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Lost Tombs of Six Dynasties (222-589) in Nanjing
As the capital city of Jiangsu江苏Province in the People’s Republic of China and famous for its remarkable history and culture,Nanjing南京was also known as Jiankang建康 in the Six Dynasties (222-589) period in China. It served as the capital of six successive dynasties and was chosen as the preferred burial place by royal families and nobles. In accordance with references in the written records of Chinese history, seventy four emperors, empresses, kings, dukes and marquises in the Six Dynasties were buried in the Nanjing area after they passed away; however, the locations of thirty two tombs could be identified through the archaeological study of ground remains until the beginning of the 21st century (Luo 2001, 94).Within these thirty two tombs,thirteen occupants were emperors and nineteen were other royal family members (Xu 2005).The occupants of twenty six tombs can be correlated with the references in Chinese historical literature; however, the other six tombs remain unattributed.

The Six Dynasties refers to six states established in southern China, namely Wu 吴 (222-280), Eastern Jin 东晋 (318-420), Liu Song 刘宋 (420-479), Southern Qi南齐 (479-502), Liang 梁 (502-557), and Chen陈 (557-589). These six states quickly succeeded one after the other through violent overthrows or bloody killings, which marks the Six Dynasties as an era of political upheavals and disorders.Therefore, many of the royal tombs were purposefully destroyed by succeeding powers to take revenge or looted later by professional thieves for treasure (Luo 2001, 94). As time passed, the landscape underwent drastic changes, which makes it impossible to identify the exact locations of all seventy four royal tombs.

Built under the guidance of Chinese geomantic principles, royal tombs in the Six Dynasties tended to be located on a hill or mountain slope and faced onto the flat plain. One of the striking characteristics and indispensable elements of these tombs is a Shendao神道 built on the ground as a landmark. Shendao literally means “spirit way,” or “sacred road”in English, and refers to the open path approaching to the tomb, lined with huge paired stone sculptures on both sides. Generally speaking, a Shendao in the Six Dynasties period includes a pair of stone animals, pillars, and stelae. An exceptional case is the tomb of Emperor Jianwen简文帝 of Liang Dynasty, which has four pairs and eight pieces. Stone animals in Shendao sculptures are significantly associated with the ranks of tomb occupants. Those in front of the emperor’s tomb are called Tianlu天禄or Qilin麒麟, which have one or two horns on their heads; the ones associated with a king, duke, or marquis’s tomb are named Bixie辟邪, which do not have a horn (Sun 2008, 78).Stone animals with or without a horn or horns are considered as one of decisive factors to determine whether the related tombs belong to emperors or other royal families.

As a symbol of bringing blessing and driving away evil beings, Shendao emerged in the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220) and was well developed in the Six Dynasties. It is relatively long, with its end having a certain distance away from the tomb itself. However, Shendao shares the same axis with the associated tomb, which means, from the end of Shendao along its axis within 500 to 1000 meters’ range, the associated tomb could be possibly found (Wang2004, 28). Therefore, stone sculptures presently existing in Nanjing area become a significant indication that somewhere along the hill or up the valley might exist a royal tomb. The Six Dynasties is a transitional period that falls between the unified imperial Han Dynasty (206BCE-220CE) and the prosperous and openTang Dynasty (618-907). Primitiveness and roughness from the Han Dynasty Shendao sculptures gave way to the style of elegance, grace, splendor, and magnificence in the Six Dynasties. Some sculptures even display the integration of Central Asian and Ancient Greek artistic elements, which were probably brought in through the Silk Road(Shi1997, 28).

The claim that thirty two royal tombs from the Six Dynasties exist inthe Nanjing area is probably based on the calculation of sites where Shendao sculptures can be found. This number frequently appears in both scholarly and popular resources; however, the reliability of this number remains a matter of debate. The result of a ten-day field survey done by Professor Chen Huang and his students from the Chinese Academy of Art in 1999 showed that only twenty nine sites in the Nanjing area host Shendao sculptures, with a total number of seventy five pieces(Chen 2000, 62). Nanjing City itself had nine sites and twenty five pieces, which contradicts with the number of eighteen sites recorded in a 1956 survey calculation (Zhu 1956, 56).Another survey done in 2008 stated that five sites, which are referenced in Chinese literary sources as having Shendao sculptures,actually had none existing any more (Yang 2009, 74).This survey also indicated that seven Shendao sculptures could not be related with the locations of tombs, let alone the identification of their occupants. Some sculptures are dislocated, some half buried in the marsh, and some are standing in the yard of chemical factories, which used to be farming lands. No one has a clue about the locations of the associated tombs at all!How to preserve and protect Shendao sculptures from both natural and human hazardous activities has become a big concern of archaeologists, scholars and civilians.

Excavating emperors’ tombs in China is prohibited by the government. The 1956 excavation of Dingling定陵, one of thirteen emperors’ tombs from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), is considered as a sheer failure by most archaeologists. The Chinese State Council in 1987 and 1997 issued legal documents stressing that emperors’ tombs in Chinese history should remain unexcavated, awaiting adequate technologies that could guarantee the preservation of cultural objects when tombs are opened(Zheng 2013). Therefore, thirteen emperors’ tombs from the Six Dynasties in Nanjing area, whose exact locations are either known or roughly estimated,still remain unearthed. For the rest, they are lost to posterity in the mist of history. What is lost together are grave goods and funeral art that could be used to further uphold the knowledge of material culture and provide insights into the political and social systems of the Six Dynasties.