A few days ago, the confirmation of the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han became a hot spot in the whole society, and the veins of the eleven imperial tombs of the entire Han Dynasty were all complete, and the descendants of the Liu clan were finally "reunited" in some form. However, in the Han Dynasty, there was also a "deposed emperor" who only served for 27 days, which was excluded from the entire imperial mausoleum, could not be offered to the temple, and was quietly submerged in the long river of history. He was a victim of the political struggle of the Western Han Dynasty, and experienced a legendary life from king to emperor to commoner and finally to marquis.
If it were not for the discovery of this tomb, he might never have been tossed out of the dusty history, but he attracted everyone's attention in this unique form, proudly above the Eleventh Emperor's Mausoleum, so that people two thousand years later deeply remembered him, and it has to be said that it is an arrangement in the underworld, and for him it is also a kind of late compensation - he is Liu He, who is nicknamed "Trench" by everyone.
Today, it has been ten years since the discovery of the Tomb of the Marquis of Haixia, and the term "Haidian" has become a well-known cultural buzzword. In the past ten years, there have been any new archaeological discoveries and research results in the Tomb of the Marquis of Haixia, and today we have walked into the Tomb of the Marquis of Haixia together with the "Chinese Archaeological Congress" to explore this endless treasure house of Western Han culture.
The sea is waiting for its people
Liu He had the most prominent origins, his grandfather was Liu Che, the Emperor of Han Wu who was riding the Xiongnu, and his grandmother was Lady Li, a beautiful woman who fell in love with the country. He had a good life from an early age, inheriting the title of his father Liu Ji (the fifth son of Emperor Wu of Han) the Prince of Laochangyi and living a carefree life in the fiefdom.
However, his ease was broken in the first year of yuan ping (74 BC), and liu Fuling, the emperor of Han Zhao, died. Since Liu Fuling had no heirs, the powerful general Huo Guang recruited Liu He to preside over the funeral and succeed him to the throne.
However, Liu He was extremely inexperienced in politics, and before the throne was hot, he was eager to exercise various rights, and after only 27 days on the throne, he was deposed by Huo Guang on the grounds of "absurdity and unscrupulousness and unprotected social welfare", becoming the shortest reigning emperor in the history of the Western Han Dynasty - "Emperor of Han". After Liu He was deposed, Huo Guang also honored Emperor Wu of Han's great-grandson Liu Yiji (劉劉) as emperor, and was historically known as Emperor Xuan of Han.
After Liu He was deposed, he returned to his homeland of Changyi, and Changyi was stripped of his country and demoted to Shanyang County, leaving only 2,000 households in Tangmuyi. In the third year of Yuan Kang (63 BC), Emperor Xuan of Han made Liu He the Marquis of Haixia and went to Haidian County (海昏县, in present-day Nanchang, Jiangxi) to take up the throne. In the third year of shenjue (59 BC), Liu He, who had been marquis for four years, died and was expelled from the country.
The evaluation of Hai Dihou not only did not build a conclusive conclusion with his death, but became more and more controversial. Whether he is an arrogant and lascivious and absurd disciple, or a well-read and elegant gentleman, or a down-and-out overlord who has been killed by adulterers and has fallen into Pingyang, for ten years we have tried to find clues from his mausoleum to see the end.
The luxurious mausoleum is alive
In 2011, on the Dundun Hill in Guanxi Village, Datangping Township, Xinjian District, Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, the Han Dynasty tomb was found, and after rescue excavations, it was determined that it was the tomb group of Liu He and his family, the deposed emperor of the Western Han Dynasty. The total area of the Haidian Hou Cemetery is more than 46,000 square meters, the number of funerary products is huge, the workmanship is exquisite, the number is amazing, and it is the best preserved, the most complete structure and the clearest functional layout of the Western Han Dynasty Liehou Tomb so far.
Gold products, copper coins, jade, lacquerware, bronzes and other items excavated from the tomb of Marquis Haidi are extremely luxurious and constantly refresh people's imagination of that era.
In recent years, there have been new developments in the archaeological research on the "Confucius Clothing Mirror" in the excavated cultural relics, the interpretation of qi's "Analects", and the texture of excavated Chinese medicines and their preparation processes.
Important archaeological discoveries and research results
1. Goldware
Needless to say, the gold artifacts unearthed from the tomb of Marquis Haidian have always been the focus of the whole society. The amount of excavation is exquisite, and it is the most intuitive item that makes people feel the trenches and glory of Liu He. A total of 480 pieces of various gold objects weighing more than 120 kilograms were excavated from the tomb, including 385 gold cakes, 50 horseshoe gold, 25 lin toe gold and 20 gold plates, more than the gold excavated from all previous Han tombs combined.
Horseshoe gold
Gold cakes
Lin toe gold
2. Lacquerware
A total of about 3,000 pieces of lacquered wood have been excavated from the tomb of Marquis Hai, of which more than 1,100 are well-preserved and can identify the type of utensils, including pots, dings, ear cups, plates and other dining utensils, as well as daily necessities such as pots, boxes, and squirrels, as well as weapons such as shields and sword scabbards, musical instruments such as qinser, and furniture and carriages with all-over tools, which are currently known to be the largest number of lacquerware varieties and the largest number of tombs unearthed in the Western Han Dynasty.
