The Intact Han Dynasty Tombs of Liu Sheng and Dou Wan

Rising over the Mancheng district, 120 miles south of Beijing, is Lingshan. More than 2,000 years ago, thousands of tons of rock were removed from its eastern slope to create complex tombs housing the remains of an elite couple: Liu Sheng, prince of Zhongshan, and his wife, Dou Wan.

Miraculously unlooted for the next two millennia, the tombs’ 1960s discovery stunned archaeologists, not only for their engineering but also for the dazzling grave goods they contained. The couple’s remains were wrapped in jade burial suits now regarded as some of China’s greatest national treasures.

Liu Sheng’s father, Jing Di, was the sixth emperor of the Han, the second of China’s imperial dynasties, which ruled between 206 B.C.and A.D. 220. Beset with rebellions, in 154 B.C., Jing Di sent Liu Sheng to impose rule over Zhongshan, a frontier region in the northeastern part of the empire.

The carving out of two palatial cave tombs, similar to each other in size and structure, probably began soon after Liu Sheng took power. The tombs would have taken decades to complete and been a huge challenge technically and financially. By the time Liu Sheng and Dou Wan died in 113 and circa 104 B.C., respectively, the tombs, filled with sumptuous grave goods, were ready to receive them. Both tunnels were then blocked up with brick walls and sealed with cast iron to prevent the tombs from being desecrated.

Numerous elite Han tombs were damaged by looters, but the sealing measures at the Mancheng tombs were unusually effective. It was not until the 1960s, during the iron rule of China’s dictator Mao Zedong, that the mountain revealed its buried treasures.

In June 1968 an army platoon stationed in Hebei Province knocked down a rock wall during excavations to build an air-raid shelter on the slopes of Lingshan. Behind it they found what appeared to be a burial chamber.

The discovery took place at the height of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, a campaign of violence against the supposed “bourgeois elements,” often resulting in the murder and public humiliation of figures in academia and education.

In this climate of fear and paranoia, most academic research ground to a halt, but emergency archaeological work was allowed to continue. The Institute of Archaeology of the Beijing Academy of Sciences was called in and immediately put together a team to investigate. They soon established that the tomb was indeed an ancient burial chamber. Excitement mounted when they discovered a second tomb a short distance away from the first.

The team completed their excavation that summer, and the Mancheng tombs quickly became instrumentalized as a symbol of the outstanding achievements of Chinese civilization under the Han dynasty. The discovery was also exploited by Mao’s regime to praise Chinese archaeology during the Cultural Revolution.

Both tombs had the same structure: They were accessed via a narrow tunnel, which led to a large antechamber covered by a wooden structure with a tile roof. The antechamber was divided into two spaces: The room to the north contained a store of food preserved in terracotta vessels, provisions that would serve the deceased in the afterlife. The room to the south housed the stable, where the archaeologists uncovered chariots and the skeletons of horses, the ultimate symbol of elite power.

The central space formed a ceremonial hall, also with a tile roof supported by a wooden structure. In the center were two canopies surrounded by numerous objects arranged in rows: ceramic figurines representing servants, bronze vessels, lamps, and ritual weapons. To the rear of this chamber was a stone door that gave access to the funerary chamber itself. This space had a stone ceiling, and in the center sat the sarcophagus. This room and an adjoining one were seen as the private quarters of the deceased.

As the first of the Han imperial family graves to be discovered intact, the tombs of Liu Sheng and Dou Wan are significant because of their structure and the two objects found among the grave goods: spectacular armorlike suits made of jade, which until then had only been known from descriptions in literary sources.

The thousands of jade tesserae that compose the suits are joined at the corners with gold threads and wire. Each suit is made of 12 sections and tailored to follow the contours of the body. The suits served as shrouds and became the visual representation of the two rulers’ transformation into immortal beings.

For archaeologists, the suits, intact grave goods, and objects among which they were found provide a fascinating window into the beliefs, practices, and funerary art of the Han period. Although mummification was not practiced in China at this time, various methods were nevertheless employed to preserve immaterial aspects of the dead, such as their soul—of which some Chinese traditions state a human being has two types: the hun and the po.

The hun comprises the person’s spirit of mind. The po is the soul of the body’s activity and energy. During life these two souls are harmoniously united in the body, but at the moment of death they separate. The hun ascends to the realm of the ancestors. The po remains with the body, and may have been regarded as a malign force that needed containing by the jade shrouds.

The two tombs likely reflect this dual conception. Both resemble underground palaces, mirroring the earthly abodes of the deceased. The wooden and stone structures within the tombs correspond to elements of an earthly palace. The antechambers and the central hall form the realm in which the po and the body can continue their existence surrounded by the same well-being they enjoyed in life.

The two empty seats in the center of the main hall of Liu Sheng’s tomb were originally topped with silk-curtained canopies and had vases and funerary statuettes arranged in rows around them. This tableau represented a ritual ceremony that evoked the prince and princess. The funerary chamber built in stone, the last room of their eternal palace, was the place where it was believed the deceased would achieve immortality.

Completing this symbolism is the use of jade. Closely associated with beliefs on heaven and immortality, the smooth, tight-grained silicate was used in funerary rituals thousands of years before the Han princes, and the Chinese character used to represent it is close to the character for “emperor.” Several centuries before Liu Sheng and Dou Wan were laid to rest, Confucius numbered the gem’s attributes as benevolence, justice, propriety, truth, credibility, music, loyalty, heaven, earth, morality, and intelligence. Truly, a gem worthy of high-born princes.