DABAOTAI TOMB OF THE WESTERN HAN

Plundered in antiquity, this tomb was rediscovered in 1983. The two tombs that make it up are accessible to the public today, one in burned ruins and the other converted into a museum. It is believed that this burial was built for Liu Dan or his son Liu Jian under the kingdoms of Yuan Shou and Chu Yuan (from 117 to 45 BC) of the Han Dynasty. The tomb that one visits is in the form of a capital «T», in an underground palace dug at 4,70 meters underground. To access it, we pass through a kind of outer enclosure, 42 metres in length, in yellow cypress wood cut into rectangular logs. Then one enters a corridor in the previous room, where on a large plate of lacquer are arranged various objects that were judged indispensable to the deceased for his life in the beyond. We notice the dishes, the games, the crafting mirrors… The posterior room that appears, like all, bathed in vertically erected cypress trunks is in fact the burial chamber where five coating coffins intersect in one another as Russian dolls. At the entrance, the presence of three single drawbar cars that belonged to the deceased, as well as bones of skeletons of horses, were sacrificed upon death. According to documents, only princes were circulating in this type of vehicle. Yet the relics we see are in poor condition, a lacquered wheel, a bone by that, a wheel of the wheel further, a few pieces of silver harness or gold plated,… Despite the looting that was the object of this tomb, we exposed some remains, such as a golden bronze door representing a fabulous animal, or a disc in the dark. alabaster on which dancing a dragon and a phoenix, or a variety of precious stone accessories that form tigers, dragons or other mythological animals, decorated lacquer objects, or this iron bar bearing the mark " Yu», an official forge of the era.