unit] in length from east to west. It consists of a passageway, front, middle, and rear chambers, totaling 8 units. The floor is paved with blue bricks, and the passageway, rear chamber, and the middle chamber on the north side feature wall niches. Most of the bricks used in the walls are plain, though a few are decorated.

The top bricks of the tomb entrance on the south side bear a seal-style engraved inscription reading "The Fifth Year of Guanghe" (a reign era title).

The northern Tomb No. 2 is a stone-relief tomb. It has a total length of 15 meters, with a framework of stone slabs. Its roof and walls are built with patterned blue bricks and consist of one passageway, two corridors, two front chambers, two rear chambers, and eight side chambers. The floor is paved with decorative bricks. The stone doors are carved with images of phoenixes and door-knockers in the form of mythical beasts holding rings, while the lintels feature a design of two dragons passing through a wall. The beams in the corridors and front chambers are also engraved with reliefs depicting rare birds and animals, including the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise, Three-legged Bird, and auspicious elephants, all using the artistic technique of relief carving with background cut away. At the center of the ceiling stone slab in the northern front chamber, the sun is depicted in intaglio lines, filled in with cinnabar.

A total of more than 100 artifacts were unearthed from the tombs, including ironware, bronze ware, stoneware, and ceramics. Among them, the dragon-headed [artifact], iron hexagonal object, iron mirror-shaped object, and stone lamp-shaped object are rarely seen in Han tombs in Anhui.

The Ancient City Han Tombs include a clear inscription dating to the “Fifth Year of Guanghe” (182 AD), providing valuable reference material for studying similar tombs from the late Eastern Han Dynasty. The arrangement and combination of the stone reliefs offer a model for studying the layout of stone carvings in northern Anhui, southern Shandong, and eastern Henan. Moreover, the reliefs are exquisitely carved with skilled craftsmanship, demonstrating high artistic and aesthetic value.

Protected area: 50 meters outward from the base line of the tomb mound.

Construction control zone: 50 meters outside the protected area.

Gucheng Village: Located in the southwest corner of Tiefu Town, Gucheng Village lies to the north of the Hui River, west of the Yueji Section of the Suiyue Road, and ten li west of the Wolonghu Coal Mine. It has 9,220 mu of arable land, encompasses 10 natural hamlets, 19 villager groups, and a total of 4,856 residents, including 114 Party members. The village’s main industries include processing of new types of wall materials, crop farming and animal husbandry, and labor export.

In recent years, with the care and support of municipal and county-level Party leaders, Gucheng Village has actively carried out infrastructure construction while focusing on economic development. To date, an open-style Village Service Center and a farmers’ market have been completed... More detailed information about Gucheng Village ++

Further Reading:

· Seventh Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units