Session 12 - Diffusion or Domestic development? (Kazutaka Kawano)

Описание: There are many decorated tombs in human history from ancient Orient to Maya. But archaeologists don’t pay much attention to painted tumuli in South Asia. There are approximately 30 painted tumuli in Pasemah area, South Sumatra, Indonesia together with many megalithic remains, stone figurines and animals showing ranked society and ancient symbolism. Based on Van del Hoop firstly recorded them in 1932, ARKENAS and Japanese team started joint archaeological project of photogrammetric survey of 4 painted tumuli in Kota Raya Lembak, Pasemah. The burial chamber built in the basement has square plan. The chamber of the wall is made of 1 or 2 stones, the entrance is constructed of 2 pillars and a lintel. We could confirm the mural inside chamber except for ceiling stone. The walls were rubbed by white pigment, and many motifs were painted on them by mineral pigments at most ４colors. The motifs are buffalos, birds, human geometric patterns like arabesque. These mural shows idea of afterlife shared by Pasemah people. Did these painted tumuli emerged there independently or diffused from another place? According to the painting technique, we can distinguish 2 traditions of decorated tombs over the world. One has detailed motifs after polished the surface of stone or covered by stucco (fresco painting) in advance, the other has rough motifs directly on the surface of piled stones. The former is spread to the surrounding area from Egypt, China and Mexico, and the latter is distributed in south Sumatra, Kyushu in Japan, western Iberia and Brittany peninsula of Europe, Tunisia and Cyprus of Mediterranean. Especially stone sculpture distributed in Pasemah hold kettledrum of Herger Ⅰ type and it might be some relation with the movement of Austronesian people along with Dong Son bronze culture. Therefore, we suppose that these painted tumuli were independently development stimulated and influenced by foreign ancestral identities.