Nearly a thousand years ago, the mystery of the Baling was revealed At a glance, the mausoleum resembled a capital
From the Jiangcun Tomb to the Tomb of emperor Wen of Han
An archaeological journey that strives to "explore the unknown and reveal its origins"
Corrected the theory that the Tomb of Emperor Wen of Han in bailuyuan "Phoenix Mouth" was found in Bailuyuan since the Yuan Dynasty After decades of archaeological investigation, exploration and excavation, the tomb of Emperor Liu Heng of Han wendi was found. On December 14, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage announced at the online meeting of the "Archaeological China" major project that the Jiangcun Tomb in Bailuyuan, Xi'an City, is the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han. This discovery corrected the theory that the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han was recorded in the "Phoenix Mouth" of Bailuyuan in the literature since the Yuan Dynasty, and also solved the problem of the name of the Eleventh Tomb of the Western Han Dynasty. The "Phoenix Mouth" is located in the western part of The White Deer Plain. There are more than 10 sacrificial monuments from the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as the stone stele of "Hanwen Emperor Baling" inscribed by Bi Yuan, the inspector of Shaanxi during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, which has long been considered the location of the Baling Tombs. Archaeological findings disprove this claim. According to the results of archaeological investigation, exploration and excavation, the Jiangcun Tomb and its surrounding ruins have formed a relatively complete mausoleum area, which is similar to the shape and system elements of the Western Han Emperor's Mausoleum such as the Han Gao Ancestral Mausoleum, the Han Jing Emperor Yang Mausoleum, and the Han Wudi Emperor Mao Mausoleum, with a similar layout and a similar overall scale. There is a clear trajectory of development between these imperial tombs. Combined with the literature, archaeologists believe that the Jiangcun Tomb should be the tomb of the Han Emperor.
The numerous gold and silver vessels with grassland style excavated from the Outer Tibetan Pit of Nanling are direct evidence of the exchange and integration of agricultural culture and nomadic culture in the pre-Qin and Han dynasties.
Archaeological excavations of the Gangchon Tomb began in 2006. Since 2017, the archaeological excavation work has continued to explore and discover the "stone boundary" of jiangcun tomb (the cemetery facilities paved with pebbles outside the outer tibetan pit), the outer cemetery wall of the waihe jiangcun tomb and the dou empress mausoleum, as well as architectural sites and pottery kilns, etc., and excavated the ruins of the northern pottery kiln in Jiangcun, the outer tibetan pit of the Jiangcun tomb, the outer tibetan pit of the Nanling Tomb, the Han tomb of Lijia village, etc., and unearthed more than 1,000 pieces of various pottery figurines, more than 3,000 gold, silver, copper, iron and pottery cultural relics. Jiangcun Tomb has no sealing soil on the ground, about 800 meters east of empress Dou's mausoleum, and the tomb shape is "Ya" shape. This is very consistent with the "Records of Filial Piety" recorded in the "Records of History and Filial Piety" that "all the tombs are ruled by tiles" and "tombs are not ruled". The edge of the burial chamber is about 73 meters long and more than 30 meters deep, and 115 outer pits have been found around the burial chamber. The "stone boundary" is about 390 meters long on the side, and there are gate sites on the front and west sides of the four sides. A rammed earth wall with an east-west length of more than 1,200 meters and a width of about 863 meters from north to south encloses the Jiangcun Tomb and the Mausoleum of Empress Dou in a large cemetery, embodying the "Tongmu Different Cave" of the Han Dynasty Emperor's joint burial. 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 real Western Han Empire". The determination of the exact location of the Tomb of emperor Wen of Han provided detailed archaeological data for the study of the formation and development and evolution of the imperial tomb system of the Western Han Dynasty, and laid the foundation for the in-depth study of the imperial tomb system in ancient China. (Reporters Xie Congrong, Yang Jing, Guo Qing)
A group of pottery figurines excavated from the Nanling Tomb.
