Han Tombs: Funerary Art, Ritual, and Beliefs about Death

Han families prepared graves with coffins, food, utensils and images intended to support the dead. Wealthy households built chambered tombs and commissioned decorated goods, turning burial into a major undertaking involving relatives and skilled makers. Across the Western Han and Eastern Han periods, from 202 BCE to 220 CE with the Xin interruption of 9–23 CE, tomb design and ancestral rites changed together.

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Changing forms of Han tombs

At Mawangdui, near Changsha in present-day Hunan, the second-century BCE tomb of Xin Zhui, or Lady Dai, placed lacquered wooden coffins one inside another within a timber burial chamber. Compartments around the coffin held provisions and possessions. By contrast, the tombs of Liu Sheng, Prince of Zhongshan, and his wife Dou Wan at Mancheng in present-day Hebei were cut into the rock of a hillside.

Eastern Han builders increasingly used chambered underground tombs whose entrances and rooms recalled architectural spaces above ground. Stone doors marked entry into some burial chambers. Shared tombs for husbands and wives became more common, and paired male and female figures could form part of their decoration. The arrangement gave a family a physical setting for the deceased couple and the goods placed with them.

A tomb could therefore be more than a sealed place for a body. Its chambers, entrances, and furnishings shaped a setting for the dead and, in some cases, for rites performed by relatives. The architecture also made a visible statement about the family’s resources and its care for the deceased.

Grave goods and objects made for the dead

Families placed a range of goods in tombs, including clothing, utensils, food, and domestic objects. One Han view held that the dead could make use of possessions in the tomb. This helps explain why actual belongings could accompany a person into burial, although the objects placed in any particular tomb depended on family practice and means.

Objects made specifically for burial are called mingqi, often translated as spirit goods. They included miniature vessels, servants, entertainers and animals as well as buildings. Such substitutes were already made during the Western Han and continued alongside actual possessions. Ceramic towers and estate buildings became especially prominent in Eastern Han funerary assemblages.

Models of wells, pigsties and fields supplied an imagined household or estate with water, livestock and farmland. Grain-processing models represented work too: a rotary quern ground grain between stones as the upper stone turned, while pounding equipment removed husks or crushed grain. These choices linked provision for the dead with the equipment and labour that sustained the living.

Making burial goods drew on the same materials and skills used for costly possessions in life. Potters shaped and fired clay figures or building models; woodworkers and lacquer specialists made vessels and containers. An elaborate burial could require goods from several crafts as well as the labour of digging, building and arranging the tomb.

Images of status, ritual, and work

Han tombs were decorated with mural paintings and carved reliefs on bricks and stone. Ceramic human figures could also be placed inside them. Some figures represented entertainers dancing or playing music, while others represented people serving food. These images and objects helped furnish an imagined environment for the deceased and could provide entertainment or service in the afterlife.

Carriage processions were a recurring subject in Eastern Han tomb art. A procession could represent official life, a funeral, or a heavenly conveyance, so its meaning is not always certain. In tombs at Yi’nan and Dongjiazhuang in present-day Shandong, and Dahuting in Henan, images of carriages also conveyed social distinctions: the type of vehicle associated with a person indicated status and official rank. Festivities and ceremonies were often shown with many participants.

Paired imagery could place the tomb within a larger cosmic order. The Queen Mother of the West, associated with immortality, appeared opposite the King Father of the East. The sun and moon provided another pair. Fuxi and Nuwa, ancestral creator figures often shown with intertwined serpentine lower bodies, brought human origins and cosmic relationships into the decoration.

Ideas about the soul and the afterlife

One account of Han beliefs described a person as having two souls: the hun , or spirit-soul, and the po , or body-soul. The hun could travel to a realm associated with immortals, while the po remained with the body in its proper resting place. This belief helps explain why a tomb might contain clothing, food, utensils, and other goods intended for the dead.

Texts placed in tombs show people addressing practical concerns about the dead and the boundary between the living and the underworld. Western Han documents known as letters informing the underground told the Ruler of the Underground about the deceased’s needs for clothing, vessels, or implements. Land contracts in tombs asserted that the deceased owned the land of burial. Texts called tomb-quelling writings appeared in the first century CE and could function as documents authorizing the dead’s passage, intended to keep them from disturbing or endangering the living.

Family offerings and changing burial rites

Care for ancestors formed part of family life. Living relatives made offerings, commonly including animals and food, to ancestors, spirits, and deities. Han family norms emphasized patrilineal descent, and the continuation of ancestor worship was one reason families valued having sons. Wealthy families with large tombs could place offerings near the entrances to the burial complex.

Imperial rites also changed. Western Han emperors offered sacrifice at ancestral temples. The Lunheng , a text probably completed around 70–80 CE, contrasted ancient temple sacrifice with a more recent custom of making offerings at graves. In 58 CE, Emperor Ming formally transferred imperial ancestral sacrifices from the temple to the tomb of his parents. The Book of Later Han presents this decision as an act of filial piety: it recounts that Ming dreamed of his deceased parents before the rite and wept when he saw his mother’s personal belongings at the tomb.

For the wider setting, see Han China: History, Institutions and Society.