Funerary Transitions in the Chu State during the Warring States Period (480-221 BC)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Warring States Period has been regarded as an essential period in terms of the transition of political structure. This transition leaves its influence on the forms of burials and tombs. This study aims to provide a new perspective on the political transition by studying the changes of remains of the elite tombs of Chu State during the Warring State Period. Different from the traditional Chinese approaches on tomb studies which focus on the general typology of burial objects, this study takes more factors, such as the buried locations, functions, and written records of burial objects into consideration in order to generate a more comprehensive classification system for the Ding bronze vessels buried in these tombs. This study suggests that the form of Chu burial standard had experienced an essential transition during the Warring State Period, which includes the emergence of new burial rituals and objects. While the new burial standard emerged, the old standard had not faded out, but instead coexisted with the new one. This implies the political transition during Warring State might also help generate new ideas on ideology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25477