Hammer and finish! On December 14, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage announced that the Jiangcun Tomb is Baling. This negates the traditional understanding of the "Phoenix Mouth" as the Tomb of emperor Han Wen, determines the accurate location of the tomb of Emperor Han Wen, solves the problem of the name of the Eleventh Tomb of the Western Han Dynasty, and lays the foundation for the in-depth study of the ancient Chinese imperial tomb system. 55 years of archaeological relay Walking into the No. 1 excavation site of the pit outside the Jiangcun Tomb, stepping on the soil steps step by step, carefully bowing your head through the steel frame built inside the pit, you will see the dense Han Dynasty pottery figurines. These terracotta figurines, which originally stood neatly in rows in the wooden rafters of the outer pit, have fallen to the ground after a thousand years. Looking at the overall situation from a corner, Jiangcun Tomb has explored a total of 115 outer hidden pits, and the 8 outer hidden pits that have been excavated have unearthed more than 1,000 pieces of various types of ceramic figurines, and more than 3,000 gold, silver, copper, iron and pottery cultural relics, with fruitful archaeological results. Archaeological excavations are by no means a day's work. Scholars' archaeological surveys, explorations and excavations of the Baling site area have approached a nail. In 1966 and 1975, Wang Xueli and Wu Zhenfeng of the Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee rescued and excavated the burial pits of Baling and Nanling, so that people understood for the first time about the connotation of some cultural relics in Baling and Nanling. In the 1980s, Liu Qingzhu and Li Yufang of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences conducted archaeological surveys and surveys of Baling and Nanling, laying the foundation for the subsequent work. In the 21st century, the Xianyang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology continued to conduct archaeological investigation and exploration of Baling and Nanling. From 2006 to 2009, Cheng Linquan and Zhang Xiangyu of the Xi'an Institute of Cultural Relics Conservation and Archaeology, under the guidance of The Korean River of Zhengzhou University, explored and discovered the "Ya" shaped Jiangcun Tomb and its surrounding funerary pits, which provided important clues for determining the specific location of Baling. According to the archaeological work plan of the Western Han Dynasty Emperor Mausoleum, from 2011 to 2013, Jiao Nanfeng, a researcher at the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute, led a team to carry out a large-scale archaeological investigation and exploration work on Baling and Nanling, and roughly explored the distribution range and morphological layout of the remains of the two mausoleums. Remove the layers of fog and the truth will finally emerge. Ma Yongying, a researcher at the Shaanxi Archaeological Research Institute, said: "Due to the theft of the outer pit of the Jiangcun Tomb in 2016, in order to confirm the preservation status of the tomb and the distribution of the surrounding cultural relics, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, we have conducted systematic archaeological investigation and exploration on the Jiangcun Tomb and its nearby Tomb of Empress Dou, the Southern Tomb of Empress Bo and the 'Phoenix Mouth' that is said to be the tomb of Emperor Hanwen, and carried out archaeological excavations of the outer tibetan pits of the cemetery from 2017. At present, it is basically confirmed that the Jiangcun Tomb is the tomb of Liu Heng, the emperor of the Early Han Dynasty in the Western Han Dynasty. ”
Interior view of the outer pit (Excavation Site No. 1) of the Gangchon Tomb. Photo by reporter Dai Jikun
Archaeological discoveries are a process of de-falsification, which can sometimes corroborate historical materials and sometimes overturn records. As early as the Yuan Dynasty, there are historical records that the tomb of the Han Emperor is located in the "Phoenix Mouth". "Phoenix Mouth" is located in Baqiao District Xiwang Street MaoYaoyuan Village south of the Bailuyuan Bank, is a prominent hill, the whole mountain shape is very similar to the imperial tomb sealing soil. As a result, people have always believed that the tomb of emperor Wen of Han is located in the "mouth of the phoenix". However, after many large-scale and meticulous investigations by archaeologists, no Remains of Han Dynasty tombs have been found here. "Could there be any discrepancies in the historical records?" Archaeologists began archaeological exploration of the Tomb of Empress Dou, which is more than 2,000 meters north of the "Phoenix Mouth". Empress Dou was the empress of Emperor Wen of Han. The Great Tomb of Gangchon is about 800 meters away from the Mausoleum of Empress Dou, and is shaped in the shape of a "Ya" glyph with a tomb passage on each side of the southeast, northwest, and southeast. This form was generally used by emperors or empresses