During the Dali Period, Tao Zhi rolled up female figurines
In the eyes of archaeologists, an ancient tomb is like a historical treasure house and a magical key, and its discovery can not only show rare treasures, but also confirm that history fills in the gaps. In 1985, a 20,000-square-meter cremation tomb was found in Xichang Beishan, and after rescue excavations by archaeologists, it was surprisingly found that this was not an ordinary cremation tomb, but a cremation tomb in the Dali period.
With the surface of a series of cultural relics, countless stormy historical stories between Nanzhao and Xichang reappear one after another, how Xichang was captured by Nanzhao and became an empty city, a large number of immigrants brought a unique cremation custom to Xichang, and the warlike King Jingzhuang died in Xichang... Behind the cremation tomb, not only the influence of Nanzhao on Xichang is presented, but also reflects the cultural characteristics of the southern ethnic minorities in Xichang during the Tang and Song dynasties, where the Bai ethnic group is the main ethnic group.
Plate figurines excavated from cremation tombs
Nanzhao ambitiously marched north, and Xichang became an empty city
Many people do not know that Xichang was once the territory of Nanzhao, during the Tang and Song dynasties, Nanzhao and Dali State Jinge Iron Horse, galloping on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, the old and new Tang Books and Song history have glorious historical records. Speaking of the story between Nanzhao and Xichang, we must first talk about the enmity and hatred between Nanzhao and Datang.
In 859, the Tang court was in turmoil, and Li Chen, who was obsessed with seeking immortals, died of poisoning by taking the elixir of his subordinates. The eunuch's relatives seized the opportunity to succeed the arrogant and lascivious crown prince Li Yicao, the notorious Tang Yizong in history.
In the same year, Fengyou Yixue, the king of Nanzhao who was far away in Yunnan, supported the sixteen-year-old Meng Shilong to take over Nanzhao, and was known as king of Jingzhuang.
Speaking of Meng Shilong's life, it can only be summed up by the word "war". As a teenager, he repeatedly petitioned to accompany the army to fight, and before he succeeded to the throne, he had already commanded the army, and war was undoubtedly the best way for him to gain power.
Nanzhao was originally the domain of the Meng clan, since its establishment, a total of thirteen generations of kings, the most controversial of these thirteen generations, of course, is Shilong, his succession, so that Nanzhao and the surrounding areas have been plunged into years of war.
When Emperor Xuanzong was newly mourned, the Tang Dynasty sent emissaries to pay tribute to Nanzhao, but they did not mourn Shilong's father, nor did they mention the canonization of Shilong in the edict to Nanzhao, and Shilong was dissatisfied and arrogantly sent the Tang envoys. Seeing that the envoy was like seeing the monarch, Tang envoys were wronged in Nanzhao, and after returning to Chang'an, they naturally had to complain to Tang Yizong, accusing Shilong of being arrogant and rude and not taking the emperor in his eyes. At the court, Tang Yizong was furious and decided not to canonize Shilong.
At this time, the Tang Dynasty had entered the late stage of decline, while Nanzhao's economy and culture continued to prosper, and its military strength reached a strong point. Many ministers began to persuade Shi long to claim the title of emperor, crown himself, and not to be a vassal of the Tang Dynasty. In this way, the young and vigorous Shilong was even more determined to oppose the Tang.
In 859, Shilong ascended the throne in Yunnan as emperor, changed the name of the country to "Da Li", changed the era name to "Jianji", refused to pay tribute to the Tang Dynasty, and the relationship between Nanzhao and the Tang Dynasty was officially broken.
Nanzhao was established, and the political situation was once stable. After Shi Long succeeded to the throne, the increasingly inflated force immediately found a way out - the Tang Dynasty's borders became the object of plunder and invasion; at the same time, he mobilized all the forces of Nanzhao and formed a powerful force to compete with the Tang Dynasty.
Between 859 and 874, in order to maintain its rule and expand its territory, Nanzhao repeatedly sent troops to Xichang and launched large-scale captive wars. With Xichang as a stronghold, the war was pushed to Chengdu, and he successively plundered children, hundreds of thousands of workers, and countless treasures and treasures in Chengdu and Xichang.
According to the literature, this protracted war left "south of Chengdu, north of Yuewei (present-day Xichang), and eight hundred miles empty of people and livestock." It can be seen that the cruelty of the war, Xichang was reduced to an empty city at that time. The Tang Dynasty was simply unable to cope with the attack of the Tiger-eyed Nanzhao.
In 860, Nanzhao defeated the Tang defenders and eventually occupied Xichang.
In 876, Shilong still took Xichang as the front line and personally commanded the battle, but at this time, Nanzhao was different from the past, the Nanzhao army was gradually defeated, and Shilong was tired and sick. One day in February 877, King Jingzhuang died in Xichang at the age of 33.
Some experts pointed out that the tomb of King Jingzhuang has not been found so far, and if it is found, it will be another sensational scene.
