◎ Science and Technology Daily reporter Zhang Galen
On the morning of the 14th, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage held an important progress work meeting on the major project of "Archaeology China" in Beijing, and reported three important archaeological achievements, including the Jiangcun Tomb in Xi'an, Shaanxi, the Zhengpingfang Site in Luoyang, Henan, and the Tuguhun Tomb Group in Wuwei, Gansu.
At the meeting, the identity of the owner of the Jiangcun Tomb was officially revealed - Liu Heng, the Han Emperor who opened the "rule of Wenjing". The Jiangcun Tomb is the tomb of emperor Wen of Han.
Jiangcun Tomb is located at the western end of Bailuyuan in the eastern suburbs of Xi'an, about 800 meters northeast is the Mausoleum of Empress Dou, about 2000 meters southwest of the Southern Tomb of Empress Bo, and about 2100 meters north is the "Phoenix Mouth" location where the former state security unit Baling is located.
Some people believe that Baling "hides because of the mountain", and the high cliff of the "Phoenix Mouth" is the site of Baling. This saying has been around for millennia. However, previous archaeological exploration has confirmed that there are no Han Dynasty tombs at the site of the "Phoenix Mouth", which excludes the possibility of being a tomb.
So, why is it said that the Jiangcun Tomb is the Baling Tomb?
Gangchon Tomb: The tomb is shaped in the shape of a "Ya" glyph, and there are 115 outer pits around it
HanBa Mausoleum is located at the western end of Bailuyuan, Baqiao District, Xi'an City, including the "Phoenix Mouth", the Mausoleum of Empress Dou, the Tomb of Jiangcun, and the Southern Tomb of Empress Bo, which are handed down as the tombs of Emperor Wen, with a total distribution area of about 30 square kilometers.
From the winter and spring of 2014 to 2016, criminals successively excavated the pit outside the Jiangcun Tomb and the pit outside the Tomb of Empress Bo, and stole hundreds of precious cultural relics of the Han Dynasty, such as gilded chimes and painted pottery figurines.
In view of the security situation facing the Jiangcun Tomb and the Southern Tomb of Empress Bo, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, in November 2017, the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute and the Xi'an Institute of Cultural Relics Protection and Archaeology jointly formed the Hanling Archaeological Team to carry out rescue excavations of the severely stolen outer pits on the west side of the Southern Tomb of Empress Bo and the northeast and southwest areas of the Jiangcun Tomb.
Ma Yongying, a researcher at the Shaanxi Archaeological Research Institute, introduced that this excavation takes the protection and rescue of cultural relics as the starting point, carries out scientific archaeological excavation work in accordance with the latest national "Field Archaeological Work Regulations", adopts the idea of coordinate control of the overall layout and comprehensive excavation, determines a base point for the entire mausoleum area (about 20km2), unifies the layout, uncovers layer by layer, and comprehensively extracts data.
They paid attention to the use of aerial photography, three-dimensional modeling, animal archaeology, plant archaeology and other technical means, increased the content of scientific and technological archaeology, systematically and comprehensively obtained excavation information, did a good job in the comprehensive collection, recording and utilization of various types of information in the mausoleum area, and established a unified digital platform for archaeological data.
In general, the east of Jiangcun Tomb is about 800 meters away from empress Dou's mausoleum, the tomb shape is made of "Ya" shape, the surface is not sealed, the burial chamber is 73 meters long and more than 30 meters deep, the east tomb road is the longest, about 135 meters, and the north and south width is about 10-40 meters. There are 115 outer pits around the burial chamber, and the plane shape is mostly long, 4-90 meters long, about 5 meters wide, and 5-9 meters deep. The 38 outer pits found in its southwest corner are small in scale, with a length of 2-3 meters, a width of 1-2 meters, and a depth of 8-10 meters. There is a pebble-paved cemetery facility (tentatively named "Stone Enclosure") on the outskirts of the Gangchon Tomb, with a side length of about 390 meters and a width of 1.5 meters, and a gate site on all four sides of the outer side of the stone enclosure. It is speculated that it may be a separate imperial cemetery. In the Jiangcun Tomb, the outer part of the Dou Empress Mausoleum was also discovered through exploration and test excavation, the rammed wall site, the east-west remnants are more than 1200 meters long, the north-south width is 863 meters, and the wall width is about 3.5 meters, which should be the outer cemetery wall site of the Jiangcun Tomb and the Dou Empress Mausoleum, and it is speculated that they are in the same mausoleum.
Within the outer garden wall, two sets of outer pits were found on the east and west sides of the Jiangcun Tomb, and 1 architectural site was excavated on the north side; there were also 3 architectural sites around the Tomb of Empress Dou. In addition, a "jia" shaped tomb was found between the Jiangcun Tomb and the Tomb of Empress Dou.