during the Qin and Han dynasties. In addition, the results of exploration show that the Jiangcun Tomb is not sealed. Based on the high-grade tomb shape system of the "Ya" glyph, coupled with the indisputable fact that the Baling Emperor's tomb has no sealing soil, archaeologists began to speculate whether the Gangchon Tomb would be the real location of the Baling. Cao Long, an associate researcher at the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute, finally determined that the Jiangcun Tomb is baling, because the rammed wall site found in the Jiangcun Tomb and the Dou Empress Mausoleum is more than 1200 meters long, 863 meters wide from north to south, and the wall width is about 3.5 meters, which encloses the Jiangcun Tomb and the Tomb of Empress Dou, which is very similar to the shape of the Western Han Emperor's mausoleums such as Yangling and Maoling, and should be the outer cemetery wall site. The tombs of the Western Han Emperors all implemented the joint burial system of the emperor and the later emperor and the emperor. The situation of the Jiangcun Tomb and the Tomb of Empress Dou is very similar to that of the Hanyang Mausoleum, and this layout clearly reflects the burial system of the Emperor and the Later Emperor. At this point, it has become an indisputable fact that the owner of the Jiangcun Tomb should be Liu Heng, the Emperor of Han Wen. From 2017 to 2018, in order to cooperate with the capital construction project, archaeologists excavated a group of pottery kiln sites located 1600 meters northwest of the Jiangcun Tomb. There are 17 pottery kilns in this batch, consisting of fire doors, fire chambers, kiln chambers, and chimneys, with a length of about 5 meters and a width of 0.8 meters to 3.0 meters. Ma Yongying introduced: "A large number of Han Dynasty plate tiles, cylinder tiles, tiles, geometric square bricks, pottery pipes and other building material fragments were cleaned up and excavated from the pottery kiln site, as well as pottery pots, clay pots, clay pots, etc. These pottery kilns should be the ruins of a workshop for firing building materials in Baling. Since 2017, archaeologists have carried out archaeological excavations of 8 outer pits in the northeast and southwest areas of Jiangcun Tomb. The remains of the pit are mainly clothed pottery figurines (some wearing torture instruments), pottery, iron, bronze, and lacquered wood remains. It is worth mentioning that the Outer Tibet Pit also cleared out a number of Ming organ seals such as "Zhongsikong Seal", "Zhongsikong Cheng", "Mountain Official", "Warehouse Seal", and "Stables", indicating that the Outer Tibetan Pit has the nature of symbolizing the official office. In addition, archaeologists conducted archaeological exploration of empress Bo's southern mausoleum. Archaeologists excavated three outer pits on the west side of the sealed soil, of which K1 cleaned and unearthed more than 160 pieces of painted pottery figurines in plastic clothes, more than 200 pieces of gold, silver and bronze carriage and horse ware, and more than 100 pieces of pottery pots, iron kettles, copper rings and other cultural relics. In addition, many copper seals and sealed muds such as "Changxin Stable Seal" and "Changxin Stable" have also been unearthed. K2 only excavated the eastern half of 20 meters, and cleaned up 3 remains of the original large wooden cart and hundreds of original large copper carriages and horse tools. K3 unearthed more than 10 pieces of painted pottery figurines and dozens of small pieces of carriage and horse ware. Thirty-nine small outer pits have been excavated in the northwest of Nanling, and excavation work is currently underway. The double mausoleum of Baling, the center of the imperial tomb, and the layout of the outer pit around the imperial tomb symbolizing the 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 changling and anling in the plane pattern of the Baling Tombs, and the "confucianism of the sole dignity" of the lower Qiyang Mausoleum, Maoling, Pingling and Duling are the key links in the development and evolution of the Western Han Imperial Mausoleum system, and at the same time reflect the development and change of the political ideology and ideology of the Western Han Dynasty. In addition, a large number of precious cultural relics unearthed from Baling, such as seals, seals and other cultural relics with characters, confirm the construction concept of "Mausoleum Ruoduyi" and Imperial Tomb "imitating the real Western Han Empire". The numerous gold and silver vessels with grassland style excavated from the Outer Tibetan Pit of Nanling are direct evidence of the cultural exchange and integration of agricultural culture and nomadic culture in the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, and witness the historical development trend of Chinese civilization from pluralism to integration. (Reporter Xie Congrong Shi Nian)
A number of Ming organ seals were cleared from the outer pit, indicating that the outer pit has the nature of a symbolic official office.
