1. All dates in this article are Before Common Era unless otherwise noted.
2. We shall designate these two cemeteries A and B for convenience. A was inside the Eastern Zhou city called Lingshou, the capital of Zhongshan, and B was outside it. They included four large tombs numbered by the excavators 1, 2, 6, and 7; a few middle-sized tombs, numbered 3, 4, 5, and 8; and several smaller tombs (Hebei sheng wenwu guanlichu 1979: 1–26).
3. For one of the earliest notes of the vertical configuration of early Chinese tombs before the Han, see Sekino 1916: 605–24; for the latest, see Wu 2009: 20–5. Huang Xiaofen names the vertical pit graves “guomu” (Casket tombs) (Huang 2002: 26–69).
4. A majority of previous scholarship is focused on grave goods, particularly bronzes, of which some were lavishly inscribed; for a recent survey and bibliography, see Wu 2004.