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[[underlined]] Chapter III. [[/underlined]] 42. of the Wei River [[2 Chinese characters]], in the province of Shensi./ [[insertion]] (see page 108). [[/insertion]] On the other hand, certain tombs believed to be of very early Chou date recently excavated in Honan follow the Shang practice in their lack of mounds. The balance of such evidence as we have appears on the whole to point to the introduction of the custom from the northwest, perhaps as an element in the culture of the conquering Chou people. Be that as it may, it appears to have become common if not regular in northern China well before the middle of the 1st millennium B.C. We thought it a fair inference, therefore, that a grave-mound might formerly have stood over the tomb which we were studying. That the tomb-chamber was not filled in with earth immediately upon the completion of the funeral ceremonies appears certain. All accounts agreed that when first found, the bronzes and other objects were not in disarray, but stood upright and in regular order, just as they had been left more than 2000 years before. This could scarcely have been the case had the tomb been filled with earth at once, however carefully. Still less could such a condition have existed had the roof of the chamber (pretty certainly of wood, as we have seen) collapsed all at once and permitted the superincumbent earth to drop down into the cavity. To explain how the latter became so completely filled with a well-compacted mass of material without disturbance of the grave-furniture, we must invoke the operation of some other cause. The true explanation seems beyond doubt to [[strikethrough]] have [[/strikethrough]] be [[strikethrough]] en [[/strikethrough]] that the earth had been carried down very gradually by water seeping in from above, probably through crevices appearing in the roof as this disintegrated and decayed. The action of such a process would moreover best account for the lack of any signs of disorder or disturbance among the bronzes; for these would then have become embedded in the earth only by degrees,
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