In 1955, Guo Moruo, then president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Wu Han, vice mayor of Beijing (also an expert on Ming history), and others applied to the State Council to excavate Zhu Di's Changling Tomb, but the scale of the Changling Tomb was too large, and this application was intellectually opposed by some people. So they decided to excavate the smaller Dingling Tombs first to accumulate experience and prepare for the future excavation of the Changling Tombs. Dingling is the mausoleum of the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, one of the three largest mausoleums of the Ming Tombs, which was "experimentally excavated" in 1956. This photo is of the archaeologists when they found the entrance to the underground palace.
After more than three months of "trial excavation", archaeologists found a stone stele in the ground, which read, "This stone is three and a half feet deep from the front of the Diamond Wall", so everyone found the "Diamond Wall" according to the records on the stone tablet. In this photo, archaeologists are taking bricks from the "Kongo Wall.".
After the bricks on the "King Kong Wall" were removed, a White Jade Gate appeared in front of the eyes, which was the gate of the Wanli Emperor's Underground Palace, which was carved from a whole piece of Han White Jade. Behind the gate is a "tap stone", which is mainly in the tomb to block the stone door and not let people in. In the picture, archaeologists are pushing the "tap stone" away with a tool.
This photo is of the view of the gates of the underground palace after they are opened. On the floor of the burial chamber are the wood left behind, but due to its age, it has also decayed, and there are rut marks on the coffin when it was transported. In front of the photo is the door to the nave of the dungeon.
After entering the nave, you will be greeted by three white jade thrones and a pile of funerary items. The throne in the center of it belonged to the Wanli Emperor, and the other two belonged to his two empresses. The large dragon jar in the picture contains sesame oil, but when the mausoleum is opened, it has solidified, and there are some mold spots on it.
From the nave further inside is the apse, where the coffins of the Wanli Emperor and Empress are stored. On the treasure bed were three coffins, the one in the middle was the one of the Wanli Emperor, and next to it were the two empresses. When the archaeologists entered the site, they found that Empress Xiaojing's coffin had been somewhat decayed (relocated), but the other two were still intact.
Next to the coffin are piled up a large number of funerary objects, including exquisite porcelain, gold and jade, but because the box containing the funerary goods has decayed for a long time, this photo is the dragon pattern porcelain in the box.
Archaeologists are cleaning up the funerary items in the coffin, opening the lid of the coffin and placing a wooden shelf on top of the coffin so that the artifacts can be cleaned without damaging the coffin.
This golden crown of the Wanli Emperor is called "Golden Silk Dragon Wing Good Crown", which is welded with gold wire, and each gold wire is only 0.2 mm, so the hat is like tulle, which shows the superb skills of the ancients. This photo is of archaeologists removing the golden crown from the coffin of the Wanli Emperor, who may have lacked archaeological experience at the time, and the on-site personnel were directly touching the cultural relics with their hands and did not wear gloves.
When the coffin was opened, the body of the Wanli Emperor had already decayed, but the skeleton was still intact, and the skeleton of the Wanli Emperor was in the picture. But now it is not visible, in the sixties the skeletons of Wanli and his two queens were burned, and even the red lacquer coffin made of fine gold silk nan wood was thrown into the ravine. Although this archaeology excavated a large number of cultural relics, the cost was also very tragic, and many silk fabrics were not protected and carbonized. In view of this, in order to protect underground cultural relics, the state decided to prohibit the active excavation of imperial tombs when the technology was immature.