Source: China News Network
Ma Yongyi, | of archaeological cultural tourism: Looking for the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han, how was the "historical misunderstanding" corrected?
China News Service Xi'an, January 1 Title: Ma Yongyi: Looking for the Tomb of Emperor Wen of Han, how was the "misunderstanding of history" corrected?
China News Service reporter Bian Feng Alina
The Jiangcun Tomb in Bailuyuan, Xi'an, Shaanxi, is officially recognized as the tomb of Liu Heng, emperor of the Han Dynasty. This major archaeological discovery negates the traditional understanding of the "Phoenix Mouth Tomb" 2.1 kilometers north of it. In the Yuan Dynasty, there are documents that the tomb of the Han Emperor is located in the "Phoenix Mouth". The shape of the mountain here is very similar to the imperial tomb sealing soil.
How did this centuries-old "misunderstanding" come about? How is the Jiangcun Tomb recognized as the tomb of emperor Wen of Han? The emperors of the Western Han Dynasty were mostly buried in XianyangYuan, so why did Emperor Wen of Han choose Bailuyuan? What is the significance of Baling for the study of the large-scale shape system of the Western Han Dynasty Emperor's Mausoleum? Ma Yongyi, captain of the Hanling Archaeological Team, was recently interviewed by China News Agency's "East and West Question" to make an in-depth interpretation of this.
The interview transcript is summarized below:
China News Service: The traditional understanding that the Han Wen Emperor's tomb is in the "phoenix mouth", where does this "misunderstanding" come from? How does archaeological work confirm the Gangchon Tomb?
Ma Yongyi: Emperor Wen of Han Liu Heng died in Weiyang Palace in 157 BC and was buried in Baling. Emperor Wen of Han, who practiced frugality, demanded that "because of its mountains, there is no grave", so the Baling Tombs did not have tall and clear seals like other Western Han Emperors' tombs. In addition, the imperial tomb itself has confidentiality and will not be detailed in its location.
The "Three Auxiliary Yellow Maps" records that the Baling Tombs were "seventy miles east of Chang'an City, because the mountains are hidden, and there are no more graves", which demarcates an area for the location of the Imperial Tombs. The earliest clear record of Baling in the "Phoenix Mouth" is the Yuan Dynasty scholar Luo Tianjun's "Class Editor Chang'an Zhi".
In fact, scholars have always had doubts about the burial of Emperor Wen of Han in the "phoenix mouth". In the Han Dynasty, the emperor implemented the system of "same cave" for the empress, and the general empress mausoleum would not be too far away, and the "phoenix mouth" was more than 2,000 meters away from the tomb of Empress Dou. In addition, there are no signs of artificial construction in or around the "Phoenix Mouth".
In recent years, we have adopted a variety of technical means such as archaeological exploration and geological exploration to conduct a large-scale and meticulous exploration of the "Phoenix Mouth", in addition to more than 10 Ming and Qing Dynasty stele stones, no tomb relics have been found, which basically excludes the possibility of being a mausoleum.
It is passed down as the "phoenix mouth" of the Han Wen Emperor's tomb. Courtesy of The Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute
Through archaeological work, we found that the Jiangcun Tomb, 800 meters away from the Mausoleum of Empress Dou, is a very large "Ya" shaped mausoleum with four tomb passages, and the surface is not sealed. According to the etiquette regulations, only the emperor and empress level could use the "Ya" shaped mausoleum with four tomb passages.
115 outer pits were found around the Jiangcun Tomb, which are regularly distributed around the tomb. In the excavated outer pit, a number of clothed clay figurines with a large number of painted paintings of the Ming organs have been unearthed. At the same time, cemetery facilities such as the "Stone Boundary" and the Gate Que Base Site were also discovered.
The outer pit of the Gangchon Tomb contains a large number of clay figurines. China News Service reporter Zhang Yuan photographed
The key evidence is that we found the remains of the outer cemetery wall of the tomb of Weihe Jiangcun and the mausoleum of Empress Dou, and we can bury a mausoleum with the empress, and the identity of the owner of the tomb can be imagined.
