Yu Hong died in 592 and was buried at Taiyuan, where his tomb was found in 1999.[1] It is one of four tombs of Central Asians found at Taiyuan and Xi’an since that year, together with those of An Jia, Shi Jun and Kang Ye.[2]

The career in the epitaph

The epitaph says that Yu Hong came from a state called Yu in Central Asia.[3] Where that state lay is not known. The strong mark of Sogdian culture on Yu Hong, however, is beyond question.[3] His career began as a dignitary of the khan of the Rouran. The khan sent him on a mission to Persia and to the Tuyuhun, and then to China.[3] There the emperor of the Northern Qi made him stay. He served first as coordinator of relations on the frontier.[3] Under the Northern Zhou he was a special envoy and deputy sabao, jianjiao sabao.[3] Under the Sui he was military attaché of Bingzhou, the old Taiyuan. He died there and was buried.[3]

The sarcophagus

The sarcophagus is of marble, in the form of a Chinese timber house. It was most probably put together inside the burial chamber.[4] Modern accounts take the marble as a sign of Yu Hong’s great wealth, as they do the elaborate making of the sarcophagus.[5] A fire altar stands at the centre of its base.[6] The reliefs show a deity in half-human, half-bird form at a part of a ritual. They also show a scene of paradise. In it, Yu Hong and his wife sit before a shrine-like building in a garden and enjoy heavenly music and food.[7] The composition of this scene resembles that of the western paradise of the Buddha Amitabha in the Tang period. The Sogdian scene may later have passed into the Buddhist one.[8]

References

  1. ^ Müller 2008, p. 117, 123
  2. ^ Müller 2008, p. 117
  3. ^ a b c d e f Müller 2008, p. 123
  4. ^ Müller 2008, p. 129, 137
  5. ^ Müller 2008, p. 137
  6. ^ Müller 2008, p. 130
  7. ^ Müller 2008, p. 131, 132
  8. ^ Müller 2008, p. 132

Literature

  • Shing Müller, Sogdier in China um 600 n. Chr. Archäologische Zeugnisse eines Lebens zwischen Assimilation und Identitätsbewahrung (2008)
  • Etsuko Kageyama, The Winged Crown and the Triple-crescent Crown in the Sogdian Funerary Monuments from China: Their Relation to the Hephthalite Occupation of Central Asia (2007)

Related

What links here4

Peoples
Sogdians
Sources
Tomb of An Jia · Tomb of Kang Ye · Tomb of Shi Jun

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Tomb of Yu Hong.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/sources/tomb-of-yu-hong/

Last revised: 8 November 2026