An Jia

The Tomb of Ān Jiā, also sometimes read Ān Qié ( zh, t=安伽墓石門暨圍屏石榻, l=Stone tomb gate and couch of An Jia), is a Northern Zhou period (557–581 CE) funeral monument to a Sogdian nobleman named "An Jia" in the Chinese epitaph. The tomb was excavated in the city of Xi'an, then capital of Northern Zhou. It is now located in the collections of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology. An Jia () died in the founding year of the Daxiang () era (579 CE), during the reign of Emperor Jing.

The tomb

The tomb was composed of a stone gate and a stone couch located at the bottom of a ramped passageway 8.1 meters long, a structure which is typical of tombs built for Chinese nobility. It measured 3.66 meters square in size and 3.3 meters tall. The stone gate is decorated by two lions and an horizontal tablet where a Zoroastrian sacrificial scene is depicted. This stone couch is composed of 12 stone blocks, decorated with a total of 56 pictures. These pictures are not Chinese in style, and show vivid scenes from the life of An Jia: out-going, feast, hunting, and entertainment. Defying Chinese custom, An Jia's bones were found disarticulated and without anatomical order on the floor of the tomb rather than resting on top of the stone couch; some scholars have suggested that this is evidence of a secondary burial. Most of the structures and objects within the tomb, save for the stone couch, were found covered in a layer of soot. It can be concluded that this soot is the result of a fire occurring within the tomb, though the origin and date of the fire continues to be debated. One prominent theory for the cause of the fire suggests that it was the result of a Xianbei tradition that involved the burning of a deceased person’s belongings.

The tomb was undisturbed, the only Sogdian tomb to be found in such a state. It was excavated intact in 2001 and was designated as one of the top ten archeological discoveries of that year. Other famous Chinese Sogdian tombs of the contemporary period are the Tomb of Yu Hong and the Tomb of Wirkak. The tombs of An Jia, Wirkak, and Kang Ye were all found in the same area, indicating that this graveyard was reserved for foreigners.

The Sogdian An Jia (518–579 CE)

An Jia (518–579 CE, died at the age of 62) was from a Sogdian noble family from Bukhara. According to his epitaph, he was the son of An Tujian (), a governor of Mei Prefecture in Sichuan, and Lady Du () of Changsong (a former county in Wuwei, Gansu). He was in charge of commercial affairs for foreign merchants from Middle Asia doing businesses in China, as well as Zoroastrian affairs, for the Tong Prefecture of the Northern Zhou dynasty. He held the official Chinese title " Sàbǎo" (, "Protector, Guardian", derived from the Sogdian word , "caravan leader"), used for government-appointed leaders of the Sogdian immigrant-merchant community. An Jia was based in Xi'an, and was buried there.

Sogdian tombs in China are among the most lavish of the period in this country, and are only slightly less lavish than Imperial tombs, suggesting that the Sogdian were among the wealthiest members of the population.

Ethnographical aspects

The depictions in the tomb show the omnipresence of the Turks (at the time of the First Turkic Khaganate), who were probably the main trading partners of the Sogdian An Jia. The Hephthalites are essentially absent, or possibly showed once as a vassal ruler outside of the yurt of the Turk Qaghan, as they probably had been replaced by Turk hegemony by that time (they were destroyed by the alliance of the Sasanians and the Turks between 556 and 560 CE). In contrast, the Hephthalites are omnipresent in the Tomb of Wirkak, who, although he died at the same time of An Jia was much older at 85: Wirkak may therefore have primarily dealt with the Hephthalites during his younger years.

Epitaph

The epitaph of An Jia is as follows:

Text in Chinese

Tomb decorations

File:Gable of the stone gate of the Tomb of An Jia with reproduction.jpg, A Zoroastrian fire worship ceremony, depicted on the gable of the gate of the tomb.
File:An Jia welcoming a Turk. Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Xi’an.jpg, Anjia (right) welcomes a Turkic leader (left, long hair combed in the back).
File:An Jia with a Turkic Chieftain in Yurt. Xi’an, 579 CE. Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Xi’an.jpg, The Sogdian merchant An Jia with a Turkic Chieftain in his yurt.
File:An Jia brokering an alliance with Turks. Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Xi’an.jpg, An Jia (right) brokering an alliance with Turks (left).

See also

* Tomb of Li Dan

References

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External links

An Qie's Funerary Bed

Buildings and structures completed in the 6th century
2001 archaeological discoveries
Archaeological discoveries in China
Northern Zhou
Tombs in China
Zoroastrians