The Burial Mounds of Central Tibet

In the core areas of the Tibetan Highlands the custom of burying the dead in burial mounds (Tib. bang so) began long before the founding of the Tibetan empire. The grave fields are located in the erstwhile territories of the ancient, clan-based principalities of early Tibet. In the time of the Tibetan empire (7 th - 9th C. CE), some of these earth-mound structures assumed a considerable size, similar to the well-known earthen mausoleums of the Tibetan emperors situated in the valley of Chongye. The beginning of this form of burial in Tibet is unclear, but for central Tibet at least can be dated from the 4th century CE. It ended in the late 9th / early 10th century. The research project aims to present a first comprehensive study and documentation of this "tumulus tradition", which in the Highlands is most widespread in the areas of Central Tibet (the modern provinces of Ü Tsang), where it probably also had its origin. The starting point for the research is the data from recent ethnographic fieldworks in Central Tibet; on the one hand this relates to the results of visits to dozens of cemeteries by the appli-cant in the past few years, on the other hand to the planned surveys of 40 to 50 more grave fields, whose existence has already been established by means of modern satellite imagery. This unique new evidence of the pre-Buddhist history of the country is largely unknown to the research, and it is there-fore a prime target first to document it in the form of a detailed description as well as a photographic, graphic and cartographic illustration. The investigation will also include a first (Western) archaeologi-cal survey of the tumuli of Central Tibet, related to the area of landscape archaeology. Together with the relevant textual sources and the archaeological data available today, these empirical recordings ultimately form the basis for a historical and anthropological study of these monuments and their context of ritual, clan and empire. The studies also take into account the perspectives of other disci-plines (architecture, art history, geography) and the analysis will include comparative historical data from the Highlands and the cultures of the Inner Asian regions. The interdisciplinary research will be conducted in cooperation with various national and inter-national institutions, above all the Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences in Lhasa (TASS), and it will be based at the Institute for Social Anthropology (ISA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In addition to articles in scientific journals, a presentation of the results in book form is planned, as well as the creation of a detailed "Tibetan tumulus" website, where among other things a comprehensive place-name index to Central Tibet will be made accessible in digitalised form.

The historical and anthropological research project carried out at the Austrian Academy of Sciences Institute for Social Anthropology (ISA) initiated the first comprehensive inquiry into the Tibetan burial-mound history. This burial practice dates back to the time of the pre-historic principalities in the Highlands (ca. 4th - 6th cent. AD) and saw a significant development in terms of grave construction and funeral ritual in the time of the Tibetan Empire (7th -9th. cent.). Geographically, the research focused on Central Tibet. This predominantly agrarian region around Lhasa and the side valleys of the Brahamputra has always been formed the cultural and political centre in the Tibetan Highlands and alongside a smaller burial-mound landscape in north-east Tibet also represents the actual distribution area of the Tibetan burial mounds. A close relationship with similar traditions in neighbouring older cultures in Central Asia and the Silk Road region is very probable, yet the enormous density of grave fields and also certain external criteria such as the characteristics of the elite graves trapezoid shape make the Tibetan example unique.The project was able to identify several hundred burial grounds whose existence was previously largely unknown to the research. The regional sites outside the necropolis of the Tibetan imperial family are mostly mixed fields with smaller round tombs and walled, often multi-chambered structures related to the military and civil elite from the time of the empire. Many of these grave fields were discovered by means of high-resolution satellite imagery, which also formed the starting point for systematic on-site surveys. Despite the governmental restrictions in terms of visits to remote sites in the Tibet Autonomous Region and also the use of technical means, the fieldwork brought ample results in the area of historical ethnography and surface- and landscape archaeological investigations as well as the architectural reconstruction of (historically) opened tombs. In view of the great number of grave fields, the focus was first on the documentation of the individual sites, which was later combined with data analyses and textual studies related to questions of the historical context of the regional fields, the issue of social and political implications and questions of the ritual aspects of burial also including a first clarification of the complex issue of the graves orientation. In all, the results of this project gave insights into a previously unknown dimension of Tibets pre-Buddhist culture, information that at the same time contain ample comparative data regarding the archaeology and history of the burial-mound tradition in the greater Eurasian cultural contexts.