The Study Of Dunhuang Zhenmu Bottles During Western Jin And The Sixteen Kingdoms Period

Zhenmu bottle is a kind of grave-goods which was popular from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Sixteen Kingdoms Periods.Most of Zhenmu bottles are ceramic and few of them are pelitic.Outside of the bottles,there are Chinese characters written in red ink or black ink,the content of which are mostly related to suppressing the ghosts.A large number of Zhenmu bottles are unearthed in the tombs belonging to the Western Jin and the Sixteen Kingdoms in Dunhuang.And there are Zhenmuwen preserved on most of the bottles.Based on the archaeological excavation data and the ancient literature,using the 158 Dunhuang Zhenmu bottles that are collected as research objects,on the basis of the unearthed burials and unearthed numbers of the Dunhuang Zhenmu bottles in the Western Jin and the Sixteen Kingdoms,combined with the popular areas and shape characteristics of Zhenmu bottles in the Eastern Han Dynasty,finds that the burial customs of the Dunhuang Zhenmu bottles were chiefly brought in from the Central Plains of China(mainly Henan and Shanxi)in the Eastern Han Dynasty.Using the method of archaeological typology,classifies the Dunhuang Zhenmu bottles and sorts out its shape rheology,finds that the former tend to be more simplified and more roughened than the latter.Dunhuang Zhenmuwen have five basic forms.The contents are mainly related to the separation between the dead and the alive,but it is more concise and simpler than the Zhenmuwen in the Eastern Han Dynasty.Besides,its writing style is still in the stage that the official script remains prevalent and gradually changes to the running script as well as regular script,which reflects the unique appearance of civic calligraphy.The burial customs of Dunhuang Zhenmu bottles reflects the stress on life,death and disease;the Taoist thought reflected in Dunhuang Zhenmu bottles from the Taoist worship and BeiChen faith two aspects and shows that Taoism spread widely among the people in Dunhuang.