【Article/Observer Network Columnist Istolia】
On the morning of December 14, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage held an important progress meeting on the major project of "Archaeology in China" in Beijing, and reported three important archaeological achievements, including the Jiangcun Tomb in Xi'an, Shaanxi, the Zhengpingfang Site in Luoyang, Henan, and the Tuguhun Tomb Group in Wuwei, Gansu. Among them, the Jiangcun Tomb was identified as the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han, which solved the long-disputed problem of Emperor Wen's tomb site.
This is not only an important progress in China's archaeological excavation and research work, but also the particularity of the identity of the tomb owner has attracted the attention of the whole society to the progress of this work. In fact, as early as 2015, the article "Discussion on the Tomb Shape System of the Han Baling Emperor's Tomb" pointed out that the Jiangcun Tomb was probably the Tomb of Emperor Wen.
The Shi Zai Han Emperor Liu Heng advocated frugality, and the "Records of Filial Piety" said of him: "Order that clothes must not be dragged to the ground, and draperies must not be embroidered, so as to show simplicity and be the first in the world." "The tombs are all made of pottery, and must not be decorated with gold, silver, copper and tin, and do not rule the graves, but want to be a province, and do not bother the people." The archaeological results of Baling have an important supplementary role in the historical record, although the Jiangcun Tomb was once stolen, but as the mausoleum of Liu Heng, the Emperor of Han Wen, the funerary products are indeed slightly inferior compared with other imperial tombs.
Wang Anshi's poem "Emperor Wen of Han" once ridiculed Liu Heng for "lightly torturing the dead, and stealing those who have lost their lives." The benevolent one has been thin since then, and the mourner cannot be conspired. The terrace is worth a hundred gold, and there is no high hill in Baling. Asanoshi was plagued by Kyushu for a while. Saying that Emperor Wen of Han canceled the planning of building terraces, saving money, and guarding the wealth for the world, Wang Anshi believed that although personal frugality was commendable, it was only temporary, and it was a serious matter of grace and shallowness, and as a king, he should take a long-term view and realize the rule of Yao Shun, even if it was to scatter the wealth of the world.
In fact, Emperor Wen of Han does seem to be strict with himself, because in the excavation of the Southern Tomb of Empress Bo, the mother of Emperor Wen of Han, archaeologists found a large number of gold and silver funerary items, which can be described as luxurious.
The image of Empress Bo in film and television works
One
Empress Bo's Mausoleum is the first independent tomb of houfei in the Western Han Dynasty, and examining its shape and understanding its tomb structure is of great significance for studying the houfei mausoleum in the Western Han Dynasty and even in the entire history of China. Because of the rich burial items of its tombs, it is also possible to peek into the social life of the Western Han Dynasty and the exchange and conflict between the grassland civilization and the Central Plains civilization through these different types of excavations.
The history books record that the Mausoleum of Empress Bo "Looking East to Wuzi, West to Wufu", from the existing archaeological materials, The Tomb of Empress Bo is far across the WeiShui River to look at the Ancestral Tomb of Han Gao, and not far to the northeast is the Tomb of Emperor Wen of Han, which is the former Jiangcun Tomb, so the locals call the Tomb of Empress Bo "Wangzi Tomb", which archaeologists call the South Mausoleum.
Image source: Xinhua News Agency
At present, archaeologists have excavated several outer pits on the west side of empress Dowager Bo's Southern Tomb seal, and unearthed hundreds of gold and silver jewelry. Among them, there are many exquisite dragon pattern ornaments, gold cakes and harnesses, such as Danglu covered with horse noodles.
Image source: Shaanxi Tv News
According to the existing materials, china's Shang Zhou ancestors did not adopt large-scale gold mining and processing technology, they initially collected natural gold to make small pieces of jewelry, large ornaments and sacrifices are mainly bronze. It was not until the Han Dynasty that the number of gold products increased significantly.
From the perspective of time, Emperor Wen of Han died on July 6, 157 BC, his mother Empress Bo died on June 9, 155 BC, and his son Emperor Jing of Han died on March 9, 141 BC. Judging from the excavations of the royal tombs that exist in the Hanjing Emperor Yang Mausoleum Museum, the funerary products of the two emperors who created the "Rule of Wenjing" are mainly pottery figurines and animal figurines, in addition to which they also contain copper mirrors, seals and engraved clay seals, etc., and rarely appear gold objects. The more prestigious Tomb of Emperor Mao of the Han Dynasty is also mainly excavated from bronze, supplemented by gilding.
