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My doubts about the purely utilitarian nature of hou fu stones were reinforced at the Diamond Hill cemetery. Space at this burial ground is at a premium and plots are often so tiny that stones, where they exist, are jammed together at the back of graves, which relegates them to the role of token boundary markers. Given the overcrowding at Diamond Hill, the discovery of a tomb which by virtue of its size and age had little in common with its neighbours was unexpected. The tomb belonged to the Liang family and was probably built at a time when graves were not yet piled up on top of each other. Not only was the Liang plot a good deal larger than that of the surrounding graves, but the family had clearly tried to ensure that it would always remain so. Set into the ground was a plaque which announced "Domain of the Liang [family's] funeral abode". (Liangzhai shanjie). More unusual still was a stone in front of the tomb which bore the words "quantu" or "front of the grave". What is relevant in this connection is that one expects to see such a stone in front of other graves, since it is both the logical counterpart of hou tu and a confirmation of its marker function, but that is not the case. For reasons that will become apparent below, the stone is unique.
But the tomb's most remarkable feature was located at the back of the grave. Here a small-scale replica of the main tomb, adorned with the usual inscription (Liangshan Houtu), had been erected. In view of the special nature of the Liang tomb, it was reasonable to assume that the structure represented a shrine to Houtu.
By installing a plaque, a quantu stone and a shrine, the Liang had attempted to reproduce, above ground, a funerary document called diquan. This was a land contract, written on a durable surface (clay, stone or jade) which included a plot's exact measurements. As of the first century BC, diquan were interred with the deceased to attest his or her ownership of the land in which s/he was buried. According to A. Seidel:
"From the third century on, the religious character [of the contracts] becomes more pronounced; supernatural beings start to appear as sellers of the land or as witnesses.
(A. Seidel, "Traces of Han Religion in Funeral Texts found in Tombs" in Dokyo to shukyo bunka, ed. by Akizuki Kan`ei Hirakawa)