In the middle of summer 2017, on the west side of the Zhangjiayao Forest Farm in Kangping County, Liaoning Province, on the edge of the desert, the rangers of the forest farm inadvertently found some strange ground buildings, there were monuments, strange words engraved on the stele, and some green bricks, but these bricks were obviously different from modern bricks, much larger, and then reported to the leader, who felt like a cemetery after seeing it.
In the middle of the vast forest sea, how can there be a cemetery? Is it a tomb left by the ancients? Then report to the superior.
Soon, the Shenyang Museum in Liaoning Province received the news, and according to their description, it was likely to be an ancient tomb. But they also wondered, how could the tomb appear there? With a suspicious mood, an archaeological team was prepared and drove there. Seeing is believing, hearing is false.
After crossing the mountains, they came to the Zhangjiayao Forest Farm, and under the guidance of the rangers, they came to the edge of the forest farm.
This place is on the main peak of Changbai Mountain. The western side of the forest farm borders the desert.
After preliminary exploration, they confirmed that it was indeed an ancient tomb. Judging from the ground ruins, it should be the tomb of the Khitan people of the Liao Dynasty, and the specifications are not low.
The Khitans are a nomadic people that originated in the Liao River Valley in the northeast.
In 907 AD, Liao Taizu Yelü Abaoji became the Khitan Khan, and in 916, he was founded as the "Khitan", and the capital was set in The Left Banner of Bahrain in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia). In 947, Emperor Taizong of Liao led an army south to the Central Plains, captured Fenjing (汴京, in modern Kaifeng, Henan), and ascended the throne as emperor in Fenjing, changing the name of the country to "Great Liao". In 983, it was renamed the Great Khitan (大 Khitan). In 1125, the Liao state was destroyed by the Jin Dynasty.
At the end of the Liao Dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong of Liao, Yelü Chun, established the Northern Liao and fought with the Western Xia against jin, but was later destroyed by jin.
During the liao dynasty, its territory stretched from the Sea of Japan in the east, to the Altai Mountains in the west, to the Erguna River and the Waixing'an Mountains in the north, and to the Baigou River in central Hebei in the south.
The Khitan people were originally nomadic peoples, and later absorbed the farming technology of the Central Plains, and in order to maintain their national nature, they managed the nomadic peoples and the farming peoples separately, advocated rule according to customs, and created a bicameral political system. And to create the Khitan script and preserve its own culture. In addition, it absorbed the cultures of the Bohai State, the Five Dynasties, the Northern Song Dynasty, the Western Xia Dynasty and the countries in the Western Regions, and effectively promoted the political, economic and cultural development of the Liao State.
The liao dynasty's military power and influence covered the western region, so after the fall of the Tang Dynasty, Central Asia, West Asia and Eastern Europe regarded the Liao Dynasty (Khitan) as a representative title for China.
By looking at the surrounding terrain, this ancient tomb faces the vast desert and is backed by Changbai Mountain, which is a typical feng shui treasure: there is a Ming Hall in the front, a backer in the back, and a natural pine and cypress in the middle.
Feng Shui, a cultural relic of the Han people in the Central Plains, flourished since the Tang Dynasty and continued endlessly. It seems that the owner of this ancient tomb and the Liao Dynasty were deeply influenced and assimilated by Han culture.
My Chinese is vast and profound, and any foreign race can be melted down and unified.
Preliminary exploration learned that this tomb is buried very deeply and has a sloped tomb passage, which shows that the scale is very large, and the current manpower and tools are not enough to carry out rescue excavations on it, and it is necessary to mobilize people and horses and increase equipment.
Before the arrival of reinforcements, they used this time to conduct another tentative exploration of the surrounding area. They believe that the tomb should not exist alone, but should be a family tomb group.
Sure enough, they found three tombs that were far away on the hillside above, which should be the elders of the tomb. The elders are on top, the juniors are on the bottom, from the top down, and so on.
This form of tomb I have seen in Linxian County, Lüliang, Shanxi, is a group of tombs of the ancestors of the Zhao family and the Ming and Qing dynasties in Linxian County, standing on the Loess Plateau. Self-evident to clear, top-down.
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Soon, the hands gathered and the excavation began.
As is customary, excavations begin at the location of the tomb. Due to its location on the edge of the desert, most of the soil above the tombs is yellow sand, which brings a lot of convenience to the excavation work, so the progress is very fast. A few days later, the burial chamber had begun to appear, and it was a brick chamber tomb with an anterior and posterior chambers. Due to the vicissitudes of the sea and mulberry fields, thousands of years have led to the partial collapse of the burial chamber, and the interior is filled with silt.
Suddenly, someone found a robbery hole at the top, and the atmosphere at the scene suddenly became tense, and the air seemed to freeze. Was the tomb stolen? But in the middle of the vast primeval forest, the edge of the desert, the location is remote, what is so capable, even know that there is an ancient tomb here?
It is summer, the vast forest does not bring much coolness to everyone, and the rolling heat waves on the desert come from time to time, which is really a double day of ice and fire!
But the subsequent excavation seems to be a bit unexpected, in the mud and sand, many artifacts have been unearthed, it seems that they have not been stolen, there are porcelain, jade, etc., just like the two white background black flower jade pot spring vase is the most precious.
This phenomenon is really puzzling. So what is the purpose of the robbery cave? Now that you're in, why don't you take some bootlegs out? Is it not for the purpose of robbing tombs, but for another purpose?
Or was it discovered by the tomb keepers, who did not come too late, and fled in a hurry? In short, this is a good thing, and leave it alone, maybe the answer is later.
