THETOMBSOFTHERULERSOFPENG.PDFVIP

Lineages and their Places in Ancient China: Based on Recently Discovered Bronzes THE TOMBS OF THE RULERS OF PENG AND RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ZHOU AND NORTHERN NON-ZHOU LINEAGES (UNTIL THE EARLY NINTH CENTURY B.C.) Maria KHAYUTINA University of Munich The discovery of a Western Zhou period cemetery near Hengshui zhen 横水鎮in Jiang 降 County, southwest Shanxi, counts as one of the most fascinating archaeological events of the last decade.2 A comprehensive report about the excavations of the whole site has not yet been published, but some observations can be made based on preliminary reports about the tombs of Pengbo Cheng 倗伯爯and his spouse Bi Ji 畢姬. Inscriptions discovered elsewhere reveal that Peng 倗was a lineage of the Kui 媿/Gui 鬼surname. Some received texts associate Kui/Gui-surnamed lineages with the Di 狄/翟group of northern non-Zhou peoples. According to the Chinese historiographical tradition, the Di remained autonomous from the Huaxia 華夏cultural and political community, which was dominated during the Western Zhou period by lineages of the Ji 姬and Jiang 姜surnames. The new discovery shows that a small non-Zhou polity, not referred to in transmitted literature, existed quite close to the eastern residence of the Zhou kings at Chengzhou 成周and just to the south of Jin 晉, one of the major Ji-surnamed principalities. Moreover, rulers of Peng had marital relations with Bi 畢, a distinguished Ji-surnamed lineage closely related to the Zhou royal house. Thus, the case of Peng can be very instructive for understanding geo-political and cultural relations in China during the Western Zhou period. In the following, I briefly introduce the tombs of the Peng ruling couple and the inscriptions on their bronzes, and then proceed to discuss the following four questions: - the date of tombs M1 and M2 of the Peng cemetery -