Tombstone

Grave robbing is a crime with ancient roots. Remains of intentional burial destruction can already be seen in Neolithic archaeological data. After the social changes of the Spring and Autumn Period, when rituals broke down and music collapsed, the trend of extravagant burials emerged, and tomb robbing became even more popular. Regarding the graves where relatives are buried, one or two generations can clearly remember where they were buried, but after three or four generations, no one often knows. Especially after migrations, wars and other reasons, future generations have no idea where their ancestors were buried or the geometry of their tombs. How to solve this situation? People have come up with many ideas. In the beginning, people were inspired by the round wooden stakes used to maintain the coffin ropes when the dead were buried. They inserted wooden stakes and bamboo poles in front of the tomb, and tied fibrous things (juan or silk, etc.) To write the date and time of the deceased's birth and death, which was called "Ming Jing" (or "Ming Jing"). But this thing is extremely easy to damage, so people came up with other ideas: rich people used stone columns instead of wooden round piles, and carved the name, birth time, official rank, etc. Of the deceased on the stone pillars. In order to engrave more words, its shape evolved into a square or rectangular shape, and it began to be buried inside or outside the tomb. Referring to the house architecture, a cap was added to the top of the stele, decorated with engraved animals, plants or landscape patterns, and the body of the stele was engraved with the resume of the deceased. Indicate whether the person was buried alone or buried with his wife, concubines, children, daughters, etc. Attached is the feng shui geographical location and orientation of the Yin Mansion (that is, the tomb) (indicated by the heavenly stems and earthly branches). These are the origins of tombstones.