古代 동아시아 船棺葬에 대한 小考 –中國의 例를 中心으로-

Abstract

Ship burial(船棺葬) is distinguished from other memorial services held at the grave in that is uses a ship-shaped wooden coffin. The Chinese ship burial is known to be distributed mainly in Sichuan Province(四川省).

The western part of Sichuan Province is the location registering the most frequent occurrence of ship burial, and its diachronic characteristics are as follows. The early period shows a coffin shaped like a ship with its bow and stern arranged in parallel, and has no coffin lid. The middle period shows a deeper inside of the wooden coffin carved like an arc, and the late middle period shows either of the bow and the stern tilting a bit upward. And coffin lids appear. The mode of burial of relics shows a certain regularity compared to the early period. The wooden coffin of the late period has either of the bow and the stern remaining flat while the other completely tilting upward while the inside of the wooden coffin further deepened. In some cases, a small casket is placed in the wooden coffin. In the eastern part of Sichuan Province, unlike the western part, both the bow and the stern are tilted upward in an arc shape.

As ship burial is mostly distributed in the western part of Sichuan Province, it appears to be a type of grave used by the ruling class of the ancient Shu Dynasty(蜀國). Judging from the excavated relics, it presumably emerged in the Warring States Period(戰國時代) and, coming into Qin Dynasty(秦) and Early Western Han Dynasty(前漢), was replaced by a burial pit under the influence of the Center of China.

A small number of wooden coffins existed in ancient Korean Peninsula. Since it is not a proper mode of burial on the Korean Peninsula, its connection to the neighboring regions draws attention. Its connection to China should be minor, however, because it demonstrates great difference chronologically and geographically and never on the Korean Peninsula was an actually used ship employed as a coffin, while there was difference in quality of the lumber.