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Introduction: The ancients paid attention to things like life, so the emperors and princes and nobles would build luxurious tombs for themselves before they died, and after the completion of the tomb construction, a large number of gold and silver treasures would be put into them.
The Book of Jin records: "The Han Tianzi reigned for one year and became a mausoleum, and one-third of the tribute was given under the heavens, one for the Zongmiao Temple, one for the guests, and one for the mountain mausoleum." ”
One year after the Han Emperor succeeded to the throne, he began to build a mausoleum for himself, during which time the state's taxes were divided into three parts, one of which was to be placed in the mausoleum for burial. However, "the wealth is moving", the countless treasures in the tomb will inevitably attract tomb robbers, in order to prevent the ancient tomb from being stolen, the ancients came up with a lot of anti-tomb robbery methods.
For example, quicksand tombs, opening mountains for mausoleums, building suspicious tombs, setting up organs, etc., but the so-called road is one foot high, the devil is one foot high, and soon after the emergence of an anti-tomb robbery method, it will be cracked by tomb thieves, resulting in the tomb being eventually stolen and hollowed out. So later, many tomb owners simply played psychological warfare, directly writing a vicious curse in the ancient tomb, hoping to intimidate the tomb robbers.
In the 1950s, the Shaanxi archaeological team discovered the mysterious tomb
After the founding of New China, Shaanxi as the hardest hit area of tomb robbery, many large tombs were stolen and destroyed, in order to rescue and protect cultural relics, Shaanxi Province immediately set up a professional archaeological team to conduct a census of cultural relics and tombs in the province. In 1957, the China Institute of Archaeology was invited by the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Team to conduct archaeological excavations at a cemetery on the outskirts of Xi'an.
According to the previous exploration, this is a rectangular earthen pit tomb, the tomb passage is nearly 7 meters long, and the top of the burial chamber is 3 meters from the ground. In order to cooperate with the infrastructure, the joint archaeological team conducted a rescue excavation of the tomb. From the tomb shape system and excavated cultural relics, archaeologists judged that this was a large tomb from the Sui Dynasty, and the rank was high enough to rival the princes. So who is the owner of this tomb?
Princess of the Sui Dynasty, died at the age of 9
After the archaeological team entered the burial chamber, they cleared out an epitaph in front of the stone rafter in the middle, which clearly recorded the life information of the owner of the tomb. To the shock of archaeologists, the owner of the tomb turned out to be a 9-year-old girl, and her identity was extraordinary.
This woman's name was Li Jingxun, born in a noble family in Northern Zhou, according to historical records, her great-grandfather Li Xian, an official to the Northern Zhou Dynasty, rode a general, and her grandfather Li Chong, a close confidant of Emperor Yang Jian of Sui, later sacrificed his life for the country, Yang Jian, in order to repay Li Chong, took his son Li Min into the palace to raise, and later also gave birth to his granddaughter Xu as a wife, giving birth to Li Jingxun.
Li Jingxun grew up in the palace and was deeply favored by Emperor Wen of Sui and Yang Lihua, but unfortunately died of illness at the age of 9. After Li Jingxun's death, her maternal grandmother Yang Lihua was distraught and asked her younger brother Yang Guang, the Sui Emperor, to order Li Jingxun to be buried as a princess.
The opening of the coffin is a death curse that frightens archaeologists
After figuring out the identity of the owner of the tomb, archaeologists began to clean up the burial items in the tomb, and as recorded in the epitaph, Li Jingxun received a thick burial beyond the etiquette. The tomb contains not only a large amount of gold and silver jewelry, but also a well-built stone rafter.
The appearance of the stone rafter is modeled on the construction of the ancient palace, there are doors and windows that can be opened, and after entering the stone rafter, in addition to the buried treasures, there is also a small sarcophagus. Just as the archaeologists were about to step forward to open the sarcophagus, they seemed to be frightened and retreated. Originally, on the front of the sarcophagus, there were four words carved with the words "open the coffin is death".
Archaeologists are not tomb robbers, naturally will not be afraid of these feudal superstitious curses, in order to complete the excavation work as soon as possible, the archaeological team opened the sarcophagus, the result is filled with a variety of exquisite gold and silver jewelry, each of which is a rare treasure.
epilogue
Archaeology is different from tomb robbery, archaeological excavation is to better protect ancient tombs and cultural relics, so the mechanisms and curses used by the ancients to prevent tomb robbers have no practical significance for archaeologists at all, and they do not need to be ignored. Only by protecting the ancient tomb and the cultural relics inside can we be regarded as a successful completion of the task.
Li Jingxun's tomb is the most complete and highest-specification Sui Dynasty tomb excavated in China so far, and the precious cultural relics unearthed inside have amazed the world. Now, after restoration, these precious cultural relics have been placed in museums and have become national treasure cultural heritage.
Reference: Briefing on the Excavation of the Sui Li Jingxun Tomb in the Western Suburbs of Xi'an