On December 14, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage officially announced that the great tomb of Bailuyuan Jiangcun in Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, is the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han. What "pushed" the archaeological results out was a group of tomb robbers.
This is the excavation site of Empress Bo's Southern Tomb (taken on March 14, 2019)
What you think of tomb robbery: touching the golden mouth, lighting candles, inverting the rules, watching feng shui and looking at the stars, plus a housekeeping skill, the tomb robbery is successful. In fact, tomb robbery, these all do not exist. The identity of the tomb robber is also "various", may be a farmer, a driver who drives an excavator, or a "rural feng shui master".
High-end weapons? Gossip compass? Avoid animals when robbing tombs? Candles can't be extinguished? ...... Grave robbers can ignore these, get on the explosives and excavators to finish.
Excavation site No. 1 of Gangchon Tomb (taken on May 15, 2019)
Tomb robbery has been described in novels such as "Notes on Tomb Robbery" and "Ghost Blowing Lights" series.
There are family gangs of tomb robbers, hermits with magic skills, strange ancient cemeteries such as nine-story demon towers and snake swamp ghost towns, black donkey hooves, glutinous rice and other artifacts, and all kinds of knives, darts, hooks, and shovels.
Archaeologists excavate the outer pit of Empress Bo's Southern Tomb (photo taken on July 17, 2018). Photos/Xinhua News Agency
However, the real-life examples of tomb robbery are often surprising. North-South Sect? Tomb robbery? Tomb entry rules? None of what you think.
On December 14, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage officially announced that the great tomb of Bailuyuan Jiangcun in Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, is the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han. The reason why the Gangchon Tomb can be found is related to tomb robbers.
Tomb robbery status: They may be "village feng shui masters", farmers, drivers
In "Notes on Tomb Robbery", Wu Xie, a descendant of the tomb robber family, has been washed white to live an ordinary life under the operation of the family's dark box, but because of his momentary pursuit of the root cause, he shouldered a bizarre fate, and also met Zhang Qiling, a legendary person who is known to the jianghu masters but has always been a mystery - many fans also went to Changbai Mountain to look forward to discovering the mysterious figure of this little brother. Peers recognize that they also have special black words, which is almost a world away from outsiders.
In the real case of tomb robbery, these "gold lieutenants" and legends are completely incompatible. Xiaoxiang Morning News reporters combed through dozens of tomb robbery cases on the China Judgment Document Network and found that many of the defendants who excavated ancient tombs were middle school or even primary school culture, and their identities were not "moving mountains" and "unloading mountains" to people, of course, there was no evidence to prove that they were descendants of "touching gold school lieutenants".
In fact, most of the tomb robbers are ordinary, some are farmers who deal with land a lot, there are drivers who drive excavators, there are installers who are good at using hardware tools, and there are so-called "rural feng shui masters".
In December 2020, the Suiyang County Court in Guizhou Province issued a verdict in a tomb robbery case in which defendant Zhou Mouhu played the role of a "feng shui master" in the tomb robbery team, in fact, he was just a farmer with a primary school culture.
The "Ghost Blowing Lights" series has a variety of strange scenes such as the nine-story demon tower, the rotating Buddha cave, and the ghost blood ship. Tomb robbery is likely to occur in the back hill of the village, in the field of a certain family, and even be mistaken by passing villagers to dig pits and install electric piles. In fact, this is also the disguised rhetoric of many tomb robbers.
Grave robbery tools: Using explosives is a routine operation, and if you don't do it once, you can do it twice
The legend of tomb robbery has the north and south of the Yangtze River as the boundary, "Ghost Blowing Lantern" is the "North School", heavy tools, is an extensive type, Luoyang shovel is the invention of this school, in addition to the King Kong umbrella, Bagua compass, etc.; "Notes on Tomb Robbery" is the "South School", heavy skill, there are "hope", "smell", "ask" and "cut" four methods, and there will be similar thrilling scenes in both books - when the pried coffin is abnormal, someone shouts "Throw the black donkey hoof!" ”
In reality, many of the perpetrators' techniques may have been searched from the Internet. According to public media reports, in 2021, a series of tomb robbery cases occurred in a vegetable garden in Qianshan City, Anhui Province, in which one of the criminals generally relied on reading the county chronicle when looking for a noble tomb group.