At present, the archaeological excavation work is still in progress, but as far as the excavations revealed by archaeologists a few days ago, the tomb of Empress Bo has its own special features compared with the tombs of the Central Plains Royal Han in the same period, and the excavation of a large number of exquisite gold objects has aroused people's surprises, and it is no wonder that it is considered to "grab the limelight of Emperor Wen". In addition, according to Yu Gengzhe, a professor at the School of History and Culture of Shaanxi Normal University, this Empress Bo was also a full-fledged pet, because many animal skeletons were unearthed in the small outer pit of Nanling, including golden monkeys, red-crowned cranes, turtles and so on.
A rare discovery in empress Bo's mausoleum once rushed to Weibo's hot search.
Two
Archaeologists have conducted preliminary research on the gold artifacts excavated in Nanling and believe that its style has the characteristics of the northern grassland culture. Stylistics is indeed an important method of art history research, and as far as the gold excavations released so far are concerned, there are probably several categories: animal-type buckles, gem-encrusted buckles, tiger-shaped headdresses, and a small number of gold pendants. Animal-shaped ornaments are common in steppe civilizations, in addition to ornaments, the shape of some of the excavated objects also has the characteristics of the northern steppe peoples, such as the Relics of the Xiongnu at the end of the Aruchaiden Warring States found on the Ordos Plateau, there are similar buckle ornaments.
The Inner Mongolia Museum has gold buckles
The earliest known gold and silver artifacts unearthed from the northern grasslands are around the end of the Spring and Autumn period. By the end of the Warring States period, the discovery of gold products showed an upward trend, and a large number of exquisite gold products appeared, such as the eagle-top gold crown ornament hidden in the Inner Mongolia Museum, the tiger bite bull pattern gold buckle, the tiger-shaped eagle-shaped gold embellishment, and so on.
From the perspective of the utensils themselves, their production processes include hammering, engraving, inlaying, etc., indicating that the production technology level of the northern grassland civilization in this period is high and the artistic attainment is profound. Judging from the pattern, the gold ornaments of the steppe civilization are mainly animal fighting scenes, supplemented by animal-type ornamentation, which is a true portrayal of nomadic life.
It is worth noting that Emperor Wen of Han was once made a daiwang. The Book of Han records that Emperor Gao of the Book of Han records that Dai di lived in the north of Changshan, and Yidi bian, and Zhao Nai had it from the south of the mountain. Far away, there are Hu Kou, it is difficult to serve the country. Quite take the land of Taiyuan in the south of the mountain to belong to the generation, and replace the west of Yunzhong as Yunzhong County, then it is replaced by Biankou Yi Shaoyi. The king, xiangguo, tonghou, and official 2,000 stones, choose the lord as the substitute king. The Thirty-three people of Yan Wang, Xiang Guo, and so on, all knew: "Zi Hengxian knows Wen Liang, please think that he is the acting king, all jinyang." ”
Data map of the fifteen counties of the ten kingdoms of the early Han Dynasty
That is to say, before Liu Bang appointed Liu Heng as the acting king, he was a county, located in the north of Changshan, which was managed by the Zhao state from the south in the past, but the management effect was not good, Liu Bang divided the dai county, Dingxiang and other places into the dai kingdom, Zhao and the dai ruled it, no longer shared jurisdiction, and named Liu Ruyi the king of Zhao and Liu Heng as the acting king.
When Liu Heng was the acting king, his mother Bo Ji also went north and lived in the daiguo. Even after Liu Heng became emperor, due to the fact that the daiguo "bordered With Yidi", military conflicts and cultural exchanges must have existed at the same time, and even after Liu Heng became emperor, he continued to follow the policy of communication during the daiguo and other reasons, focusing on peace and pro-pacification, and the Xiongnu problem was not resolved until the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
The burial items in Empress Bo's mausoleum may have been chosen because of her preferences, which also explains why compared with the Han tombs of the same period, there are more gold ornaments in the Nanling Tombs, and this preference is likely to be formed during the life of the Daiguo.
