Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng: The Bronze Bells of 433 BC

The tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, a minor ruler who died around 433 BC, is one of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries in China. Excavated in 1978 at Leigudun, near Suizhou in Hubei province, it contained more than 15,000 objects, including a set of 65 tuned bronze bells that is the largest and best-preserved ensemble of its kind. The finds offer an unequalled view of the music, craftsmanship and court life of the early Warring States period.

Background: the state of Zeng

Zeng was a small state in the Sui-Zao corridor of northern Hubei, on the route between the Central Plains and the middle Yangtze. Transmitted histories hardly mention a state called Zeng in this region, but they do describe a state of Sui there. Many archaeologists now believe Zeng and Sui were two names for the same state, a view strengthened by later excavations of Zeng cemeteries near Suizhou.

By the 5th century BC Zeng was a close ally, effectively a client, of the great southern kingdom of Chu. Bronze inscriptions show that the Zeng ruling house belonged to the Ji clan, the royal clan of the Zhou, and that it had been settled in the region since the early Western Zhou, probably as an outpost guarding the route south. Over the centuries, as Chu expanded, Zeng survived by staying on good terms with its larger neighbour. The bell given by the king of Chu to Marquis Yi is a sign of this close relationship.

The tomb’s contents show a ruler of modest political importance who nevertheless commanded huge resources of bronze, lacquer, jade and skilled labour.

Discovery and excavation

In 1977 an army unit levelling a hillside at Leigudun for a factory building noticed unusual soil. Archaeologists from Hubei, led by Tan Weisi of the provincial museum, investigated and began a full excavation in May 1978.

The tomb was a large vertical shaft cut into rock, about 220 square metres in area. At the bottom lay a wooden chamber built from massive timbers and divided into four compartments. The chamber had filled with water, which helped preserve wood, lacquer and textiles but meant the team had to pump it out before lifting the objects. The excavation lasted about two months, and the bells were lifted from the waterlogged central chamber where they still stood on their rack.

The tomb’s layout

The four compartments were arranged like a palace for the afterlife:

• East chamber: the marquis’s private quarters, holding his huge double coffin of lacquered wood and bronze, painted with guardian figures, together with eight coffins of young women and a dog.
• Central chamber: a ceremonial hall with the bell set, a set of 32 stone chimes, drums, zithers and mouth organs, and large ritual bronzes for banquets and sacrifices.
• West chamber: thirteen more coffins of young women.
• North chamber: an armoury and store, with weapons, armour, chariot fittings and about 240 inscribed bamboo slips listing chariots and horses for the funeral.

In all, the tomb held some 125 musical instruments, making it the richest single find of ancient Chinese instruments.

The bells

The bell set, or bianzhong, consists of 65 bronze bells hung on a three-tier, L-shaped wooden rack more than 7 metres long on its longer side. Six bronze figures of swordsmen help support the beams. The top row holds 19 small niuzhong bells, the middle and lower rows 45 larger yongzhong, and one large bozhong replaced a bell in the lower row. The bells alone weigh about 2.5 tonnes.

Chinese bells of this period are not round but almond-shaped in cross-section. As a result each bell produces two clear notes, one when struck at the centre of the lower edge and one when struck near the corner, usually a minor or major third apart. Together the set covers about five octaves and can play a full twelve-note chromatic scale in its central range.

The bells and their fittings carry inscriptions totalling several thousand characters. They name the pitch of each strike point and compare the pitch names used in Zeng, Chu, Zhou and other states, giving a detailed picture of a sophisticated musical theory far older than previously documented. The bozhong’s inscription records that King Hui of Chu had it made in the 56th year of his reign, 433 BC, for Marquis Yi’s ancestral temple, which provides the tomb’s date.

Other treasures

The tomb’s ritual bronzes include a zun wine vessel and pan basin covered in intricate openwork decoration, among the most complex bronzes of ancient China; scholars debate whether they were made with the lost-wax method. A pair of large bronze jian-fou vessels worked as wine coolers, with an outer container for ice or hot water around an inner flask.

A lacquered clothing chest is painted with the names of the 28 lunar lodges, the constellations used in Chinese astronomy, arranged around the character for the Big Dipper. It is the earliest known complete list of the 28 lodges. Gold vessels, jades, weapons and lacquered furniture complete one of the richest burial assemblages of the period.

Taken together, the objects show the scale of the workshops that served a Warring States court. Casting the bells required precise control of alloy and mould-making, since a bell’s two notes depend on its exact shape and wall thickness, and many of the bells show signs of having been scraped or filed after casting to tune them. Modern acoustic tests have found that most still sound close to the pitches named in their inscriptions.

The human cost

The remains of 21 young women, aged roughly 13 to 25, were buried in smaller coffins in the east and west chambers. They were probably musicians, dancers or consorts killed to accompany the marquis, a practice known as human sacrifice or retainer burial. It was being abandoned in many Chinese states by this time but clearly continued in Zeng.

Timeline

• c. 433 BC: death and burial of Marquis Yi of Zeng.
• 433 BC: King Hui of Chu, in the 56th year of his reign, has a bell made for the marquis’s temple.
• 1977: army construction work at Leigudun reveals the tomb.
• May-June 1978: the tomb is excavated under Tan Weisi.
• August 1978: the original bells are played in a public demonstration.
• 2002: the bell set is placed on China’s list of relics forbidden to leave the country for exhibition.
• 2012-2013: excavations of Zeng cemeteries near Suizhou support the identification of Zeng with Sui.

Legacy

The bells showed that musicians of the 5th century BC already worked with fixed pitch standards and a twelve-tone framework, a far more developed music theory than transmitted texts alone had suggested. The find inspired replicas, new performances of ancient-style music and studies of acoustics and casting. The tomb’s contents are the centrepiece of the Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan, where replicas are regularly played for visitors. With later discoveries such as the Mawangdui Han tombs in neighbouring Hunan, it showed how much waterlogged tombs in the Yangtze region could preserve of lacquer, textiles, instruments and texts.

Why it matters

The tomb of Marquis Yi preserves a complete court orchestra and the material world of an early Warring States ruler, almost undisturbed for nearly 2,500 years. It shows that even a small state could command remarkable technical skill, and it remains the key source for understanding early Chinese music.