Warriors of Ancient Ba Tribe
Wang Jiayou (researcher of Sichuan Provincial Museum):
The district government found a big wooden coffin. It was over a meter wide and 5-6 meters long.
They didn鈥檛 know what it was. We were sent to investigate. I was fresh from the archeological institute. We didn鈥檛 know what it was either. It was only after we found a few more that we realized they were boat coffins. We thought they were oil dregs (is 'dregs' really the right word?) at first.
A ditch was dug to see how many boat coffins there were. We found dozens of them in three rows.
Yang Yourun was at the site with me. We unearthed them all. A plan was drawn for each one.
Pictures were taken. And a general map was made.
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Archaeologists named them boat coffins. In the 1950s, the Ba were simply mythological figures. Based on their archeological knowledge, Wang Jiayou and his partners were quick to link the burial site with the ancient Ba recorded in documents.
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In the 4th century BC, the capital of Ba was in chaos. A strong naval division advanced upstream toward the city from the eastern side of the Three Gorges. In the far northwestern area, a much stronger military force was gathering strength. According to historical accounts, the states established by Ba warriors were destroyed in 316 BC by the state of Qin, the most powerful state in China at that time.