The exploration results show that there are dozens of large Han tombs in the west and north of Jiangcun Tombs 3000-4000 meters, and more than 20 in 3 groups have been found. These tombs are 36-64 meters long, the edge of the burial chamber is between 11-20 meters long, and the depth is 11.5-17.3 meters. According to their location and size, these tombs should be Baling funerary tombs.
What was dug out: all kinds of pottery figurines were unearthed, and many Ming organ prints were unearthed
The archaeological work has continued since 2017, and more than 1,000 pieces of various ceramic figurines and more than 3,000 pieces of gold, silver, copper, iron and pottery cultural relics have been excavated.
Since 2017, the archaeological team has carried out archaeological excavations of 8 outer pits in the northeast and southwest areas of Jiangcun Tomb. Among them, the two small outer pits located in the southwest corner are rectangular vertical pit soil cavities, 3.5 meters long, 2 meters wide, 7.5-9 meters deep, and one horse bone is cleared out of the pit, and there is one piece of plastic clay figurines, clay pots, clay pots, etc. The rest of the pits are vertical pits with slopes, ranging in length from 6.5 to 72 meters, 3 to 6 meters wide and 6 to 9 meters deep. There are zigzag steps on both sides of the pit wall, and there are wooden rafters at the bottom. The main remains in the pit are: dressed pottery figurines (individually worn with torture instruments), pottery, iron, bronze, and lacquered wood relics.
It is worth mentioning that the outer tibetan pit also cleared out a number of Ming organ seals such as "Zhongsikong Seal", "Zhongsikong Cheng", "Mountain Official", "Cangyin", "Stable Seal" and so on. According to the literature, "Internal Official", "Thousand People" and "Sikong" were all the names of officials in the central government office at that time. Archaeological studies have shown that the outer pit of the Western Han Emperor's Mausoleum represents the central official office of the underground dynasty, and only people with the identity of the emperor or princes can be buried in this way, since the outer hidden pit of the Jiangcun Tomb appears in the name of the Central Official Office of the Western Han Dynasty, then the identity of the tomb owner can only be a high-ranking aristocratic figure at that time.
From 2018 to 2019, in order to cooperate with the capital construction, 23 Han tombs about 3900 meters southwest of the Jiangcun Tomb were excavated, of which 4 "A" shaped tombs were all vertical cave wooden rafter structures, the largest of which was 54 meters in total length, and the burial chamber was 20 meters long from east to west, 18 meters wide and 16 meters deep. Although the tomb was seriously stolen, more than 2,000 pieces of jade clothes were still excavated, as well as more than 200 precious cultural relics such as trick figurines, pottery chimes, and chimes. In addition, other tombs have unearthed cultural relics such as copper seals with the inscription "Xiangcheng Family".
The Jiangcun Tomb is the tomb of emperor Wen of Han
Ma Yongying said that according to the above archaeological surveys, explorations and excavation results, the Jiangcun Tomb and its surrounding ruins have formed a relatively complete mausoleum area, which is similar to the shape and system of the Western Han Emperor's Mausoleum, such as the Han Gao Ancestral Mausoleum, the Han Jing Emperor Yang Mausoleum, and the Han WuDi Mao Mausoleum, with a similar layout, the overall scale is comparable, and there is an obvious development and evolution trajectory. "Combined with the literature, we believe that the Jiangcun Tomb should be the tomb of the Han Emperor."
This archaeological work negates the traditional understanding that "Phoenix Mouth" is the tomb of the Han Emperor, determines the accurate location of the Tomb of the Han Emperor, and solves the problem of the name of the Eleventh Tomb of the Western Han Dynasty. The basic grasp of the scale, shape, layout and connotation of the Western Han Emperor's mausoleum, including the Han Dynasty Emperor's Mausoleum, provides detailed archaeological data for the study of the formation and development of the Western Han Emperor's mausoleum system, and lays the foundation for the in-depth study of the ancient Chinese imperial tomb system.
The double mausoleum of Baling, the center of the imperial tomb, and the layout of the outer pit around the imperial tomb of the symbolic official office are the earliest appearances in the western Han emperor's mausoleum, indicating the initial establishment of the political concept of the Western Han Empire in which the emperor is exclusive and centralized; the "rule of inaction" of the Changling and Anling in the plane pattern of the Baling Tombs, and the "Confucianism of the Sole Dignity" of the Lower Qiyang Tombs, Maoling, Pingling and Duling are the key links in the development and evolution of the Western Han Imperial Tomb system, and at the same time, they also reflect the development and change of the political ideology and ideology of the Western Han Empire.
Among the large number of precious cultural relics unearthed from Baling, seals, seals and other cultural relics with characters, etc., confirm the construction concept of "Mausoleum Ruoduyi" and Imperial Tomb "imitating the Western Han Empire in reality".
The picture in the article is excerpted from the report of researcher Ma Yongying PPT