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Excerpt from Chinese Grave-Sculptures of the Han Period Compare also chavannes, Les memoires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien, Vol. II, pp. 4 and 176, for mention of stone sarcophagi in the history of the house of Ts'in. Wei (b.c. 3 34-319) entirely constructed of veined stone and over eight feet high contained no trace of a coffin, goes to show that vaults and coffins were not always differentiated, and that the corpse was plainly deposited in the vault without being separately enclosed. This fact is corroborated from the actual finds in sz'la in the Han graves of Shantung, where in many cases the stone vault serves also the function of the coffin as well, and was simply looked upon as the coffin or a substitute for it. The results of archaeological investigation, carried on so far to a limited extent, seem to teach that this point was in the main the outcome of an economic question; i. E., well-to-do people who could afford having both had a wooden coffin placed in a stone vault, while the poor had to be content with the one or the other. At all events, the material at present available allows the inference that in the Han period the erection of stone vaults for burial was by no means rare; that they are found scattered over a large geo graphical area, and are sometimes of huge dimensions and executed in an admirable style of solidity and beauty. I propose to make known in the following pages eight newly discovered carved slabs forming parts of stone vaults of the Han period in the province of Shantung. In regard to their discovery, I believe I must restrict myself to a state ment of the plain objective facts as laid down under each heading. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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