Plum lacquered cup
Lacquer bottle
Lacquered innersole of the imperial wine glass
Lacquered outsole of the imperial wine glass
Confucius screen (clothing mirror)
It is worth mentioning that this set of lacquer screens was scattered on the ground when it was unearthed, and it was broken into many pieces. While cleaning the surface of the screen, archaeologists found texts with the life of Confucius and portraits of Confucius and his disciples. This set of components was initially called a screen, but soon because the copper plate behind it and the frame, mirror mask, mirror back picture, etc. were confirmed to be clothing mirrors, so it was referred to as "Confucius Clothing Mirror", and the portraits and text on Confucius Clothing Mirrors were very precious discoveries.
In the Han Dynasty, making such a group of lacquerware required huge manpower, material and financial resources, which no ordinary person could possess. "On the Salt and Iron Theory of Scattering Deficiencies": "With the strength of a hundred people, a screen can be the work of ten thousand people. This directly reflects the luxury of Liu He's life and has a very high cultural relics value.
Confucius screen (restored)
This set of lacquer screens (clothing mirrors) not only has the life and speech of Confucius and his disciples, but also paints their images, which is also the oldest portrait of Confucius that can be seen now. Although the image is not very clear, it can still be distinguished that the characters are Confucius and Yan Hui, as well as Zi Gan and Zi Lu, Tang Zi Yu and Zi Xia, and Zi Zhang and Zeng Zi.
Although most of this set of screens (mirrors) is mutilated, some text is retained on both the front and back. On the reverse side of the image of Confucius and his disciples, biographies of confucius and his disciples are recorded in ink books, and the text is Han li. The word "Yijing" is written directly in the front text, and the content is called "Yijing Fu", most of which is also well preserved and also Hanli, so it has high text value.
Liu He used this mirror to look at his face and his heart, so that he could seek blessings and ward off evil spirits and guard the house. Obviously different from other Hanjing, this is a face theme, in addition to the common use of the face, Liu He also uses it to cultivate himself, he is obviously using Confucius to examine himself, restrain himself, and learn how his idol Confucius in adversity how to cultivate in order to get inner peace.
3. Bronze
A total of more than 500 bronze artifacts have been excavated from the tomb of Liu He, including eating utensils, wine vessels, water vessels, daily necessities, weapons, carriages and horses, etc., which provide us with direct evidence to understand Liu He's life before his death, and it is also a batch of standard vessels for Western Han Bronze. In addition, a mountain of five-baht coins, weighing more than a dozen tons, was unearthed in the North Tibetan Pavilion of the tomb. The unearthed five-baht coin also allows us to obtain an important empirical evidence that the Han Dynasty copper coin used a thousand texts as a basic unit, pushing forward the "thousand texts consistent" currency system forward by a thousand years.
Five baht
Bronze goose fish lamp
Boshan furnace
Copper dyeing furnace
Copper stove
Copper new bell
4. Bamboo and wood
More than 5,000 bamboo tablets and nearly 100 wooden tablets have been excavated from the tomb of Marquis Haixiao, including the Western Han Dynasty's Simplified Editions of the Book of Poetry, the Book of Rites, etc., as well as Confucian classics such as the Analects and Filial Piety, as well as the first discovery of the Liubo chess score. Among them, the "Knowing" chapter was found in the Analects, which most likely belonged to the version of the Analects of Qi.
The Analects had three editions in ancient times, the Treatise on the Ancients, the Treatise on Lu, and the Treatise on Qi. The Analects we see now are versions formed from the Lu Treatise and the Ancient Treatise, and the Treatise on Qi was lost in the Han and Wei Dynasties. The biggest difference between "Qi Theory" and "Lu Theory" and "Ancient Treatise" is that there are two more articles, "Knowing Chapter" and "Asking the King". What is read in the tomb of Marquis Hai is the lost 1800-year-old "Qi Theory", which is a very important discovery in the academic circles of the whole China and even the world.
5. Jade
A total of more than 400 pieces of jade have been excavated from the tomb of Liu He, the Marquis of Haixia, scattered in different areas of the tomb, with different functions.
Jade seal
Yu Bi
Dragon phoenix-like indigod jade pendant
6. Chinese herbal medicines
The "Chinese herbal medicine" unearthed in the lacquered wooden box was once widely reported as "Cordyceps sinensis", but in recent years, after scientific testing, it has been confirmed to be the Chinese herbal medicine "cooked ground yellow", and the processing technology is speculated to be ground yellow after water and heat treatment plus excipient layer, which is the earliest chinese medicine cannon product in ancient China so far.
Although Liu He was rich and invincible, he suffered from rheumatism. In reporting Liu He's living conditions to Emperor Xuan of Han, Zhang Chang, the Taishou of Shanyang Commandery, described Liu He as "blue and black, with small eyes, sharp and humble nose, few eyebrows, a growing body, a disease, and an inconvenience in walking." Therefore, the unearthed cooked ground yellow is suspected to be a supplement for the treatment of impotence that the tomb owner Liu He ate before he died.
Experts have also verified that the most likely processing method of this cooked ground yellow is a long-lost "rice steaming method", which is used to reduce the direct contact between the herbs and iron utensils and affect the medicinal properties of the herbs. (Rice steaming later developed into a way of cooking food – steaming, such as tamales, tamales, tamales, tamales and other famous dishes from all over the world.) The confirmation of the rice steaming method also advanced the application history of China's steaming method and rice excipient processing method to 59 BC.
Liu He's tomb has unearthed more than 10,000 cultural relics, which is far from being exhaustive in a short article and a program. Looking to the future, the archaeological work of the Tomb of the Marquis of Haixia is still continuing, and the protection and restoration of excavated cultural relics are also underway. What kind of surprises will be brought to us by Hai Di Hou, and more experts and scholars need to study and interpret it in order to fully present the more real and three-dimensional Hai Di Hou and the appearance of his era in front of us, we will wait and see.