According to a number of criminal verdicts, the use of excavators and explosives by the tomb robbers involved in the case was a "routine operation". In the criminal law judgments of many tomb robbery cases, the tools of the tomb robbers were bought at the hardware store in the village. Some people even use explosives simply and rudely, blowing up once is not enough to blow up twice, and risk collapsing into the grave. In January 2021, in a judgment document released by the Xianyang Intermediate Court in Shaanxi Province, a tomb robbery gang directly blew up the ancient tomb with explosives many times, and more than 200 pieces of animal-shaped pottery were excavated, and the National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit Han Bo Empress Dowager Nanling was also blown up by them, and more than 30 pottery figurines were excavated.
As for the Vajra umbrella, the gossip compass, the black donkey hoof, etc. in literary works, they do not exist in reality. In the judgment on the tomb robbery case published by the Suiyang County Court in Guizhou, 34 tools for committing crimes by a backbone member of the tomb robbery gang were listed in detail, including lithium battery hammers, art knives, shovels, plastic pipes, tape measures, plastic barrels, saws, steel pipes... Even the Luoyang shovel commonly used by tomb robbers is not equipped.
The reporter found that in addition to the above-mentioned conventional tools, many tomb robbery gangs will also use "high technology", such as metal detectors, blowers, pumps and so on. If they use candles, of course, not to see if the flames will turn green, but to test oxygen concentration and illumination.
Rules for tomb robbery: Escape is the best policy, and the villagers shout that the police will find out and run
In the literary works of the tomb robbery series, there are many principles and rules for tomb robbery, such as paying attention to the time of tomb robbery (chicken singing lights are extinguished without touching gold), worship incense before entering the tomb, try not to destroy the space inside the tomb after entering, and do not disturb the owner of the tomb, which is the "apology" expressed by them stealing money and money, and it is also the common sense of "saving life" of the environment in the tomb. These literary designs make the tomb robbery full of mysterious rituals.
In a criminal verdict issued by the Dongpo District People's Court in Sichuan Province in 2019, the perpetrator was found by villagers digging a grave on the mountain at 2 p.m. At that time, the villagers who had doubts asked him what he was doing, and he lied that he was in the power department, but he could not give the documents, and then he changed his mouth to say that he had come to catch snakes and did not break the law. As soon as they talked, they wanted to run, and as soon as the villagers shouted, the people nearby all came over. In order to escape, the suspect had to take off his slippers and escape barefoot, and was caught by the villagers and sent to the police station.
In a 2021 criminal verdict by the Intermediate People's Court of Chengde City, Hebei Province, the perpetrator looked for the ancient tomb, took a photo and sent it to a "feng shui master" on the Internet for him to see, and the other party drew a circle on the photo, saying that the ancient tomb was here. The perpetrator followed to dig, dug a few times impatiently, was found by the police and ran away... Want to know the secret of the tomb robbery, see "Tomb Robber Notes"? No, no, no, or look at the real court report.
evidence
How to confirm that it is Baling
Evidence one
Extraordinary high specifications
1. Gangchon Tomb is a very large "Ya" shaped vertical cave soil expansion wooden rafter tomb with four tomb passages, and the ground is not sealed. This is very consistent with the "Records of History and Filial Piety" recorded that "all the tombs are ruled by pottery, not by graves".
2. In the Han Dynasty, the "Ya" glyph was the top configuration of the tomb shape system that only emperors and empresses could use. The tombs of ordinary subjects, including princes, would not exceed this size.
