Today (14th) morning, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage held an online meeting in Beijing and announced that the Bailuyuan Jiangcun Tomb in Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, is the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han. The confirmation of the location of the Baling Tombs solves the problem of the name of the eleven imperial tombs of the Western Han Dynasty, and the structural layout of the double mausoleum, the center of the imperial tomb and the outer tibetan pit shows obvious differences with the Han Gao Ancestral Changling tomb and the Han Hui Emperor An Mausoleum, laying the foundation of the imperial tomb system in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty, and is of great significance to the in-depth study of the ancient Chinese imperial tomb system.
According to previous historical records, Emperor Wen's tomb is located under the "phoenix mouth", and this mistake is nearly a thousand years old! How did archaeologists determine the location of Baling? In fact, the Jiangcun Tomb is only 2,000 meters away from the "Phoenix Mouth", which has previously attracted attention due to theft and is suspected of being the tomb of Princess Guantao.
Why did you reject the "phoenix mouth"? There are no Han Dynasty tomb remains
Baling is the joint burial mausoleum of Emperor Wen of Han Liu Heng and Empress Dou. According to historical records, for nearly a thousand years, people have always believed that Baling is located in the "mouth of the phoenix". However, this time, after archaeological exploration, the "Phoenix Mouth" site did not have any Han Dynasty tomb remains, which was excluded as the possibility of a baling tomb.
The question of the "phoenix mouth" has been raised by Cao Long and Yang Wuzhan, two associate researchers of the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute.
According to the Xi'an Evening News, according to the tradition of the Western Han Dynasty Emperor's Mausoleum, the mausoleum is generally built on the edge of the Loess Plateau, except for the Imperial Tomb, which is relatively high and long, the entire cemetery is relatively flat, and the height difference is not large.
However, Cao Long pointed out that the height difference between the "Phoenix Mouth" and the lowest point in the cemetery was 230 meters, and it was difficult to build facilities such as outer hidden pits and ceremonial buildings in the process of building the mausoleum, and the distance between the "Phoenix Mouth" and the sealing soil of Empress Dou's mausoleum was 2100 meters, which was greater than the distance between the mausoleum of Emperor Maoling of Emperor Wu, the strongest in the Western Han Dynasty, which was obviously impossible. According to the size of the mausoleum of the Western Han Dynasty, the Baling Imperial Tomb cannot be located in the "Phoenix Mouth".
The Gangchon Tomb, 2,100 meters away, was once suspected to be the tomb of a princess
Jiangcun Tomb is located at the western end of Bailuyuan in the eastern suburbs of Xi'an, about 800 meters northeast of the Mausoleum of Empress Dou, about 2000 meters southwest of the Southern Tomb of Empress Bo, and about 2100 meters north of the "Phoenix Mouth" where the original national security unit Baling is located.
In 2001, on the east side of Jiangcun in Baqiao District, a large tomb (referred to as "Jiangcun Tomb") was stolen many times, and its tomb was located on the east side of Jiangcun and the west side of Empress Dou's mausoleum, with a burial chamber about 40 meters long and wide, about 30 meters deep, and 3 cloisters. At that time, the tomb robbers stole a total of 300 cultural relics, and some experts speculated that the stolen tomb may be the tomb of Princess Guantao.
The tombs of princesses, princesses and princesses of the Han Dynasty are all analogous to princes. However, at present, the scale of the tombs of the princes has been found to be much smaller than that of the Great Tomb of Gangchon. When Princess Guantao was buried in Emperor Wu, her burial system could not surpass that of the princes.
Therefore, Cao Long believes that the Jiangcun Tomb is prominent in location, large in scale, and the number of outer pits is large, far exceeding the level of the tombs of the princes, and it cannot be the tomb of Princess Guantao.
Cao Long and Yang Wu station speculated that according to the geological and geomorphological conditions of the Baling Tombs area, combined with the Western Han Emperor Mausoleum system and the tomb shape system, the Baling Imperial Tombs should be "Ya" shaped vertical pit tombs with 4 tomb passages, and according to the location, scale and facilities of the Jiangcun Tombs, the Jiangcun Tombs were judged to be the tomb sites of the Baling Emperors, that is, the Tombs of the Han Wen Emperors.
