In 1994, the ancient tombs of the Tang Dynasty were stolen, and the tomb robbers sold the national treasure overseas, and experts rushed to retrieve it for 7 years
Tomb robbery is a very old industry, after all, the ancient thick burial culture has been prevalent to this day. From the princes and generals to the rich families, their family tombs are undoubtedly a treasure house, can they not cause the covetousness of tomb robbers?
Today's archaeological technology is more and more advanced, and the activities of archaeologists to discover, excavate and protect ancient tombs are more and more secure, so from time to time we can hear which valuable artifacts have been unearthed from which ancient tombs. However, the most we hear about must be the tombs of some ancient emperors or nobles, and it seems that the tombs of ancient warriors have been unearthed rarely.
In fact, there are tombs of ancient warriors, but the warriors walk in the battle front and march all year round, do not pay attention to the pomp and circumstance of the tomb, and build their own tombs very hidden, so it is not easy to be found. For example, the tomb of the Tang Dynasty general Wang Zhizhi, because of its hidden location, was only visited by tomb thieves after spending hundreds of years in peace.
Wang Chuzhi lived between the end of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and was one of the princes of the feudal town at that time. He was born into a local magnate, and his family was not only rich, but also served as a local official, and later became a clan town and made many military achievements. Wang Chuzhi not only inherited the family, but also inherited the clan town.
After the fall of the Tang Dynasty and the entry into the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Wang Chuzhi became the ruler of the Beiping State in the early days of the chaotic world. However, later the king was arrogant and extravagant, spoiled and adulterous, and finally imprisoned by his righteous son Wang Du and died at the age of sixty-one.
After Wang's death, he was buried by Wang Du in Yangpan Mountain in Dunxin Township, Quyang County, which is the tomb hill west of xiyanchuan village in today's Lingshan Town. His burial chamber belongs to the style of the Tang Dynasty period, using a two-chamber tomb structure with two chambers before and after. Because of this double burial chamber structure, when Wang Chuzhi's tomb was stolen and excavated in the Jin Dynasty, the tomb robbers only found half of the burial chamber, and the other half was preserved.
Until 1994, when the tomb robbers discovered, after all, the tomb robbery technology advanced with the development of the era of science and technology, and Wang Zhizhi's tomb was still fully discovered despite having a certain anti-theft effect on the building structure.
The artifacts inside this half-burial chamber were naturally stolen, flowed into the cultural relics market, and were sold overseas. In 2000, Archaeologists in China discovered a relief samurai stone carving belonging to Wang Zhizhi's tomb at an auction house in the United States. This stone carving is exactly one of the two reliefs at the Yongdao of the half of the tomb that was not discovered in the Jin Dynasty, which has great historical research value.
Archaeologists immediately reported to the superiors of the domestic cultural relics department, and at the same time contacted the US authorities to actively carry out activities related to the recovery of cultural relics lost overseas. With the development of cultural relics recovery work and the active cooperation of the United States, the US court ruled that the samurai stone carving was a stolen funerary item and could not be an auction item.
However, the people who owned this stone carving at that time naturally tried to obstruct it, and the verdict lasted for a year. Our experts won the trial by providing evidence of the comparison of cultural relics and soil in the burial chamber, and the stone carving was able to return to China in 2001.
It has to be said that Our country's archaeologists are very powerful, and it took seven years of tireless labor and the struggle against cultural relics and profiteers to achieve victory. After the samurai stone carvings of the American auction house were recovered, another owner of the samurai stone carvings, the famous American collector An Siyuan, returned them free of charge. At this point, the two major samurai stone carvings guarding the tomb chamber of the king's office were finally "reunited".