A Study On The Mu’s Tombs Of The Ming Dynasty

12Mu’s tombs, which are located at the southern slope of JIANGJUN Mountain in Nanjing, have been excavated since1950s. Besides, another Mu’s tomb was excavated in Chenggong County, Yunan Province. These tombs belonged to members of different generations of Mu’s family, and were built during more than200years in the Ming Dynasty. When it comes to the structures, facilities and funerary objects, they look similar to each other. However, the differences between them are also obvious. Based on the archaeological materials and historical documents, this thesis discusses the structures, the facilities, the funerary objects and other related issues of Mu’s tombs.The thesis is divided into five chapters.Chapter1, the preface, makes a general introduction of the excavation and historical documents about the Mu’s tombs, provides a review of the research history, and explains the research methods of this thesis and the source of data.Chapter2focuses on the structures and facilities of the Mu’s tombs.Most of the Mu’s tombs includes one traversing chamber and two or more paratactic longitudinal chambers. These longitudinal chambers were built for couples so that husband and wife (or wives) could be buried together. The structure of Mu’s tombs had a few influences on some other tombs which also built for couples in the Ming Dynasty. Although the structure remained stable during more than200years, the size of tombs was getting smaller.The facilities of Mu’s tombs are separated into two parts in this thesis, the overground and the underground. According to the historical documents and other relics, there were sacred paths, stone sculptures, and ancestral halls in the Mu’s cemetery at the beginning. The underground facilities mainly included paved passage, stone door, stone shelf, stone table, sacrificial altar, coffin platform, niche, etc. The thesis does a research into the origin, evolution and funeral function of them.Chapter3analyses the funerary objects such as epitaphs, pottery jars, objects made by official departments, funerary gold/silver coins and articles of daily use. All of the Mu’s epitaphs were composed of two pieces of carved stone and usually unearthed from the fore chambers. The size of epitaph was not related to the occupants’ ranks, while what was really related to ranks was the writer. The pottery jars were used for lighting as oil container, and usually unearthed at the southeast corner of chamber. Besides the unearthed cupreous and stannic objects, the official departments provided wooden entourage figures, wooden furniture models and textiles to Mu’s main members. The gold and silver coins were near to the coffin, and the quantity of them depended on the wealth of the occupant.Chapter4discusses several relevant topics, such as the time when M15was built, the reasons some Mu’s members were buried in Yunnan, the arrangement of family tombs in the Ming Dynasty. First, according to compare the structure and facilities of M15with the others, the author draws a conclusion that M15was built in middle or late period of the Ming Dynasty, and the occupant was probably one of MU Cheng, MU Zeren and MU Changzuo. Second, where the members buried did not totally depend on the consanguinity, though the cemetery at JIANGJUN Mountain was mainly built for the eldest sons born of the legal wife. Third, the arrangement of family tombs in the Ming Dynasty was actually decided by the generation and divination, instead of the so-called Zhao Mu(昭穆)system.The last chapter makes a brief summary of this thesis.