08 11 月 Pits of Rare Birds and Animals in the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum
The pits of rare birds and animals are the larger of the many burial pits in the Qin Shi Huang mausoleum. It was built to mimic the Qin palace garden and was a place for the emperor’s soul to roam. It is located between the inner and outer city on the western side of the mausoleum mound, where archaeologists have found 31 neatly arranged burial pits. They are divided into three rows, six in the eastern row, eight in the western row and 17 in the middle row, spread over an area of 2,000 square meters.
In order to understand the content of the pits, the archaeologists first selected two of the middle row of pits to excavate, and find that each contained a tiled coffin. The tiled coffins were rectangular in shape, with a lid on top and a body underneath, the lid being a little larger to allow for easy opening and closing. Inside the coffin was a pile of animal bones, all of which had a brass ring around their necks, indicating that they had previously been tethered to a rope.
In addition to the animal bones, a small pottery basin for raising animals was also found, which here is very similar to the one excavated from the stable pit at Shangjiao village, to the east of the Qin Shi Huang tomb. This suggests that it was used as a feed bowl for rare animals and horses during the Qin dynasty. Identification and analysis of the animal teeth and fragmentary animal bones showed that it contained deer and muntjac herbivores, as well as omnivorous animals. This was the very same garden that the Qin Emperor had arranged for himself.
Why were these rare birds and animals buried in the tomb of Qin Shi Huang? In ancient times, the emperors had a ‘garden’ for keeping rare animals for their enjoyment. They had a large area in or near the capital where they kept rare animals and birds, and this place was called Yuanyou. In The Book of Songs, the poem that “The king in the great garden, the doe lazily lying in the shade.” vividly records the activities of various birds and animals in the garden of King Wen of Zhou.The famous Shanglin Garden of the Qin Dynasty also housed many rare birds and animals. This custom was directly inherited by the Han dynasty. In the “Sanfui Huangtu”, it is stated that “The Shanglingyuan of the Han Dynasty was the old garden of the Qin Dynasty.” The Han Old Ritual says: “The Shanglin Garden was three hundred miles in circumference, and various animals were kept in it for the emperor to shoot and hunt in autumn and winter.” This shows that the scale of the ‘garden’ of the emperor was quite spectacular.
The rare and exotic animal pits of the Qin Shi Huangdi tombs reflect a part of royal life and give us a vivid and interesting picture of the court in the Qin’s simulation of the underground ‘garden’.