During the Dali Period, the Pottery Horse Warrior Figurines
Cremation was prevalent, and funeral customs brought by Nanzhao immigrants
After Nanzhao occupied Xichang, it brought a large number of Nanzhao immigrants to fill the empty city, and at the same time abolished the Tang Dynasty's establishment of Yuezhou in Xichang and established Jianchang Province. The custom of cremation also began to prevail in Xichang.
Nanzhao is a place that is very Buddhist, and its ruling area will promote Buddhism wherever it arrives, influenced by Buddhist ideas, and the funeral customs of Nanzhao are also different from those in the Central Plains, and they believe that people come to dust and return to dust. The funeral customs of Nanzhao and Dali are slightly recorded in the Ming Dynasty's Wild History "Huaicheng Night Language", and the Duan clan inherited the territory of Nanzhao and changed the name of the country to Dali, and in view of the disaster of the former dynasty's royal tombs, the wangling underground palace was no longer built. From the king down to the high official, after his death, all imitated the Buddhist monk Nirvana, and his body was cremated and preserved in the three pagodas of chongsheng temple.
And the cremation of ordinary people is simpler.
From September to October 1985, the three detachments of the Sichuan Armed Police built a pond in Xichang Beishan and dug up some crematorium jars, and they immediately notified the Liangshan Prefecture Museum. Subsequently, archaeologists conducted a rescue excavation of the cremation tomb in Xichang Beishan, and found more than 150 cremation tombs within the excavation range of 160 square meters, which was very fruitful and provided very important information for in-depth understanding of the cremation tombs in Xichang.
The cremation method in the Nanzhao period, although simple, but also has its unique features, the distribution of tombs is very dense, the spacing of tombs is generally not more than 1 meter, and the smallest spacing is only 20-30 centimeters. There is no obvious regularity in the location of each tomb. The pits of cremation tombs are circular vertical pits, and the diameter of the pit depends on the size of the crematorium buried. The cremation jars are placed in the pit, and there are two sets of jars (i.e., one can in the jar) and three sets of jars, but most of them are single cans. Part of the outer circumference of the cremation jar or the gap between the two sets of jars, equidistantly placed five clay figurines. After the cremation jars are placed in the pit, they are buried nearby with soil or charcoal chips after cremation, and individual cremation jars are also placed in stone rafters.
Five groups of ceramic plate figurines excavated from the Beishan Cremation Tomb have been designated as national first-class precious cultural relics
Cremation tombs are mostly buried in layers, with different periods of up and down. Almost every cremation tomb has a made stone, the stone is a kind of sharp stone, different sizes, shaped like a tower, the stone is often engraved with surname letters, the surnames that have been found are: "Yang, Zhang, Zhao, He", etc.; another kind of Buddhist pattern stone with lotus-like carvings, which is also recorded in italics.
More than 1,000 artifacts have been unearthed from the cremation tombs, including porcelain, pottery, bronze and iron. Five of the ceramic plate figurines in groups have been designated as national first-class precious cultural relics. A set of pottery figurines unearthed is delicate and vivid, which is a fine product among the pottery figurines of the same period.
Cremation tombs can be initially divided into two phases, early cremation tombs are not sealed, there is no mark on the surface, late cremation tombs have a round cake-shaped stone epitaph or an oval-shaped stone tomb on the top, and a tombstone in the shape of a vajra pestle and a tombstone engraved on natural pebbles have been found.
Round cake-shaped stone epitaphs, all covered in the cremation tombs, most of the front of the epitaphs are engraved with mandala patterns, the patterns are octagonal, and there are also a small number of ten and twelve shapes. On the pattern, engraved with Sanskrit and Bai, Chinese, Sanskrit is the seed symbol of the Buddha and Bodhisattva, Bai is a kind of text modified from Chinese characters, the content is the name and official position of the lord of the curtain, and the Chinese content is "chased as the path of the deceased so-and-so Shinto".
The artifacts excavated from the cremation tomb are divided into two categories: funerary utensils and burial items.
The burial utensils are various types of cremation pots, divided into two types: pottery and copper, the former is a large quantity. There are three kinds of ceramic cremation pots: sand-filled red pottery, clay clay pots and glazed clay pots. The largest of these are clay pots decorated with lotus petals and the shoulders decorated with zodiac signs on the outer walls.
Tao Zodiac figurines during the Dali Period
Many people at first glance at the scriptures on the white bones in the jar do not know its meaning, but also feel incredible, thousands of years ago cinnabar font, even more so far preserved.
In fact, this is also another manifestation of Buddhist thought, after death, people are cremated, and when the body is burned until the bones are gray and white, the skull and large bones are selected, and sanskrit mantras are written on them with cinnabar or gold powder, so as to surpass the undead, and then the bones are placed in a ceramic jar in order for burial. Some also chisel a hole in the bottom of the tank to allow the "soul" to come in and out. Even if the ashes are reburied after cremation, there is no grave.