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And that's just the front room.
The cleaning of the back room then began. The back room is the sleeping quarters, where the owner of the tomb rests. Only to see a wooden coffin standing in the middle of the burial chamber, due to its age, the wooden coffin rot is more serious and can not withstand touch.
For the sake of cultural relics protection, the archaeological team decided to take the form of laboratory archaeology for the coffin, because important cultural relics must be in the coffin, and there can be no mistakes. So I found the board, fixed the coffin in all directions, lifted the crane with a crane, and transported it back to the Shenyang Museum to open it.
In this way, everyone acted separately, staying here to continue the excavation and clean-up work, trying not to miss any details, hoping to obtain more historical information, and then excavating the other three tombs one by one.
The coffin was smoothly transported back to the museum laboratory, and after adjusting the indoor temperature, the coffin was about to be opened.
Everyone was excited and curious, very curious to know what treasures were in the coffin, and at the same time full of worry, the journey was tiring, and it would not be transported back to an empty coffin.
- Crow's Mouth!
The various instruments were ready and the opening of the coffin began.
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Start in the middle. The coffin lid on it had already turned into a piece of decaying wood.
Gently pry up the first coffin with a bamboo skewer, wow! Oh gold!
Only to see a piece of golden gold presented in front of everyone's eyes, after careful identification, confirm that it is a gold belt buckle, square, with holes, a belt still has a yellow silk braid.
The golden sparkle of gold is like new. Gold is forever!
Since the burial chamber was filled with mud, the decaying and scattered coffin naturally could not escape its blame. Therefore, the coffin was also full of dirt. The mixture of mud and cultural relics has brought great challenges to the clean-up work, and it is completely at a millimeter speed forward, stripping away the cocoon and picking the teeth and embroidering. The difficulty can be imagined.
This belt is made of many gold nuggets, and the exquisite ornamentation on the buckle is amazing. After the whole belt was cleared out, it was extremely luxurious and looked like a king.
On both sides of the tomb owner's gold belt, two pairs of thick gold bracelets were found, which were engraved with ornaments.
It seems that the owner of the tomb is indeed not an ordinary person!
On the edge of the gold bracelet, there appeared gold objects, gold rings, very large, as if they were afraid that others would not know that he had money. The owner of the tomb is very good at showing. Maybe this is also a symbol of physical injury! Ordinary people who dare to use imperial gold, who use it!
To speed up the progress, several people cleaned up at the same time, from head to toe.
Suddenly, someone found something strange—the silver metal mesh, which had all turned black due to oxidation, and was mixed in the dirt one by one, and it was so broken that it was difficult to preserve.
Silk clothes also appeared, what to do? I thought that the clothes had already rotted, but I didn't expect to catch everyone off guard. This is another tricky question.
The archaeology of the laboratory can be described as difficult and unprecedented.
I remember that when Yangzhou found the joint tomb of the Sui Emperor and the Empress, it also encountered a similar problem, and found a phoenix crown of the Empress in the tomb. Unfortunately, the phoenix crown is firmly wrapped in mud, and there is no way to start, and if it is extracted, it will definitely cause fatal damage to the cultural relics. In desperation, they packed the phoenix crown together with the soil and sent it to the Museum of Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, thousands of miles away, for extraction and restoration. As we all know, Shaanxi is a major province of cultural relics, they have more experience in the extraction of cultural relics, and the cultural relics restoration technology is also first-class. Later, after several months of cleaning and repair, the Queen's Phoenix Crown was reborn, and the former glory reappeared, shocking the world!
I have to say that the Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics is also a big deal, after all, the queen phoenix crown is too important to lose.
Back to the point. Surprises keep coming.
- Wow! Oh my goodness! What is it? There was even a golden mask. The person in charge of cleaning his head could not help but exclaim.
Only to see a golden mask the size of a real face facing downwards, breaking out of the ground. The crowd was stunned.
This is a man's face, which should be carefully carved according to the image of the owner of the tomb, very realistic. Standard Khitan man image: short forehead, mimi eyes, high cheekbones, slender nose, thin lips.
Who is the owner of the tomb? Such a high-standard tomb must be related to the Khitan royal family.
Gold belt, silver network, gold mask, it is simply an imperial burial system!
Spread all over the body silver network, it should be the golden jade robe of the Junhan Dynasty, which is a symbol of royal status.
But strangely, the gold mask was noticeably off the head and was facing downwards, as if it were man-made. So who is going to do that? Moreover, several teeth were subsequently found, not in the head position. Inferred from the age of the teeth, the owner of the tomb died young, aged around 25 to 26 years old. So how did he die? Died? Or was it killed in battle? Or died in a court struggle?
Let's combine the robbery hole in front. Someone from this tomb has come in, which should have happened shortly after the tomb owner was buried. What did he come in for? And not for the tomb robbery, that is why it came. I think it must have come for revenge. It is normal for the ancients to break the coffin and kill the corpse in order to vent their private anger. Wu Zixu did just that, and Wu Zetian did the same.
Therefore, after the owner of the tomb was buried here, the body was artificially moved. He must have sinned against people before he died, so that he would not be able to live in peace after death. What do you think?
Unfortunately, there are no artifacts in the tomb such as epitaphs that can prove the identity of the owner of the tomb, which is very regrettable.
After the excavation of the four Khitan tombs of the Liao Dynasty, a total of more than 500 precious cultural relics have been excavated, providing a true and reliable physical basis for the study of the politics, economy and culture of the Liao Dynasty.
(End of this issue)