As we all know, Tuguhun was a regime established by the nomadic Murong clan in the northwest, which originated in Inner Mongolia on the Xilamulun River (present-day Chifeng, Inner Mongolia), and was an independent state in the upper Yellow River valley and Liangzhou in the Qilian Mountains and Qinghai from the Western Jin Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty. In the last year of the Western Jin Dynasty, the chief Tuguhun led his subordinates to move west to the Hexi region and establish Tuguhun; during the Sixteen Kingdoms period of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Tuguhun controlled Qinghai, Gansu and other places, and had friendly relations with the countries of the Southern and Northern Dynasties. During the Sui Dynasty, Tuguhun also married the imperial court; during the Tang Dynasty, Tuguhun was conquered by the Tang Dynasty and crowned as the King of Qinghai. Today I want to tell you about the discovery of a group of tombs of the Tuguhun royal clan in the northern foothills of the Qilian Mountains in the southwest of Wuwei City, Gansu Province.
This Tuguhun royal tomb is located on the top of the mountain north of Chashan Village, Qilian Town, Tianzhu County, Wuwei City, Gansu Province, during the Great Zhou Wu Zetian Period, which was called Liangzhou Shenniao County, which is located on a hill surrounded by three mountains in the east, west and south, 35 kilometers east of Wuwei City. The burial site belongs to the northern foothills of Qilian Mountain, which is a locally gentle combination of mountain basins and longitudinal valleys. In September 2019, the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology found a tomb in Tianzhu County, Wuwei County, and after receiving approval from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, it launched a rescue excavation of the tomb. Archaeologists said that the tomb is well preserved, is a single-chamber brick chamber tomb with a long slope tomb, consisting of sealing soil, tomb passage, Yongdao, burial chamber, alcove, sealed door, illuminated wall and so on. The tomb passage is located in the south of the burial chamber, the opening plane is rectangular, the walls on both sides are vertical, and the tomb passage is filled with red glue mud and gravel mixed soil, and the soil contains broken bricks and wooden blocks. In the middle and south of the bottom of the tomb, there are wooden components, ink painted remnant bricks, palette bricks and palette stones, and there are martyrs in front of the wooden gate at the north end.
The burial chamber pit is square, the brick chamber is 4.2 meters long, 4.1 meters wide and 3.9 meters deep, and the tomb chamber is built with green bricks in the earthen enclosure, although the top is damaged, but judging from the remnants, the top of the tomb is a four-corner pointed vault. On the west side of the burial chamber is a coffin bed, which is tiled horizontally with bricks, and the bottom bricks are covered with a layer of white ash, and on the white ash layer is also laid a layer of grass mats, most of which have decayed. The straw mat is covered with a layer of silk fabrics, on which a wooden coffin is placed in a north-south direction on the west side, and the wooden coffin is well preserved, with the head north and the tail south. The wooden coffin consists of a curved coffin lid lid, a box-type coffin and a coffin seat, and is composed of seven long wooden strips spliced together using a mortise and mortise structure. The coffin is 2.55 meters long, the head end is 0.94 meters wide, the tail end is 0.76 meters wide, the head end is 1.19 meters high, and the tail end is 1.05 meters high. According to archaeologists, after a year of archaeological excavations, the tomb unearthed a large number of pottery, lacquered wood, metal, leather products, silk fabrics and grain crops and other more than 220 relics, which is the most complete preservation of the Tuguhun royal family members of the Great Zhou Dynasty in China.
According to archaeologists, at that time, an epitaph was unearthed from the tomb, and the inscription was covered with a seal book "Epitaph of Murong Fujun of the Great Zhou Dynasty", which roughly means "Murong Zhi, the general of the Great Zhou Yunli Guarding The Left Yuling Wei General, and the Great General of the Outer Xi King" Murong Zhi. Murong Zhi was the third son of Murong Nuobao, the King of Qinghai, and his mother was Princess Honghua (daughter of Emperor Taizong of Tang) who died of illness on March 2 of the second year of Tianzhi at the age of 42 and was buried in the Tomb of the Great Khan on September 5. The first appearance of the Great Khan's Mausoleum means that there are other royal tombs nearby, which has attracted the attention of archaeologists. During and after the excavation of the tomb, the archaeological team conducted surveys and explorations of the area around the tomb, and found several tombs with the same shape and characteristics that were close to the era within five kilometers of the tomb.[
At the same time, in the area of Qingzui Bay and Lama Bay in Liangzhou District, about 15 kilometers northeast of Murong Zhi's tomb, nine tombs of members of the Tuguhun royal clan of the early and middle Tang Dynasties, including the main tomb of Jincheng County, the tomb of Murong Xiguang, the tomb of Princess Honghua, the tomb of Murong Zhong, the tomb of Wushi, and the tomb of Li Shen, were discovered from the 1920s to the 1980s. These tombs are distributed on small hills in Qingzui Bay and Lama Bay, facing north and south, and have the same characteristics as Murong Zhi's tomb. Therefore, it can be considered that the Nanshan District of Wuwei, along the Qingzui Bay and Lama Bay to the southwest to Murong Zhi's tomb, was the Large Mo District of the Tuguhun Royal Family in the early and middle Tang Dynasty. The epitaph information excavated in the area shows that the earliest of these tombs is the tomb of Princess Honghua and the tomb of her eldest son Murong Zhong, buried in 699, both of which are later in time than Murong Zhi's tomb, so the "Great Khan's Mausoleum" mentioned in Murong Zhi's tomb should be the tomb of his father Murong Nuoyao, who died in 688.
Judging from the excavations, Murong Zhi's tomb is the earliest and most complete preserved tomb of the Tuguhun royal family in the Tang Dynasty in the Liangzhou area, which is very rare in China. The tomb shape system is basically complete, the tomb age and the identity of the tomb owner are clear, and the burial products are rich and distinctive, which has important research value for the study of the later Tuguhun burial customs and the history of the relationship between the Tang and Tuguhun ethnic groups, the history of Silk Road transportation, the history of material culture and other related issues.