Evidence two
Don't underestimate these little seals
1. These seals with a diameter of less than 1 centimeter, respectively, are engraved with the words "Zhongsikong Seal" and "Chefu", which are symbols of the Ming Organ Seal, indicating that the Outer Tibetan Pit has the nature of symbolizing the official office.
2. The outer pit circles around the Jiangcun Tomb, which is equivalent to more than 100 official agencies distributed around the tomb. This further confirms the identity of the owner of the tomb, who must be the person who led these official offices.
Evidence three
Who dares to "live" next to Empress Dou
1. The Mausoleum of Empress Dou is located in the northeast of Jiangcun Tomb, the ground has a bucket-shaped sealing soil, and the tomb is also a "Ya" shaped vertical cave soil expansion wooden tomb. According to historical records, Empress Dou and Emperor Wen of Han's daughter Dou Taizong were buried with Baling. Could it be that the Jiangcun Tomb is the tomb of Lord Dou? However, the discovery of this circle of rammed earth walls has given rise to another speculation.
2. After expanding the scope of exploration, archaeologists found that a circle of rammed earth walls with an east-west length of about 1200 meters and a width of about 860 meters from north to south enclosed the Jiangcun Tomb and the Tomb of Empress Dou in a large cemetery. Two large tombs in the same cemetery become the same tomb, one person one tomb and one tomb head called a different cave. This reflects the "tongzhi different caves" of the han dynasty emperors and queens.
Evidence four
There is no grave under the mouth of the phoenix
1. In 2011, in the archaeological work of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, archaeologists from Shaanxi Province and Xi'an City launched a "big experience" on Fenghuangzui.
Strange things happened, the "physical examination" lasted for half a year, and the conclusion was that the "Phoenix Mouth", which had been considered an imperial mausoleum for thousands of years, had not found any tombs.
There are only more than ten stone tablets from the Ming and Qing dynasties here, and there is no trace of artificial intervention in the mountain, and no tomb remains have been found.
detail
Their grave robbery trajectory provides clues to experts
On December 14, the latest archaeological discoveries of the Tomb of Emperor Wen of Han were announced, and the case of Zhang Xiaoyan and others related to this tomb also received great attention.
On March 20, 2002, at an auction in New York, the secretary of the Chinese Embassy in the United States arrived in an emergency and promptly stopped six Western Han Dynasty pottery figurines from Being exhibited at auction. The auction list reads "Starting price $6,000 to $8,000."
According to the Xianyang Intermediate People's Court (2018) Shaanxi 04 Xingchu No. 54 Judgment Document, in 2001, Zhang Xiaoyan stole 180 pieces of black nude pottery figurines from an ancient tomb near Dizhaiyuan in Baqiao District, Xi'an City, and sold them to Meng Jingjian, who was responsible for buying and selling stolen goods, at a price of 800 yuan per piece.
This batch of black clay figurines sold by Zhang Xiaoyan was later confirmed to be the source of the cultural relics exhibited at the American auction, and it was also the earliest record of cultural relics flowing out of the Han Wen Emperor's Mausoleum. At that time, people did not know that this was the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han, which was considered to be the funerary tomb of an emperor in the eastern suburbs of Xi'an.
Zhang Xiaoyan, nicknamed "Old Eight", a native of Xi'an, Shaanxi, was the heaviest sentence in this tomb robbery case. Around 2014, Zhang Xiaoyan dug up a "big cargo" near Dizhaiyuan in Baqiao District, Xi'an City, which attracted attention in the antique world for a while. According to the judgment documents, Zhang Xiaoyan first dug out a gilded bronze chime in an unfilled robbery cave, and then returned home with a shovel, rope and other tools to enter the pirate cave again, and then excavated more than 50 cultural relics such as bronze gilded chimes, bronze chime gilded bases and accessories. Later, Li Yejun, Zhang Fangzhan and others helped to ship the goods, and the set of chimes asked for 6 million yuan. During this period, many tomb robbers also dug up bronze chimes, accessories and other cultural relics near Di Zhaiyuan. Closely related to the influx of these cultural relics into the market, the name of Meng Jingjian, known as the first person to steal a tomb in the northwest, has appeared.
