Ancient Pottery Found in Nyingchi

SHAGE WANGDUI

It was drizzling when Li Linhui and I reached Bayi Town, capital of Nyingchi Prefecture, on May 25, 2000, for a survey of ancient tombs. Late May was the rainy season. In the past year since our last visit, the town had added many new buildings and roads. It was four in the afternoon when we got to the town, but we still went direct to the Cultural Bureau. People there briefed us on the ancient tombs and showed us three pieces of pottery. Finding these were from the early and middle Tubo period, we immediately went to Nyingchi Village, where they had been unearthed. The site is close to Nyingchi Village. When the villagers decided to dig a pond to breed fish, they blasted off a cliff to create an open piece of land with an area of 500 square meters, and with a depth of 25 meters. Surprisingly, they found a human skeleton and pottery pieces. We climbed up the cliff, and found the skeleton at a spot 2.5 meters from the bottom. With this discovery, we returned to Bayi Town. On the morning of May 26, we visited the Cultural Bureau again. Dorbugyi and two of his female colleagues accompanied us to the cliff. It was still drizzling when we left Bayi. However, when we got to Nyingchi Village, the rain had stopped. We were not particularly anxious to locate the skeleton, but we did want to find more clues to human activities in ancient times. For this purpose, Dorbugyi went to visit the villagers, and we went up to the top of the cliff. We dug downward for one meter to see whether the skeleton we had seen the day indicated the presence of tombs.

When we reached a depth of one meter, we found fragments of five pottery items. Four of them carried a rope pattern. They impressed us with the local flavor. As in other parts of Nyingchi, we didnt find any stone artifacts. The traces we found were determined to be of the New Stone Age. Comprehensive analysis shows the ancient tombs were from the metallic period or the early Tubo period. They are important for us to study the regional types in pre-historic Tibet. We studied the human skeleton, and came to the conclusion that it was not part of the ancient tombs in Nyingchi Village, on the lower reaches of the Nyang River. Some 41 km to the east is Mirui Village, where cliff paintings of the Tubo period have been found. Some 50 km to its west is Dorpu Village, where stone coffins of the late New Stone Age have been excavated. On the way to Mirui Village is the tomb of the first Tubo king. Much still needs to be done in the way of academic study of these tombs.