The quantity as well as types of burial goods in Đông Sơn burials show their owners’ role and position in the society.
Đông Sơn people had their own conceptions of religious beliefs, customs, and death and life etc. Therefore, they buried with the dead different kinds of burial goods such as production tools (axes, spades, ploughshares etc.), domestic utensils (bowls, ladles, jars, drums etc.), weapons (javelins, spears, arrows etc.). Burial goods were usually bended or crushed, which is called by archaeologists as “killing” custom. In some Đông Sơn tombs, beside the pragmatic burial goods, there were also small replicas of objects.
The custom of burying burial goods of Đông Sơn people showed the close coherence between the two worlds, or in other words, between the reality and the spiritual world. It is also a source of information about the real situation of the social life in the Đông Sơn society. On that base, it asserted the vitality of a brilliant bronze age and a culture that bore indigenous elements – Đông Sơn Culture – in the land of Việt Nam.
Some burial goods of Dong Son people
Small replicas of bronze jars
Dương Mỹ Dung