Tip: The Xiongnu are a Chinese nation, not only in historical books and cultural relics, but we also hope that this point can appear more powerfully in the map. It can be seen that there is no difference between the "Xiongnu Dragon" and the "Chinese Dragon" in Gaole Maodu.
Recently, the American archaeological magazine "Archaeology" announced the world's top ten archaeological discoveries in 2019, related to China, in addition to the discovery of ancient Denisovan fossils in the site of baishiya cave in Xiahe County, Gansu Province, the discovery of the Sino-Mongolian joint archaeological team in the No. 2 cemetery of Gaole Maodu in Houhang'ai Province, Mongolia is listed among them.
In July 2017, the China-Mongolia Joint Archaeological Team, composed of the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, the Luoyang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and the Department of Archaeology of Ulaanbaatar University in Mongolia, began work at the No. 2 cemetery of Gaole Maodu in Houhang'ai Province, Mongolia. According to Zhou Ligang, executive leader of the Chinese archaeological team, "This cemetery has unearthed carriages donated by the Han Dynasty in the past, and jade bi and bronze mirrors are also typical Central Plains objects; glassware is obviously a Roman artifact that passed down through the Silk Road; pottery and gold and silver ornaments are products of steppe culture." Here we can see the intersection of Western, steppe and Central Plains cultures 2,000 years ago, which is why we chose to carry out joint archaeological work here. ”
Lanzhou Morning Post synthesized reports on the archaeology, and as of August 2019, the joint archaeological team had completed the cleaning of the tombs of two Xiongnu nobles, numbered M189 and M10. Among them, a pair of gilt-silver dragons and jade belt hooks excavated from M189, and jade sword pendants and gold crown ornaments excavated from M10 are the first time to be found in similar tombs. In particular, single dragon-shaped artifacts are also very rare in the remains of the same period in China, and these silver dragons may have been the handles of some kind of container. In addition, the tomb is accompanied by a carriage, 15 horse heads and 19 silver horse ornaments, each of which is carved with a sacred beast that resembles a horse and a sheep.
A very important role played by the Xiongnu people in history, that is, to inherit and connect the cultures of the East and the West, not only has the meaning of a hub, but also plays a role in allowing the East and West cultures to intersect and merge in the area under their control. We pay special attention to the dragon-shaped artifacts and horse-like sheep-like sacred beasts unearthed this time, which not only shows that the Huns worship dragons, but also confirms the formation process of dragons in the territory of the Xiongnu. If the dragon is a molded dragon, then the horse-like sheep-like divine beast or the process of gradual formation of the dragon in the Huns. This point also precisely corroborates the Eastern Han Dynasty thinker Wang Fu's statement that dragons have "nine resemblances": the head is like a camel, the horns are like a deer, the eyes are like a rabbit, the ears are like an ox, the neck is like a snake, the abdomen is like a mirage, the scales are like a carp, the claws are like an eagle, and the palms are like a tiger. It also shows that our nation and culture are diverse and inclusive.
As early as 1924, archaeologists found a "dragon" in the Tomb of the Xiongnu at Noyan Mountain, about 100 kilometers north of Ulaanbaatar, and found a "dragon", embroidered with silk thread, known as "West Dragon Soaring Embroidery". However, it was a Western-style "dragon", with its head reaching backwards and flying forward with its tail raised. The four claws of the "dragon" are strangely shaped, and its shoulders are painted with a strange pair of short wings, which is very different from the snake-bodied dragon in the Central Plains. The dragon is surrounded by a angular pattern, and the picture is surrounded by a triangular and circular pattern (see Lin Gan's General History of the Xiongnu, as shown above).
If the "dragon" in the Tomb of the Xiongnu in Noyan Mountain is a Western dragon, then the "dragon" of the Gaole Maodu Xiongnu tomb is closer to the Chinese dragon. This is the same as the Xiongnu worship of dragons recorded in China's ancient books (for example, they called their royal court "Dragon City", and the legend is that when the royal court was built, two dragons fell from the sky), together confirmed Sima Qian's first sentence in the "History of the Xiongnu": The Xiongnu, their ancestor Xia Hou's Miao descendants, also known as Chunwei. That is to say, the Xiongnu are a Chinese nation, at least their ruling class is a Chinese nation, and the Han people are the same ancestor.