The cremated bone is placed in layers in a jar, generally the limb bones are on the bottom, the skull is on the top, and the large pieces of bone are written in Sanskrit incantations written in cinnabar, and then affixed with gold leaf. Burial items such as copper sheets, copper lotuses, copper mirrors, copper bracelets, coins, etc., are generally placed at the bottom of the jar. There is a special phenomenon that every cremation jar contains shadow celadon or white porcelain, and those without porcelain have shadow celadon or white porcelain pieces.
The cremation tombs in Xichang are all distributed in the suburbs of Xichang City, and the cemeteries found so far include Beishan, Xiaoshan, Sangpo, Jiangpo, Yangjia Tomb Mountain and Xincun. Among them, the Beishan cremation tomb group is the largest, with an area of 20,000 square meters, which is the only cremation tomb with the largest scale except yunnan.
Green glazed ceramic lotus petal pattern cremation jar, witness of history
Green glazed ceramic lotus petal pattern cremation jar
In the Beishan cremation tomb, green glazed red clay pots are not uncommon, of which the green glazed ceramic lotus petal pattern cremation pot is the most typical and is a national first-class cultural relic. The clay pot was one of the most common and common utensils in the daily life of people at that time, but for us today, it is a witness to the history of Nanzhao's establishment of political power in Xichang.
The process of green glazed pottery is still traceable around us.
Glazed pottery is a surface glazed pottery. The colorant of glazed pottery, green is copper, yellow is iron, flux is lead, and the firing temperature is about 800 degrees. Looking at the history of glazed pottery in the world, the application of low-temperature glaze on pottery was not the earliest in China. There is still some controversy about the origin of Chinese glazed pottery, but it is certain that the emergence and development of glazed pottery technology in China is related to some extent with the opening of the Silk Road.
The craftsmanship of Sichuan-Dian glazed pottery is also quite famous in the history of glazed pottery.
After experiencing the prosperity of the Han Dynasty, Sichuan-Dian glazed pottery entered a dark period. From the two Jin Dynasties to the end of the Tang Dynasty, glazed pottery was rarely excavated in Sichuan and Dian. Perhaps because of the division of local forces in Yunnan, the Silk Road was interrupted, and it may have been popular for thin burials at that time, making it difficult to pass down items during this period.
In the five dynasties of the late Tang Dynasty, glazed pottery flourished again in Sichuan and Dian. The Nanzhao state unified Yunnan and made the Silk Road unimpeded. Due to the religious belief of the whole people in Nanzhao, cremation was popular, a large number of cremation jars were produced, driven by cremation jars, and daily necessities also began to use glazed pottery.
In Huili County, south of Xichang, the ancient green glaze making process is still preserved, which is the intangible cultural heritage of Sichuan Province, and is also known as "The Only Green Pottery in China".
Household ceramics such as pots, bowls, pots, pots, bowls, saucers, pots and vases made of green pottery are mostly green. At first glance, it is rough and clumsy, carefully tasted, and its unique shape, simple and concise, and ingenious.
Huili green pottery is made of natural malachite glaze, which is named after the high temperature oxidation flame of more than 1200 degrees, and the firing is gem green. Huili's green pottery has high density, crisp sound, lead-free and non-toxic, acid and alkali resistance, strong and durable, health and environmental protection, and locals say that using green pottery pots to make tea for 3 days is not bad.
Some experts pointed out that the green glaze formula and production process of Huili are the same glaze species as the Qiongtao green glaze and are made by the same method. It is well known that Qiong pottery was destroyed in the Tang Dynasty, Huili was a key place for the Tun soldiers of the Nanzhao State, and there is no historical evidence to support whether the ceramics of Qiongli originated from Qiongtao.
Liu Hong, former director and researcher of Liangshan Prefecture Museum, once analyzed the burial items of Xichang's cremation tombs: "Xichang is the northernmost end of this kind of tomb that has been discovered, with the most tombs and the richest cultural relics, but Xichang pottery is mostly earthen pottery, which is not as exquisite as the blue and white porcelain pots in Chuxiong Prefecture, Yunnan. ”
Behind almost every artifact is a story of lingering intestines, which is both long and unforgettable. Behind the Xichang cremation tomb, is the story of the rise and fall of Nanzhao, is the epitome of the influence of Buddhist tantra on the society at that time, Buddhism in the early days of Nanzhao began to gradually import from the Central Plains, India, Tubo and other places, after the introduction of the royal family support, and finally contributed to the Nanzhao Dali kingdom of multiple sects of the common prosperity of the Buddhist prosperity, creating a rich and precious Buddhist cultural heritage of the Nanzhao Dali kingdom. So, under the Nanzhao regime, where the whole people believed in religion, what other products of Buddhist ideas were passed down in Xichang? In the next issue of the story, we will recount it again.