Misinformed for nearly a thousand years, these clues locked "him"! As early as the Yuan Dynasty, there are historical records that the tomb of the Han Emperor is located in the "Phoenix Mouth". For nearly a thousand years, people have been convinced of the "Phoenix Mouth" of the Han Wen Emperor's mausoleum located on the bank of the White Deer Plain. However, more than half a century of archaeology has proved that the Jiangcun Tomb is the mausoleum of Emperor Wen of Han. There are no imperial tombs under the "Phoenix Mouth" Archaeologists have used various technical means such as archaeological exploration and geological exploration to conduct large-scale and meticulous exploration of the "Phoenix Mouth" many times, and found that there are no Han Dynasty tomb remains except for the Ming and Qing stele stones. Empress Dou was buried next to Empress Dou, who was the empress of Emperor Wen of Han. The mausoleum of Empress Dou is more than 2,000 meters away from the "Phoenix Mouth", and the existing "bucket-shaped" sealing soil is 23 meters high, and the tomb shape is made of "Ya" glyph. About 800 meters east of empress Dou's mausoleum, it is the Jiangcun Tomb. Archaeology has found that the Jiangcun Tomb is shaped like a "Ya" glyph with a tomb on each side of the southeast, northwest, and southeast. This form was generally used by emperors or empresses during the Qin and Han dynasties. In addition, the results of exploration show that the Jiangcun Tomb is not sealed. This is consistent with the "Records of Filial Piety" recorded in the "Records of History and Filial Piety" that "all the tombs are ruled by clay ware" and "no tombs are ruled". Emperor and Empress Dowager "Tongmu Different Caves" The Western Han Dynasty Emperor's Mausoleum implemented the joint burial system of emperors and empresses "Tongmu Different Caves". The rammed wall site found on the outskirts of the Jiangcun Tomb and the Mausoleum of Empress Dou, which encloses the Tomb of Jiangcun and the Mausoleum of Empress Dou, should be the site of the outer cemetery wall. The situation of the Gangchon Tomb and the Tomb of Empress Dou is very similar to that of the Hanyang Mausoleum. Such a layout clearly reflects the burial system of the emperor and the queen. At this point, it has become an indisputable fact that the owner of the Jiangcun Tomb should be Liu Heng, the Emperor of Han Wen.
Archaeologists conduct archaeological excavations at the Gangchon Tomb.
Reporter's Note The charm of archaeology is not only in solving the "mystery" On December 14, the news that "the Jiangcun Tomb is the Tomb of the Han Wen Emperor" swept the circle of friends and appeared on the hot search. In pursuit of this hot news, the reporter drove to the White Deer Plain. Today's Gangchon Tomb is really "fire". Media reporters rushed to the scene, and Cao Long's mobile phone, an associate researcher at the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute, was hot and hot. "I can't answer the phone, I'm really busy!" Cao Long said. At the excavation site, archaeologists in overalls performed their duties and buried their heads in work. So, what kind of emperor is the owner of the Baling? Emperor Wen of Han, Liu Heng, was the fourth son of Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao. He is the male protagonist of the legendary "Twenty-Four Filial Pieties" who "tasted the soup medicine". He is known for his love of the people. According to historical records, during the reign of Emperor Wen of Han, "the palace court confined the dog and the horse to serve the emperor without gain", and all things that were unfavorable to the people were abolished. As the king of a country, Emperor Wen of Han once wanted to build a high platform, but he called a craftsman to calculate it, and found that the cost was hundreds of catties of gold, so he gave up. It was Emperor Wen of Han's frugality and superior leadership that enabled the society at that time to form a trend of frugality and reverence, created the rule of Wenjing, and laid the foundation for the prosperity of the Western Han Dynasty. "The han wen emperor's mausoleum did not have a high fiefdom on the ground, saving a lot of labor, which also confirmed the frugality and love of the people of the Han Wen Emperor." His frugality and filial piety are still worth learning from today. Xu Weimin, a professor at the School of Cultural Heritage of Northwest University, said. Today, the mystery of where Baling is has been solved, and public concern about Baling continues. Behind the "archaeological fever" is the improvement of the quality of the people and the continuous enhancement of cultural self-confidence. Tell the story of cultural relics, tell the story of Shaanxi, tell the story of China, Shaanxi, wonderful and infinite. (Xie Congrong, Yang Luya) Source: Shaanxi Daily