泗水国 / Sishui Kingdom (Western Han)

Overview

泗水国 / Sishui Kingdom is the Western Han vassal kingdom whose royal burial landscape is associated in this wiki with 大青墩汉墓. It is distinct from 汜水, the Chu-Han river crossing represented by a different Chinese character and historical context.

Current Profile

Hanji 346 describes Sishui as a kingdom known from transmitted history but made materially vivid by the large tomb complex at Daqingdun. The most direct link is not size alone: chamber boards labeled “泗水王冢” and “王冢” connect the monument to a royal burial context.

The episode reports six kings in the Western Han line and tries to infer the tomb’s occupant by excluding a short-reigning king and the final king deposed under Wang Mang. That inference remains weaker than the cemetery attribution. A silver seal reading 刘绥 does not match the transmitted royal roster, leaving open whether the seal belonged to an attendant, substitute burial object, secondary person, or someone otherwise absent from the simplified list.

Key Characteristics

• Western Han vassal kingdom represented in the episode through both transmitted king lists and excavated royal-burial evidence.
• Associated with a multi-tomb landscape rather than one self-interpreting monument.
• Materially linked to Daqingdun by the “泗水王冢” chamber-board label.
• Reported to have six kings, although the episode does not reproduce or independently verify the full documentary record.
• Its cemetery can be identified more confidently than the precise occupant of a robbed individual tomb.

Evidence

• Royal-cemetery attribution: Hanji 346 reports “泗水王冢” and “王冢” labels on chamber boards at Daqingdun.
• Political chronology: Hanji 346 reports a line of six kings and uses reign length and deposition to propose, but not establish, occupant candidates.
• Identity tension: Hanji 346 reports a silver “刘绥” seal whose name does not occur in the supplied royal roster.

Qualifications

The episode is a short secondary narrative, not a full publication of the excavation or received texts. It does not establish the precise territorial chronology, complete royal genealogy, cemetery phasing, relationship among Daqingdun and nearby tombs, or the identity of either principal burial. “Disappeared kingdom” is a narrative description of historical obscurity, not evidence that the polity was absent from all written records.

What Changed

• Added the kingdom as a canonical entity anchored to the Daqingdun royal-burial evidence.
• Separated identification of the royal cemetery from identification of a particular king.
• Recorded the 刘绥 seal as an unresolved complication rather than a seventh king.

Relationships

• 大青墩汉墓 / Daqingdun Han Tomb - monumental tomb whose board labels materially connect the site to the kingdom’s royal cemetery.
• 刘绥 / Liu Sui (Sishui seal) - unresolved named seal that does not match the episode’s transmitted list of kings.
• Archaeological Interpretation Under Sparse Evidence - evidentiary discipline required to distinguish polity, cemetery, tomb, and occupant claims.
• 汜水 / Si River (Chu-Han) - homophonically similar but historically and graphically distinct river-crossing entity.