Let's talk about the divine beast that looks like a horse and a sheep. Like this artifact, there is another artifact with a variety of animal motifs, which is very famous, and is called the Crown of the Huns or the Crown of Hu by experts. It was excavated in 1972 in Aruchaiden, Hangjinqi, Ordos City, and is divided into a crown top and a crown belt. The crown is a hemispherical form with a relief of four wolves and four horned sheep. On the top of the crown of the hemisphere, a winged eagle is erected and made a top look. The entire crown ornament constitutes the picture of the eagle looking down on the wolf and sheep. The crown band is made of gold, with the left and right sides close to the human ear part, and the two ends are made of relief patterns of Crouching Tiger, Panhorn Sheep and Crouching Horse. It can reflect the production and life of the Huns, but also the shadow of totem worship. The animal motifs and gaole hairs in the hu crown are like horses and sheep-like divine beasts, which powerfully illustrates the long and complex process of the formation of the "Xiongnu dragon", and also confirms its "blood relationship" with the "Chinese dragon" in the theory that the dragon has nine resemblances.
The Xiongnu are the Chinese nation, which is a very serious historical subject, and through these cultural relics, people have reason to believe that more than 2,000 years ago, Sima Qian's writing of the "History of the Xiongnu Column" did not rely on personal imagination and nonsense. As Shi Taigong, Sima Qian's account of the Xiongnu is objective and true, and has a pattern and height, but some of us today consciously divide the Huns into the sequence of "foreign races". We don't want to talk too much about this issue, but let's talk about two maps of Taiwan Province.
These two maps are the territory of the Western Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty, and it is not difficult to find a strange phenomenon, that is, the territory of the Tang Dynasty included the Turks, but the territory of the Han Dynasty failed to include the Xiongnu. Although there is an important reason for this, that is, the Tang Dynasty had garrisons in the Turkic region at that time, and indeed formed an effective control, but the Han Dynasty was not bad, the Western Han Dynasty let the Southern Xiongnu surrender, and the Eastern Han Dynasty let the Northern Xiongnu destroy the country and move west, so why can't the Xiongnu region also be included in the territory of the Han Dynasty?
In fact, this practice is not only Taiwan Province, but also the map of the mainland. According to our analysis, this cannot be as simple as "psychological mischief", and there may be a problem of understanding the word "China". The word "China" first appeared in the bronze "He Zun" inscription excavated in Baoji, China. "King Weiwu, who had conquered the Dayi merchants, then told Yu Tian, saying: Yu Qi's house is in China, and he is a servant of the people." In the sense of ancient geographical scope, China refers to the ancient Central Plains, which means Beijing and capital. That is to say, the ancients believed that there was only one country in the world at that time, that is, China, the central country, and the others were called "five services", that is, with the Son of Heaven as the core, drawing five concentric circles according to distance and intimacy, the area directly ruled by the Son of Heaven became Dianfu (imperial capital), the countries established around the Heavenly Son were Houfu, and the countries that were conquered Chinese outside the Houfu were appeasement or guests, and the outside was to be obeyed and deserted.
The system that matches the five-service theory is the tribute, the frequency of which varies greatly according to the degree of intimacy, dian fu daily tribute, Hou fu by month, sui fu by quarter, to serve by year, and huang fu only pay tribute once (Liu Debin, History of International Relations (Second Edition), China Higher Education Press, March 2018). Another is that the ancients believed that Dianfu (the imperial capital, that is, China) was the most advanced and civilized, so they called the relatively backward places far from China the land of barbarians. Although the Xiongnu are also in the sequence of barbarians, the ancients did not say that they were "foreigners", and in the face of history, in the face of more than two thousand years of "History", people should learn from Sima Qian's understanding of this problem.
The Xiongnu are a Chinese nation, not only in historical records and cultural relics, but we also hope that this point can appear more powerfully in the map. It can be seen that there is no difference between the "Xiongnu Dragon" and the "Chinese Dragon" in Gaole Maodu. (Wen | Lusheng)