On December 14, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage held a work meeting on the important progress of the major project of "Archaeology in China" to introduce the progress and great academic significance of the three Han and Tang archaeological projects, and Chen Guoke, director of the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Gansu Province, introduced the follow-up excavation progress and latest academic achievements of the Wuwei Tianzhu Tuguhun Royal Tomb Group online.
The Tombs of the Tuguhun Royal Clan of the Tang Dynasty in Wuwei District are located in the southwest of Wuwei City, Gansu Province, in the northern foothills of qilian Mountain, mainly distributed in the west of the Nanying Reservoir in the Nanshan District of Wuwei, on the north bank of the Binggou River and the middle and lower reaches of the Dashui River. In recent years, led by the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, a number of scientific research units in the United Nations have set up the Tuguhun Archaeological Project Team to carry out continuous archaeological investigation, exploration, excavation and cultural relics protection and research work, and the project was selected as a major project of "Archaeology China" in November 2019.
Chen Guoke said: "The discovery of this tomb group allows us to glimpse the changes in the material life, ideological concepts, cultural identity and other historical details of the Tuguhun people in the Tang Dynasty from the literal and physical level, vividly reveals the historical facts of the Tuguhun people's gradual integration into the Chinese civilization system in the past hundred years since the return of the Tuguhun people to the Tang Dynasty, and provides a typical case for enhancing national cultural self-confidence and casting a solid sense of the Chinese national community." ”
Distribution map of tuguhun royal family tomb group
Murong Zhi's epitaph and zhi side text
Gansu Wuwei Tuguhun Tomb Group is a Tang Dynasty Tuguhun royal family tomb group. Among them, the tomb of Murong Zhi, the xiwang king, is the only well-preserved tomb of the Tuguhun royal family found at present, and the laboratory archaeology has cleaned up and protected more than 800 pieces of various burial items such as textiles, painted pottery figurines, lacquered wood, etc., of which the wooden bed, the large bed, the six-curved screen, the model of the Lieji house, the complete set of armaments based on iron armor, pen, ink and paper, etc., are the first or rare discoveries of similar cultural relics in China in the same period, and the excavated Murong Zhi's epitaph mentions the existence of Tuguhun's "Great Khan's Mausoleum" for the first time. Machangtan M1, M2 and Changling M1 are all single-room brick chamber tombs of the long slope tomb, and the burial custom of the whole horse was found in the tomb road, and the "Tombstone of Mrs. Dang of Feng Yi County" was unearthed to record that the tomb group was the Tugu Hun Pengzi family cemetery. The tombs all have the basic characteristics of the tombs of high-ranking nobles in the Central Plains in the early and middle Tang Dynasty, and at the same time have the characteristics of Tuguhun culture, Tubo culture and northern grassland culture, which shows the historical process of exchanges, exchanges and integration of various ethnic groups along the ancient Silk Road in China, and is an important empirical evidence of the pattern of pluralism and integration of the Chinese nation.
The Benliu News reporter learned that the discovery of the tomb and the records of the Tugu Hun Pengzi clan in the tomb are of great value to the study of a series of issues such as the history of Tugu Hun, the history of the relationship between the Tang and ethnic minorities in the western region, the military establishment of the Tang Dynasty, especially the Tang Wars before and after the Anshi Rebellion, the Yanzhou Gate Mansion, and the source of the "Ansai Army."
Also introducing important progress on the day were the Great Tomb of Jiangcun in Xi'an, Shaanxi, and the site of Zhengpingfang in Luoyang, Henan. Experts and scholars such as Liu Qingzhu, researcher of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and An Jiayao, researcher of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, attended the press conference, commented on the project and guided the next step of work.
Wen Tu 丨 Benliu news reporter Lu Weishan Wang Xiajing
Video 丨Benliu news reporter Zhao Ziyi
Edited by 丨Dou Hongyan