Discovery and research on jiahu bone flutes in wuyang, china

摘要

The site of Jiahu is located in Jiahu village, Wuyang County, Henan province, onthe Western edge of the broad plain of Huanhuaihai. On its north the site borders the Sha River, in the upper reaches of the Huai River; its latitude is 33(degree) 36 minutes North, longitude 113(degree) 40 minutes East, and it is 67.5 meters above sea level. Between 1983 and 1987, the Henan Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute carried out six campaigns of excavation here, revealing an area of 2400 square meters. Except for the trial excavation in the spring of 1983, Zhang Juzhong has been in charge of all the excavations. In early May 1986, while excavating tomb 78, Zhang Juzhong and Yang Zhenwei first discovered two funerary bone flutes. They soon found other, similar bone flutes in tombs 73, 94 and 121 respectively. Mr. Zhang's attention was instantly focused on these remarkable finds. In the campaign of autumn 1986, one or two more bone flutes were discovered in each of tombs 233,273, 263 and 270. Finally, in the spring of 1987, again one or two bone flutes were found in each of the tombs 282, 363,341,411,344 and 387. Up to the end of excavation in June 1987, altogether 25 bone flutes had been found, of which 17 were complete or almost complete, 6 broken or fragmentary and 2 were half-finished examples. Among the 17 complete bone flutes, there were 14 having seven holes, one five-hole, one six-hole and one eight-hole bone flute. In particular, the bone flute M282:20 was exquisitely made, and complete. Zhang Juzhong, the discoverer of the bone flutes, researcher Pei Mingxiang, the. ex-director of the division, who came to the digging site to see the progress of the work, and their coworkers were all understandably very excited.