The National Day Golden Week went to Shaanxi again, visited the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang at the foot of Lishan Mountain, and looked at these majestic warriors who had been sealed for thousands of years, and I could not help but have a strong interest in their origins. After reviewing relevant materials and interviews with newspapers at the time, I found this period of history quite interesting.
How exactly were the Terracotta Warriors of the First Emperor of Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum discovered?
Terracotta figurines
In March 1974, Shaanxi, there was a great drought. The production brigade of Xiyang Village in Lintong County plans to drill eight large wells with a diameter of 4 meters in the south of the village to facilitate the entire village to cope with drought.
In the early morning of the 24th, Yang Peiyan, the captain of the production team, led a group of people to start construction. At first, the drilling work was still very smooth, but when it reached about 3 meters, it was found that the soil was extremely hard. According to Yang Xinman, a political instructor of the production brigade that dug the well, he recalled: "Even if we know so much, we can't move a bunch of young men, and we don't have a single hole dug down with a hoe."
Immediately after, they found a thick layer of laterite. At that time, everyone thought that it was the red soil left by the burning of the old house, and did not care too much.
On the 29th, when digging to a depth of 4 meters, the villager Yang Zhifa dug up a round pottery, at first they thought it was an urn, but the more they dug, the more wrong it was, as their hands and body were dug out, they saw where this was an urn, and it was clear that it was a "bodhisattva" who was more than one person tall. Immediately after That, Yang Peiyan and others dug out pottery pieces, copper clusters, floor tiles, etc., and there were more and more strange things.
After the news went away, many villagers came to see the liveliness, and some villagers even burned incense for this "bodhisattva". Just at this time, Fang Shumin, a cadre in charge of water conservancy in Yanzhai Commune, passed by here, and he immediately found that this was not a "bodhisattva", but a clay figurine, so he immediately told everyone not to continue digging, and there were probably many cultural relics below.
Immediately, Fang Shumin immediately reported to the Lintong County Government, and Zhao Kangmin, director of the county cultural center, immediately rushed to Xiyang Village after learning about it, and became deeply interested in this pottery figurine, so he brought it back to the county cultural center for restoration work.
Zhao Kangmin originally wanted to report the repair to the higher authorities after the repair was completed, so he worked for more than two months. At this time, neither the Lintong County Government nor Zhao Kangmin thought that what they found was not just a clay figurine.
The reporter's astonishing discovery
I thought it would be over, but fate didn't want this historical treasure to continue to be buried in the earth. In June, a Xinhua news agency reporter Lin Anwen returned to the Lintong County Cultural Center to visit relatives, and just saw this pottery figurine, and could not help but be amazed;
He wrote a report and sent it to the editorial board of people's daily.
On June 24, lin Anwen's report was published in the people's daily magazine, which immediately attracted the attention of the State Council. On the 30th, Comrade Li Xiannian, vice premier of the State Council, personally gave instructions: "It is recommended that the Cultural Relics Bureau consult with the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee and quickly adopt measures to properly protect this important cultural relic." ”
Figure note: The content of the report for the current year
On July 6, Chen Zide, director of the Cultural Relics Department of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, rushed to Xi'an, and together with the cultural relics and archaeologists in Shaanxi, they were equally shocked after inspecting the excavation site of the Qin figurines, because they had never seen such exquisite Qin Dynasty pottery figurines, and through the comparison of historical materials, they concluded that this was part of the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.
In order to find out how big this tomb is, the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee immediately set up the Archaeological Committee of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Shi Huang.
On July 15, an archaeological team led by Yuan Zhongyi, a master of ancient history at East China Normal University, officially settled in Xiyang Village. What awaits them is a sensational world of discoveries.
Pit One
The team's initial mission was only a week, and it was time to clear the size of the funerary pit and return. But by the end of July, they found that they still couldn't finish it, because they still hadn't figured out how big the pit was.
"We are very confused and anxious, why can't we find the edge?" Mr. Yuan Zhongyi wrote in the report: "We began to expand the excavation. It is 24 meters long from north to south and 14 meters wide from east to west, totaling 336 square meters, but there is still no edge. ”
Photo note: Pit No. 1 after resting
In order to find out how big the pit is, the archaeologists used the Luoyang shovel to explore, with more than 300 square meters as the center, drilling every 3 meters to the east and west.
The results shocked them, and the result of the exploration was that the burial pit was more than 10,000 square meters. At this time, everyone knew that something was wrong, and this was definitely not an ordinary funerary tomb.
The team members were nervous and excited, afraid that this would turn out to be a mistake in their own exploration, and treated several pits as a pit; excited because if they were correct, it would be the largest burial pit in the history of the world. In the end, Yuan Zhongyi decided to name this pit "No. 1 Pit". And reported to the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum Funeral Pit Leading Group.
In September 1974, because the burial pit was so large, the leading group immediately dispatched more than 100 PLA soldiers and dozens of local migrant workers to assist in the excavation.
The great excavations began; it turned out that Yuan Zhongyi's exploration was correct. After a year of excavation work, the First Pit of the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shi Huang was finally excavated; more than 6,000 pottery terracotta warriors and horses and tens of thousands of copper and pottery utensils were excavated from the First Pit.
The entire No. 1 pit is 230 meters long from east to west, 62 meters wide from north to south, and covers an area of more than 14,000 square meters, making it the largest funerary pit ever found in archaeological history.
museum
The excavation of Pit No. 1 spread to Beijing, and Marshal Nie Rongzhen was also highly concerned about it. When Beidaihe met with Wang Yeqiu, director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, he asked about the terracotta warriors.
When he learned that the thousands of soldiers could only be stored in a simple shed and could not be effectively protected, he frowned and said, "No! How can such a precious excavated cultural relics be built into a shed, if only a museum could be built. ”
You must know that at that time, the entire Chinese state finances were also very difficult, and the "Cultural Revolution" was not yet over. But even so, when Wang Yeqiu reported the report requesting the repair of the museum, Li Xiannian, vice premier of the State Council, also made up his mind: "Repair! ”
In 1978, the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum of Qin Shi Huang was completed. Subsequently, the archaeologists found "Pit No. 2" and "No. 3 Pit" next to Pit No. 1. However, due to technical problems, the excavated cultural relics have always been difficult to escape the oxidation reaction, in order to protect more heritage, the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum Committee decided to suspend the excavation of the remaining cultural relics. So today, the real Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum is still lying quietly under LiShan Mountain, quietly watching the changes of the years.