Tang And Song Dynasties The Town Of Tombstone Study

Tomb-Guard Stones are a kind of special funerary objects carved with some words which reflects the attitude of the people to the world after the death. Many scholars research in Tomb-Guard Stones extracted from graves during Tang and Song dynasties in Shaanxi Henan and Sichuan provinces. They focus on the scope of Taoism. And some Tomb-Guard Stones were simply classified as epitaphs. In the word, it is not clear that the academic research on the definition and function of the Tomb-Guard Stones.This paper collected Tomb-Guard Stones materials for each period based on the archaeology, sociology, statistics theory and analyzed the nature, content, development and ideological connotation of the Tomb-Guard Stones.Through this collection, I defined the Tomb-Guard Stones as a kind of important tomb stones carved with the words which means blessing or ward off evil spirits. They can reflects religious values and ideological belief of the the living and the dead. There is no doubt that Taoism's funeral ceremony is closely related with tomb stones during Tang and Song dynasties. However, it is a long history to placed tomb stones in the grave. If put them in the whole development of Tomb-Guard Stones, we cannot defined them as things of Taoism simply. In my opinion, Tomb-Guard Stones developed by the interaction between Taoism and folk culture elements.Rich Tomb-Guard Stones show us different religion and ideological believes in different class.We must attention to the research in the Tomb-Guard Stones.