Viewsheds of cubic mountaintop tombs in Upper Tibet (Zhang Zhung)

Abstract

Cubic tombs once interred high priests of the ancient, pre-Buddhist Bon religion atop seemingly isolated hills and mountains in Upper Tibet. These tombs were constructed in and around the time of the semi-mythical Zhang Zhung kingdom. While there are good reasons to believe the tombs were intended to primarily serve the interred, the locations of the tombs are conspicuously accessible and potentially visible from afar suggesting broader spatial and therefore social significance. A total viewshed analysis around each of 31 known tomb sites compared the tombs' visibility with their surrounding landscapes using a GIS. The resulting spatial model indicates that most tombs are significantly more visible than the surrounding landscape and that the general pattern is not due to chance or elevation effects. The tombs are also located near and around other known sites, including stelae and forts. Together, results suggest that tombs may have been intentionally placed to be highly visible within an as-yet elusive social landscape of ancient Tibet during the Zhang Zhung period and not only isolated burial places. Future directions are briefly discussed.