Three
The style of gold products in the early Western Han Dynasty is related to the exchange between the Han Dynasty and the Northern Huns, but it is worth noting that the shape and processing of gold jewelry of the Scythians north of the Black Sea and the northern Caucasus at the same time also had a similar style. Linguists today believe that the Scythians should belong to the Iranian race, and from the surviving Chinese and Western literature, the way of life of the Scythians and Huns is very similar, with the Scythians active at one end of the steppe and the Hun tribes active at the other end of the steppe.
The Scythians had a very wide range of activities, and after receiving the influence of the Black Sea and the civilizations around Assyria, in the early 3rd century BC, Scythian art began to transition to Masagatai art, which many archaeologists believe was transmitted through the Minusinsk region of present-day Russia to the Huns operating in the Ordos region, which in turn influenced their art.
It is likely that long before the opening of the Silk Road, Chinese and Western civilizations had initial exchanges through the intermediary of grassland civilization, laying the groundwork for the opening of the Silk Road later.
Perhaps the contact between the two important ethnic groups of this steppe civilization is not only the way of Minusinsk, because similar gold excavations have also appeared in the Xinjiang region. From the 7th century BC onwards, most of the Scythians, known as the Cypriots, also lingered near the Tianshan Mountains, and this is often mentioned in ancient Chinese works.
In 2011, the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology excavated dozens of ancient tombs in the Altai Mountains, the flooded area of the East Taled Reservoir in Habahe County, which is later known as the "East Talerd Cemetery", many cemeteries are more difficult to date, but the scope can basically be delimited around the 7th century BC, and some of the animal-shaped gold products unearthed are very similar to the style of the Near East.
Some gold artifacts excavated from the East Taled Cemetery in Xinjiang, Source: Cultural Relics, No. 3, 2013.
Centuries later, around the end of the Warring States period to the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu continued to expand, defeated the Yue clan, and once occupied the Eastern Tianshan region, becoming one of the main ethnic groups active in this area, and the main active groups of the two steppe civilizations are likely to have exchanges in this area.
Xinjiang's Shirenzigou Ruins Group is an ancient nomadic site group located near Shirenzi Village, Shirenzi Township, Barikun County, Hami City, of which the Xigou ruins include large tombs from the late Warring States period to the early Western Han Dynasty, and the tiger-shaped gold ornaments, pan sheep-shaped gold ornaments, griffin-shaped gold ornaments and other themes excavated here are similar to the popular theme images of the nearby Bazelek culture influenced by the Scythians, and the age is late, from which you can see the dynamic process of cultural influence and absorption.
The popularity of gold products in the early Western Han Dynasty was indirectly influenced by the grassland civilization through the Xiongnu tribes, but it can also be seen from the cultural relics excavated from the tomb of Empress Bo that the Central Plains culture in this period also localized related themes, such as the lifelike hollow dragon carvings in the dragon-shaped flower ornaments, which are the products of the native culture of the Central Plains. Zhongyuan craftsmen exert their own innovative ability on the basis of the original theme and forge gold jewelry with their own characteristics.
This kind of innovation has not stagnated in the Central Plains, but has left its original hometown with the continuous exchange of Chinese and Western civilizations. For example, in 1939, near Almaty in the Soviet Union, a costume of an immortal riding a dragon chariot was found, and a wide-robed immortal rode on a carriage, pulling the carriage with two dragons or beasts, with obvious Han Dynasty characteristics.
Civilizations are not isolated from the beginning of their birth, and they influence each other in continuous exchanges, no civilization is completely passive to accept other civilizations, and any exchange and influence has a process of localization, re-innovation, and re-export. At present, the relevant archaeological excavation work is still in progress, and it is believed that more and more excavated cultural relics will outline a broader picture of the exchange between Chinese and Western civilizations for us.
It is now in the exquisite gold clasp of the Palace Museum
This article is the exclusive manuscript of the observer network, the content of the article is purely the author's personal views, does not represent the platform views, unauthorized, may not be reproduced, otherwise will be investigated for legal responsibility. Pay attention to the observer network WeChat guanchacn, read interesting articles every day.