According to the results of archaeological investigation, exploration and excavation, the ruins of Jiangcun Tomb and its surrounding area have formed a relatively complete mausoleum area, which is similar to the shape and system of the Western Han Emperor's 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, a similar overall scale, and an obvious development and evolution trajectory. In summary, we believe that the Gangchon Tomb should be a baling tomb.
Aerial panorama of baling mausoleum area (Empress Dou Mausoleum, Gangchon Tomb Excavation Site, Nanling Tomb). Courtesy of The Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute
China News Service: The Emperor of the Western Han Dynasty was mostly buried in Xianyangyuan. Why did Emperor Wen of Han not bury the ancestral tomb area, but chose the White Deer Plain in the east?
Ma Yongyi: The 11 emperors of the Western Han Dynasty were all buried near Chang'an City in the Western Han Dynasty. Except for the Han Wen Emperor Baling and the Han Xuan Emperor Duling, which are located in Bailuyuan in the eastern suburbs of Xi'an and Dulingyuan in the southeast of Xi'an, the remaining 9 are distributed in Xianyangyuan on the north bank of the Wei River.
Why did Emperor Wen of Han choose Bailuyuan for burial? I think the main purpose is to solve the funeral etiquette of his birth mother, Empress Bo, and to take into account the political needs of guarding the main roads of communication and defending the eastern princes, as well as the personal emotional factors of Emperor Wen of Han.
Emperor Wen of Han succeeded to the throne as emperor, and his mother Gui gui was the empress, so bo's tomb regulations were not only related to her ultimate status, but also affected the legitimacy of Emperor Wen of Han's succession. In addition, Emperor Wen of Han had long been dependent on his mother and had deep feelings for her. If Empress Bo was buried in the ancestral tomb of Han Gao, she could only be buried as a concubine, and her burial regulations would be greatly reduced, which would obviously degrade the Bo clan, who had been honored as the empress dowager, and was also unacceptable to the filial and obedient Emperor Wen of Han.
The situation was similar to that of Emperor Wen of Han. Therefore, Emperor Wen of Han followed the old practice of the previous dynasty and left the Zuling District to choose a new site and bury himself with his mother. On the grounds of "near emperor Xiaowen's tomb", it is logical that the bo clan could build a mausoleum near the tomb with the courtesy of the empress dowager.
The location of Baling was also influenced by the political situation at the time. When Emperor Wen of Han ascended the throne, his father and brother had built a buffer zone on the north side of the capital in the form of a mausoleum to resist the threat of the Xiongnu. However, there was no barrier east of Chang'an except for Hangu Pass and Wu Pass, and once the Pass fell, the capital was in danger. At that time, the threat from the princes of the same surname in the East was becoming increasingly serious. In this case, Emperor Wen of Han chose to build mausoleums at key locations and set up mausoleums to migrate people and form a barrier to the capital.
In addition, I think personal emotional factors may affect site selection. On the one hand, Emperor Wen of Han's childhood situation made him and his father Liu Bang have a strange relationship and did not want to be buried next to his father. And his nostalgia for his early fiefdom may also affect the location of the Baling. Emperor Shangjian of the Han Dynasty, whose tomb could not afford to be sealed, if buried with his father in XianyangYuan, contrasted with the tall seal of his father's mausoleum, it was inevitable that he would have the meaning of belittling his father and praising himself, which was also one of the important considerations.
View of the excavation site of Gangchon Tomb No. 1. Courtesy of The Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute
China News Service: Compared with the "Shangjian" of Baling, why did the Nanling tomb of Empress Bo, the mother of Emperor Wen of Han, unearth a lot of gold and silver objects with the style of grassland culture?
Ma Yongyi: Emperor Wendi of Han had a very deep affection for his mother, and this time in the outer pit of Empress Bo's Southern Tomb, we excavated a lot of gold and silver ware with the style of grassland culture, and also showed Emperor Wendi's attitude towards his mother's thick burial.
