Hengling Mountain Tomb Cluster

Hengling Mountain Tomb Cluster

The Hengling Mountain Tomb Cluster is a cultural tourism attraction.

The Hengling Mountain Tomb Cluster is located to the east of Huangzhuang Village, Luoyang Town, Boluo County. Hengling Mountain is an independent hill stretching from northwest to southeast, approximately 250 meters long, 150 meters wide, and about 18 meters above the surrounding ground. It was discovered during a cultural relics survey for the Guanghui Expressway in 1999, and excavated from February to October 2000, clearing 306 tombs from the Shang and Zhou dynasties. The burial chambers are all long, narrow earthen pits, most with length-to-width ratios between 3:1 and 5:1, the longest being 6.7 meters. The tomb structures include vertical pits, second-level platforms, base pits, or wall niches, among others. The tombs are laid horizontally across the hill, with orientations generally parallel to the contour lines. The grave goods from these tombs are extremely rich, including bronzeware, jade artifacts, pottery, proto-porcelain, ironware, and whetstones. Specific items comprise bronze yongzhong bells, tripods, axes, adzes, chisels, forks, scrapers, dagger-axes, daggers, arrowheads; jade rings, jade discs, and tubular ornaments; iron spades and scrapers; pottery items such as jars, pots, zun vessels, bottles, dou stems, gui vessels, cauldrons, cups, and basins; as well as proto-porcelain dou stems and jars. Some larger pottery items were broken before being placed in the tomb fill, while others were distributed across two or three tombs. The tombs can be divided into seven phases: The first phase is characterized by large-mouthed zun vessels, deep-bellied jars, and folded-shoulder ring-footed small jars, with decorative patterns like matting and small checkered designs. One of the tombs belongs to the “Fubin Culture” and dates back to the Shang Dynasty; the second, third, and fourth phases are from the Western Zhou period, with the third phase introducing kui-pattern pottery and proto-porcelain; the fifth and sixth phases are from the Spring and Autumn period, featuring a large number of tombs and rich artifact assemblages from the fourth to sixth phases, with a clear evolutionary trajectory of cultural elements; the seventh phase includes only three tombs from the Warring States period, with grave goods consisting of pottery cups, basins, and jars. Culturally, these show no clear developmental relationship with earlier phases. The dating of these tombs provides a chronological benchmark for pre-Qin archaeological research in southern China. It was ranked among China’s Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries of the year 2000.