On December 14, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage held an important progress meeting on the major project of "Archaeology 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. Song Xinchao, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, attended the meeting.
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The archaeological results of Gangchon Tomb are fruitful
Jiangcun Tomb is located at the western end of Bailuyuan in the eastern suburbs of Xi'an, about 2100 meters north of the Han Wen Emperor's Baling Tomb (Phoenix Mouth) and 800 meters east of the Dou Empress Mausoleum, which is an important tomb remain in the Baling Mausoleum area.
This archaeological work has continued since 2017, and the exploration and discovery of the "stone boundary" of the Jiangcun Tomb, the outer cemetery wall of the Jiangcun Tomb and the Tomb of Empress Dou, as well as the architectural sites and pottery kilns, excavated the Jiangcun North Pottery Kiln Site, the Jiangcun Tomb Outer Hidden Pit, the Nanling Outer Hidden Pit, the Lijia Village Han Tomb, etc., and unearthed more than 1,000 pieces of various pottery figurines, more than 3,000 gold, silver, copper, iron and pottery cultural relics, and achieved fruitful results.
Archaeology confirms that the documentation is incorrect
Literature records that the Han Wen Emperor's mausoleum is in the "Phoenix Mouth", therefore, the archaeological team used archaeological exploration, geological exploration and other technical means, many times to conduct a large-scale and meticulous exploration of it, in addition to the "Phoenix Mouth" under the more than 10 Tongming, Qing stele stones, no tomb relics were found. The possibility of Emperor Wen of Han's tomb in the "phoenix mouth" was ruled out.
Subsequently, the archaeological team conducted archaeological exploration of the Tomb of Empress Dou, which is about 2,000 meters north of the "Phoenix Mouth". The tomb of Empress Dou is now "covered with bucket-shaped" sealing soil, 23 meters high, and the tomb shape is "Ya" shape, with the longest tomb passage in the Middle East and an exploration length of 77 meters. Due to the pressure sealing of the burial chamber, the exploration is difficult, and the situation is unknown. There are more than 10 outer pits distributed around the sealing soil of Empress Dou's mausoleum, and the plane is long and long. Exploration found that there are rammed wall sites on all four sides of the Tomb of Empress Dou, the middle position is the gate site, and there is a rammed earth foundation site in the northwest corner.
Based on the results of previous archaeological work, the archaeological team focused on reviewing and exploring the Jiangcun Tomb and the surrounding area. The east of Jiangcun Tomb is about 800 meters away from the Tomb of Empress Dou, the tomb shape is made of "Ya" shape, the surface is not sealed, the edge of the tomb is 73 meters long and more than 30 meters deep, and the east tomb road is the longest, about 135 meters. There are more than 100 external pits distributed in a centripetal manner around the burial chamber, and the plane is long and the scale is different. The 38 outer pits found in its southwest corner are small in scale, 2-3 meters long. There is a pebble-paved cemetery facility (tentatively named "Stone Enclosure") on the outskirts of the Gangchon Tomb, with a side length of about 390 meters and a width of 1.5 meters, and a gate site on all four sides of the outer side of the stone enclosure. In the Jiangcun Tomb and the outer part of the Dou Empress Mausoleum, the rammed wall ruins were also discovered through exploration and test excavation, with an east-west remnant length of more than 1200 meters, a north-south width of 863 meters, and a wall width of about 3.5 meters, which should be the outer cemetery wall site of the Jiangcun Tomb and the Tomb of Empress Dou.
Within the outer cemetery wall, two sets of outer pits were found on the east and west sides of the Jiangcun Tomb, with a total of 22 in 14 rows on the east side and only 1 on the west side; 1 architectural site protruded from the north side; and there were also 3 architectural sites around the Tomb of Empress Dou.
In addition, the archaeological team also explored a group of small outer pits on the west and south sides of the outer cemetery, with the pit body generally 2-8 meters long; more than 40 pottery kiln sites were found around the Jiangcun Tomb.
The exploration results show that there are dozens of large Han tombs in the west and north of Jiangcun Tombs 3000-4000 meters, and more than 20 in 3 groups have been found. These tombs are 36-64 meters long and should be buried with baling tombs.
A number of Ming organ prints were found
Since 2017, the archaeological team has carried out archaeological excavations of 8 outer pits in the northeast and southwest areas of Jiangcun Tomb. The main remains in the pit are: dressed pottery figurines (individually worn with torture instruments), pottery, iron, bronze, and lacquered wood relics. It is worth mentioning that in the outer tibetan pit, many Ming organ seals such as "Zhongsikong Seal", "Zhongsikong Cheng", "Mountain Official", "Cangyin", "Stable Seal" and so on were also cleared.
From 2018 to 2019, in order to cooperate with the capital construction, 23 Han tombs about 3900 meters southwest of the Jiangcun Tomb were excavated, of which 4 "A" shaped tombs were all vertical cave wooden rafter structures, the largest of which was 54 meters in total length, and the burial chamber was 20 meters long from east to west, 18 meters wide and 16 meters deep. Although the tomb was seriously stolen, more than 2,000 pieces of jade clothes were still excavated, as well as more than 200 precious cultural relics such as trick figurines, pottery chimes, and chimes. In addition, other tombs have unearthed cultural relics such as copper seals with the inscription "Xiangcheng Family".
According to the above archaeological investigation, exploration and excavation results, the Jiangcun Tomb and its surrounding remains have formed a relatively complete mausoleum area, which is similar to the shape and system elements of the Western Han Emperor Mausoleum such as the Han Gao Ancestral Mausoleum, the Han Jing Emperor Yang Mausoleum, and the Han Wudi Emperor Mao Mausoleum, with a similar layout, the overall scale is comparable, and there is an obvious development and evolution trajectory. Combined with the literature, the archaeological team believes that the Jiangcun Tomb should be the tomb of the Han Emperor.
Image source | CCTV News
Empress Bo unearthed a large number of gold, silver and copper carriage and horse tools from the outer tibetan pit of the Southern Tomb
Empress Bo's Southern Tomb is located in the northwest of Baoqizhai Village, Dizhai Street, Baqiao District, Xi'an City, about 2,000 meters north of jiangcun tomb. After exploration, it was found that the South Mausoleum Chamber deviated from the sealing soil to the east, the sealing soil was 25 meters high, the tomb shape system was also "Ya" shape, and the east tomb road was the longest.
Nanling excavated three outer pits on the west side of the sealed soil, all of which are long strip vertical holes with slopes at the western end, with a length of 21-42 meters.
There are 39 excavations in the small outer pit in the northwest of Nanling, and the excavation work is currently underway, and some of the pits have been exposed to the bottom of the pottery coffin, which contains animal remains, and the preliminary identification of its species are golden monkeys, red-crowned cranes, turtles, etc.
Solved the problem of the name of the Eleventh Tomb of the Western Han Dynasty
This archaeological work negates the traditional understanding that "Phoenix Mouth" is the tomb of the Han Emperor, determines the accurate location of the Tomb of the Han Emperor, and solves the problem of the name of the Eleventh Tomb of the Western Han Dynasty. The basic grasp of the scale, shape, layout and connotation of the Western Han Emperor's mausoleum, including the Han Dynasty Emperor's Mausoleum, provides detailed archaeological data for the study of the formation and development of the Western Han Emperor's mausoleum system, and lays the foundation for the in-depth study of the ancient Chinese imperial tomb system.
Source | Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology
Xi'an Institute of Cultural Relics Protection and Archaeology