New progress made in exploring Haihunhou Tomb in January 2018 in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. Archaeologists cleaned out a bronze seal which was carved with “Liu Chongguo” unearthed from the No.5 tomb. Together with the wooden slips excavated from this tomb and Hanshu, authorities deducted that the owner of the No.5 tomb of “Haihunhou” is Liu Chonguo, the son of Liu He.
According to the records of Hanshu, Liu He had 16 wives and 22 children. Besides it mentioned that Liu Chonguo was the heritor and he could inherit the title of Marquis of Haihun. The Haihunhou Tomb can be traced back to Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-24 AD). The No.5 tomb, which is in the north of Haihunhou Tomb, covers about 108 square meters.
In the course of clean-up, the experts found that lacquer wares were overlying the head of the owner, and found jade pillow under it. Apart from that, they also found jade pendants, jade belt hook, crystal, carnelian, and jade swords and the like. After the detection and analysis to those jades, they found most of them are Hetian jade from Xinjiang, which convincingly demonstrate the continental and maritime Silk Road the culture exchange between the East and the West in the period of the Western Han Dynasty.
Unfortunately, because the content of acid in soil was high in Southern China, the archaeologists didn’t found any remains and no teeth near the head. But the identification of the No.5 tomb still has important value for explaining the relationship between the owner and Liu He and having better understanding to burial system in Western Han Dynasty.