Four-step cross-confirmation to uncover the "mystery of the Baling"
According to CCTV reports, archaeologists used four-step cross-confirmation to unveil the "mystery of Emperor Wen's tomb" step by step. First of all, it is confirmed that the specifications of the Jiangcun Tomb are royal mausoleums; secondly, according to the cultural relics excavated by ZhongsikongYin and other excavated cultural relics, the identity of the owner of the tomb is confirmed; third, the tomb of Jiangcun and empress Dou are enclosed, which once again confirms that the identity of the owner of the tomb should be "emperor level"; finally, the empty "fake" tomb under the mouth of the phoenix reverse confirms that the location of the real tomb is actually the Jiangcun Tomb.
It is reported that the jiangcun tomb plane is "Ya" shape, the surface is not sealed, the side of the tomb is about 72 meters long and more than 30 meters deep, more than 110 outer hidden pits have been found around the tomb, and there are pebble-paved cemetery facilities (tentatively named "stone boundary"), the side length is about 390 meters, and there are gate sites on the front and outside of the four sides of the stone fence, which is speculated to be an independent imperial mausoleum (Empress Dou's mausoleum also has an independent houling cemetery).
The remains of the cemetery wall found outside the Jiangcun Tomb and the Mausoleum of Empress Dou are speculated to be in the same mausoleum, which is about 1200 meters long from east to west and about 863 meters wide from north to south.
Archaeology has excavated 8 outer pits of Jiangcun Tomb, and unearthed more than 1,500 pieces of pottery figurines, copper seals, copper carriages and horses, iron tools, pottery, etc., and the copper seals have "Chefu", "Instrument House", "Riding Thousand People in China", "Fuyin", "Cangyin", "ZhongsikongYin", etc., indicating that the outer Tibetan pits around jiangcun tombs should be built to imitate the actual official office and the government treasury.
The shape and scale of the Jiangcun Tomb are in line with the highest level tomb specifications of the Western Han Dynasty, coupled with the distribution of the Tomb of Empress Dou and the Tomb of Empress Bo around it, experts confirm that the Tomb of Jiangcun is the Tomb of emperor Wen of Han.
Who was Emperor Wen of Han? What else are the tombs of the 11 emperors of the Western Han Dynasty?
Emperor Wen of Han was the third emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, the fourth son of Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gaozu, and the grandfather of Emperor Liu Che of the Han Dynasty. Emperor Wen of Han was frugal to himself, but he was very kind to the people, and he constantly ordered the people to reduce their taxes and give benefits to the people. Under the rule of Emperor Wen of Han, the Western Han Dynasty continued to grow in strength and the treasury was abundant, opening up the first rule of China's feudal society - the rule of Wenjing.
It is reported that there are 11 tombs of the Western Han Emperor, namely the Changling Tomb of The Han Gaozu, the An Mausoleum of the Han Hui Emperor, the Tomb of the Han Wen Emperor, the Yang Mausoleum of the Han Jing Emperor, the Mao Mausoleum of the Han Emperor, the Ping Mausoleum of the Han Zhao Emperor, the Du Tomb of the Han Xuan Emperor, the Wei Tomb of the Han Yuan Emperor, the Yan Mausoleum of the Han Cheng Emperor, the Yi Mausoleum of the Han Lai Emperor, and the Kang Mausoleum of the Han Ping Emperor. In 2014, 29 tombs of the Han and Tang Dynasties, including Maoling, were included in the nomination of World Cultural Heritage Projects. The following are the more well-known ones in existence:
Changling: The mausoleum of Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, located in the north of Sanyi Village, Yaodian Street, about 20 kilometers east of Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, is the joint burial tomb of Liu Bang and Lü Hou of Han Gaozu.
Yangling: The mausoleum of Liu Qi, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, is located on the west side of the Zhangjiawan Airport Special Automobile Highway in Weicheng District, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province. The Yangling Mausoleum is 166.5 meters long from east to west, 155.4 meters wide from north to south, and 31.6 meters high.
Maoling: The mausoleum of Liu Che, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, is located in the northeast of Xingping City, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, east and west of the "Five Tombs Plain", which stretches for hundreds of miles. It is the largest, longest built and most abundant funerary tomb of the Han Dynasty emperors, and is known as the "Pyramid of China". On March 4, 1961, Maoling was announced by the State Council as the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units.
Red Star News Intern Editor Xiang Caixia Integrated CCTV, People's Network, Xi'an Evening News, International Council on Monuments and Sites Xi'an International Conservation Center website, etc
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