Meng Jingjian was the key figure in the acquisition of Zhang Xiaoyan's black clay figurines in 2001. It was the tomb robbery trajectories of Zhang Xiaoyan, Meng Jingjian and others that provided clues for archaeologists and promoted the confirmation process of the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han. A large number of cultural relics flowed out of the Han Wen Emperor's Tomb before it was rescued and excavated are still being recovered, but their "ending" is not so lucky.
According to the judgment document in the case, Zhang Xiaoyan was convicted of excavating ancient tombs and sentenced to life imprisonment, deprivation of political rights for life, and confiscation of personal property of 2 million yuan. Meng Jingjian was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment and fined 1 million yuan for the crime of excavating ancient tombs, and four years' imprisonment and a fine of 400,000 yuan for concealing and concealing the proceeds of crime, and decided to carry out the fixed-term imprisonment for 14 years.
dynamic
The Taiping Princess "Mansion" and "Great Khan Mausoleum" have come
According to Xinhua News Agency, focusing on important archaeological discoveries and research progress during the Han and Tang Dynasties, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage held an important progress work meeting on the major project of "Archaeological China" in Beijing on the 14th, and reported three important archaeological achievements, such as the Jiangcun Tomb in Xi'an, Shaanxi, the Zhengpingfang Site in Luoyang, Henan, and the Tuguhun Tomb Group in Wuwei, Gansu.
The great tomb of Jiangcun in Xi'an, Shaanxi Is confirmed to be the tomb of Liu Heng, the emperor of the early Han Dynasty in the Western Han Dynasty, the tomb plane is "Ya" glyph, and more than 110 outer hidden pits have been found around the burial chamber, and there are pebble-paved cemetery facilities around the outer pit, which is speculated to be an independent imperial mausoleum. 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.
The ruins of Zhengpingfang in Luoyang, Henan are one of the important Lifang ruins in the Guochenglifang area of Luoyang City in the Tang Dynasty. The site is rectangular in plan, with a length of 533.6 meters from north to south and a width of 464.6 meters from east to west. The square is divided into three parts by a "D" shaped road: the western half of the square, the southeast district and the northeast district. The zhengpingfang site is a vivid example of the square system in the capital of the Tang Dynasty, and the pattern of the square connecting the north and south square gates of the T-shaped street seen by the excavation, as well as the symmetrical and multi-entry courtyard layout of the central axis, embodies the traditional urban planning ideas of ancient China and is of great value to the study of the history of the political system and social life history of the Tang Dynasty. The architectural base site of the western half of the square is grand in scale, similar to the architectural specifications and layout of the Palace in Luoyang City in the Tang Dynasty, and the excavated building components are the same as those seen in the palace; the phenomenon of the opening of the door of the eastern half of the square also shows its special status, which is close to the functional attributes of the Taiping Princess Residence, the Guozijian and the Confucius Temple recorded in the literature. It is speculated that the western half of the fang mansion may be the residence of the Taiping Princess, the east road of the southeast district may be the Confucius Temple, and the middle road may be the Guozijian.
Gansu Wuwei Tuguhun Tomb Group is a Tang Dynasty Tuguhun royal family tomb group. Among them, the tomb of Murong Zhi of Xiwang is the only well-preserved Tomb of the Tuguhun Royal Family found at present, and the laboratory archaeology has cleaned and protected more than 800 pieces of various burial items such as textiles, painted pottery figurines, lacquered wood, etc., and the excavated Murong Zhi's epitaph mentioned the existence of the "Great Khan Mausoleum" in Tuguhun for the first time.
Source| Xiaoxiang Morning News Integrated CCTV, Xinhua News Agency
Reporter | Wu Chen Xingzi Zeng Yuxuan