For hundreds of years, it was considered the "phoenix mouth" of the Han Wen Emperor's hegemony, and it was not the true home of this emperor. The Cultural Relics Department of Shaanxi Province released the latest archaeological results on the 14th, creating the "rule of Wenjing" of the Han Wendi, whose tomb location and scale have been confirmed, and a large number of precious cultural relics such as gold and silverware, pottery figurines, and copper seals have been unearthed from the outer treasure pits and funerary tombs around the Baling Tomb. The mystery of the "Tomb of emperor Wen of Han" was unveiled.
The Han Dynasty was a powerful unified empire in Chinese history. As the founder of the "Rule of Wenjing", the location of the tomb of Liu Heng, the Emperor of The Han Dynasty, seems to have been determined in history. On the White Deer Plain on the eastern outskirts of Xi'an, a place known as the "Phoenix Mouth" is where the ancestral Tomb of the Han Emperor is located.
The Yoyo Bahe River flows quietly, and Emperor Wen of Han is buried not far from the riverbank, and his mausoleum is called Baling. The shape of the "Phoenix Mouth" is like a well-shaped hill, which is easily reminiscent of the common bucket-shaped sealing soil of imperial tombs. At the foot of the "Phoenix Mouth" mountain, there are more than 10 sacrifice monuments from the Ming and Qing dynasties, and there is also a stone stele inscribed by Bi Yuan, the inspector of Shaanxi during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, which reads "Han Wen Emperor's Tomb" 5 characters, so for a long time "Phoenix Mouth" has been considered the tomb of Han Wen Emperor.
To confirm the location of the Han Wen Emperor's mausoleum, it is natural to start from the "Phoenix Mouth". After entering the 21st century, archaeologists from the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute and the Xi'an Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics Protection and Archaeology have carried out a large-scale archaeological survey in this area, except for the discovery of a number of tomb robbers in different periods about 600 meters southwest of the top of the "Phoenix Mouth", and no artificially built or excavated remains have been found.
Scientific and technological means were applied to the exploration of Baling, archaeologists and geologists cooperated, using ground wave detection method, high-density resistance method, radon measurement method and other scientific and technological means, once again re-explored the "phoenix mouth", still found nothing.
Just about 2 kilometers away from the "Phoenix Mouth", the discovery of a "Ya" shaped tomb has provided new possibilities for the search for the Baling Tomb. This newly discovered tomb is known as the Jiangcun Tomb because it is located in Jiangcun, Baqiao District, Xi'an City, and the Jiangcun Tomb is only 800 meters away from the Mausoleum of Empress Dou.
According to Ma Yongying, a researcher at the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute who presided over this archaeological project, from 2017 to the present, after continuous exploration by archaeologists, it was found that the Jiangcun Tomb is a huge tomb with a depth of more than 30 meters, and through the partial excavation of the outer pits and funerary tombs around the Jiangcun Tomb, more than 1,000 pieces of various pottery figurines and more than 3,000 pieces of gold, silver, copper, iron and pottery cultural relics were unearthed.
The exquisite production and high specifications of these excavated cultural relics all point to the "special identity" of the owner of the Jiangcun Tomb. At excavation site No. 2, southwest of Gangchon Tomb, archaeologists excavated a number of outer pits. In the outer pit numbered WK22, more than 200 cultural relics were excavated, including 13 clothed pottery figurines. Clay pots, copper belt hooks, crossbows, copper hammers, iron halberds, swords, lacquer shields and so on have been unearthed around the terracotta figurines. A large number of red, black and brown patent leather was also found during the excavation, although the shape is difficult to distinguish, but judging from the large number of small carriages and horses found around the patent leather, at least 2 wooden carriages and horses were placed in this outer pit.
Pottery figurines have been found in previous archaeological excavations of Han Dynasty tombs, but the dressed pottery figurines are a high-standard funerary product, which is currently mainly found in the tombs of royalty members in the Western Han Dynasty. In addition, stone tools with inscriptions and several copper seals have been unearthed from the outer pit. On these bronze seals, there are words such as "Zhongsikong Seal", "Zhongsikong Cheng", "Mountain Official", "Cangyin" and so on. Ma Yongying said that the seals marked the names of the official offices of the Western Han Dynasty, which confirmed that the identity of his tomb owner could only be an emperor-level figure.
Subsequent archaeological exploration and excavation revealed that the Jiangcun Tomb is a grand burial system: there are more than 100 outer hidden pits distributed in a centripetal manner around the burial chamber, and then exploring outward, there are many groups of outer tibetan pits and more than 40 pottery kiln sites in the east, west and south directions. Not only that, there are dozens of large Han tombs in the west and north of Jiangcun Tomb 3000-4000 meters, which should be baling tombs.
Cao Long, an associate researcher at the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute, said that with the Jiangcun Tomb as the center, the remains of outer tibetan pits, funerary tombs, pottery kilns and other remains are distributed radially around it, which is a typical Han Dynasty imperial tomb shape system. Through the super-large-scale shape of the Jiangcun Tomb, the high-specification cultural relics excavated, and the location relationship with the Tomb of Empress Dou, it can be determined that the Jiangcun Tomb is the Tomb of emperor Wen of Han. This archaeological discovery, while determining the exact location of the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han, also solved the problem of the name of the eleven imperial tombs of the Western Han Dynasty, which is of great significance to the in-depth study of the ancient Chinese imperial tomb system.
According to historical records, Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, demarcated Xianyang on the bank of the Wei River as a royal tomb area, so most of the emperors in the Western Han Dynasty were buried on the Xianyang Plain. Perhaps in order to keep a distance from the royal strife, or perhaps because of the needs of the political situation at that time, Liu Heng chose to stay away from Xianyang and plan his own place on the bank of the Bahe River.
Xinhua News Agency reporter Yang Yimiao Zhang Sijie
(Xinhua News Agency, Xi'an, December 15)
A group of pottery figurines excavated from the outer pit of Empress Bo's Southern Tomb (taken on May 7, 2020).
Figure The No. 1 excavation site of The Great Tomb of Gangchon (taken on May 15, 2019, drone photo).
Archaeologists excavate the outer pit of Empress Bo's Southern Tomb (taken on July 17, 2018).
Xinhua News Agency
Source: Tonight's Newspaper