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Fangmatan () is an archeological site located near Tianshui in
Tomb 5, which was also excavated in 1986, dates to the early Western Han (early 2nd century BCE). The occupant of the tomb was buried with a paper map laid on his chest, but due to water damage only a single fragment (5.6 × 2.6 cm) of the map has survived. The map, which depicts topographic features such as mountains, waterways and roads, is drawn on the oldest extant piece of paper.
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
's Gansu
Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...
province. The site was located within the Qin state, and includes several burials dating from the Warring States period through to the early Western Han.
Tomb 1
The date of the burial of Tomb 1 was approximately 230 to 220 BCE at the very end of the Warring States period; it was excavated in 1986. The tomb contained a number of long-lost texts written onbamboo slips
Bamboo and wooden strips ( zh, s=简牍, t=簡牘, first=t, p=jiǎndú) are long, narrow strips of wood or bamboo, each typically holding a single column of several dozen brush-written characters. They were the main media for writing documents ...
, including almanacs ( Rishu 日書), legal texts, medical works, and seven maps. The maps are drawn in black ink on four rectangular pieces of pine wood, 26.7 cm in length and between 15 and 18.1 cm in width, and depict the tributary river systems of the Jialing River in modern Sichuan
Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...
province. The areas covered by the seven maps overlap, but in total they cover 107 × 68 km in area.
Tomb 5
Tomb 5, which was also excavated in 1986, dates to the early Western Han (early 2nd century BCE). The occupant of the tomb was buried with a paper map laid on his chest, but due to water damage only a single fragment (5.6 × 2.6 cm) of the map has survived. The map, which depicts topographic features such as mountains, waterways and roads, is drawn on the oldest extant piece of paper.
Notes
Bibliography
* *. *. * * {{Prehistoric cultures of China Archaeological sites in China Tianshui