東晋南朝墓の墓室形式に関する問題

On the Question of Tomb Format in the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties

Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties tombs typically consisted of a single rectangular chamber with a short dromos (also referred to as “tu”-shaped chamber tomb). From the Eastern Jin, this was adopted as the burial system in imperial mausoleums and tombs for noblemen in the Jiangnan region. Although large tombs in Jiangnan originally had been multiple chamber tombs, the “tu”-shaped single-chamber tomb became the norm. It is commonly accepted that background of this change is the impact of the single-chamber tomb in the burial system of North China, brought in with the Jin dynasty relocation to Jiangnan.
However, when we think about this format of tomb chamber from the perspective of design and usage of space of a tomb chamber, such as placement of the coffin and grave goods, there is no direct relationship between the “tu”-shaped single-chamber tomb and the single-chamber tomb in burial systems of the Mainland and North China.
Furthermore, in Jiangnan, mainstreaming of the “tu”-shaped single-chamber tomb had already appeared in the late Western Jin,　that is, before the relocation of the Jin dynasty to the south. Also, in tombs of early Eastern Jin emperors and noblemen, coffins are placed in a direction parallel to the principal axis of the tomb chamber, in accordance with the local burial system of Jiangnan. Design and usage of space of that tomb chamber is different from burial systems of North China, where coffins were placed in a direction perpendicular to the principal axis of the tomb chamber. From the Eastern Jin dynasty, both the square single-chamber tomb and the “tu”-shaped single-chamber tomb were oriented on a line of flow in which coffins and ceremonial space combine along the principal axis of the tomb chamber. In sum, the “tu”-shaped single-chamber tomb was the normal format for small and medium-sized tombs in the local burial system of Jiangnan, and it was then upgraded for use in large tombs.
I think that the funeral system of West Jin infiltrated into the local society of Jiangnan after the Western Jin conquered the Wu. Thus, the “tu”-shaped single-chamber tomb was selected and standardized from local Jiangnan tomb formats for a tomb chamber that conformed with the funeral system of Western Jin.