Emperor Wen of Han had been the king of the Daiguo for more than 10 years before he succeeded to the throne, and Empress Bo also lived in the Daiguo for a long time, and this batch of gold and silverware with the style of grassland culture may be related to the life experience of their mother and son in the Daiguo. Daiguo was located in the north of present-day Shanxi, bordering the Xiongnu to the north, and their cultural exchange was very convenient.
On the other hand, these gold and silverware may also have been introduced to the court at that time, or made in Han Dynasty handicraft workshops modeled after the grassland style. However, in either case, it is direct evidence of the exchange and integration of agricultural and pastoral culture in the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, and witnesses the historical development trend of Chinese civilization from "pluralism" to "integration".
Photograph of the hanling archaeological team working. Courtesy of The Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute
China News Service: How do you view the significance of discovering Baling? What are the future plans for the protection of Baling?
Ma Yongyi: The clarification of the location of the Tombs has solved the problem of the names of the 11 imperial tombs of the Western Han Dynasty. The basic grasp of the scale, shape, layout and connotation of the Western Han Dynasty Imperial Tombs, including the Baling Tombs, provides detailed archaeological data for the study of the formation and development of the Western Han Imperial Tomb System.
Baling is a key link in the development and evolution of the Western Han Dynasty imperial mausoleum system. Previously, the Ancestral Tomb of Han Gao and the An Mausoleum of Emperor Hui of Han were jointly buried by the Emperor and Empress, but there was only one large cemetery enclosing the Mausoleum of the Empress, which had ancillary facilities, including a sacrificial sleeping hall, a toilet hall, a mausoleum temple, etc., and also an outer hidden pit.
From the Han Wen Emperor's mausoleum, a double mausoleum began to appear, that is, in addition to the large mausoleum enclosing the tombs of the emperor and the empress, there was a pebble-paved "stone boundary" around the Jiangcun tomb, and there were also rammed wall sites on all four sides of the Tomb of Empress Dou, which actually highlighted the central position of the emperor in the entire mausoleum area. After Emperor Wen of Han, the Emperors of the Western Han Dynasty adopted dual mausoleums.
In addition, a number of ming organ seals such as "Zhongsikong Seal", "Zhongsikong Cheng", "Mountain Official" and "Cangyin" were cleared out of the Outer Tibet Pit, indicating that the Outer Tibet Pit should be built to imitate the actual official office and the government treasury. The outer pits, which symbolize the official storage institutions, began to be consciously distributed around the emperor's mausoleum. The mausoleum is a manifestation of imperial power, which also reflects the further strengthening of centralized power during the Han Dynasty.
Seals such as the "Zhongsikong Seal" excavated from the pit outside the Jiangcun Tomb. Courtesy of The Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute
Copper gears and copper components excavated from the pit outside the Jiangcun Tomb. Courtesy of The Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute
The double mausoleum of Baling, the center of the imperial tomb, and the layout of the outer tibetan pit around the imperial tomb are the earliest appearances in the western Han Dynasty imperial mausoleum, and from the shape of the mausoleum, the central position of the emperor is consciously highlighted. Combined with the historical documents, it shows that the political concept of the Western Han Empire with the emperor's exclusive dignity and centralized power has been initially established.
In the future, the focus of our work is to do a good job in the protection of Baling. On the other hand, our archaeological work is not over, we must more carefully and comprehensively collect and sort out excavation data, do a good job in the protection of cultural relics unearthed at the site, and further strengthen the research and collation of the later stage of archaeology, so that this batch of archaeological data can be released to the society as soon as possible, so that the whole society can share cultural resources. (End)
Respondent Profiles:
Ma Yongyi, captain of the Hanling Archaeological Team. I provide the picture
Ma Yongyi, born in July 1965, is a native of Xi'an, Shaanxi. Researcher of Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology, leader of The Hanling Archaeological Team. Since 1995, he has been engaged in the archaeological research of the Western Han Emperor's Mausoleum for a long time, and has participated in the archaeological work of 11 imperial tombs of the Western Han Dynasty such as the Changling Tomb of han Gaozu, and is now presiding over the archaeological excavation project of the Han Wen Emperor's Mausoleum.