In Henan, there is a precious Warring States site from more than 2,000 years ago, which was widely known 89 years ago. On May 7, 2021, archaeologists were busy nervously within the site of Xincun Village in Hebi City, Henan Province. Only because this ordinary land under their feet is buried with the ruins of a super large ancient settlement with an area of about 10 square kilometers!
A large number of large tomb sites scattered during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, in which dozens of princes with the surname Ji and their courtiers are buried.
In fact, as early as 89 years ago, archaeologists have already excavated this! And experts already know something about the site complex. At that time, 82 ancient tombs of the Western Zhou Dynasty, including 8 large tombs of monarchs, and 14 chema pits were successively cleaned up. It was this excavation that the archaeological community officially opened the prelude to the archaeology and research of China's Western Zhou Dynasty! However, it is regrettable that because the ancient tombs excavated in that year have long been stolen, the excavated cultural relics are very rare, and the value of cultural relics is not high. After 89 years, new excavations are about to begin, what surprises will the remaining tombs bring to future generations, and will they be able to unravel the problems that have puzzled scholars for a hundred years? In order to solve the difficulties, archaeologists decided to select several relics units for trial excavation and exploration. Excavations began in early April, and unlike 89 years ago, the basic conditions of the remains of the cemetery had already been surveyed with the help of modern technology and sophisticated instruments.
The archaeological album published in 1964 has long recorded the XinXian Tomb, and its author was the person in charge of the excavation work that year. All the large tombs in the tomb group have burial passages that symbolize the status of the nobility, which is a typical feature of ancient aristocratic tombs. The large tomb chamber is about 6.3 to 10.6 meters long and about 5 to 9 meters wide, and some large tombs are juxtaposed. It may be a joint burial tomb of the princes and their wives. The medium-sized tombs in the tomb group are 2.85 to 3.9 meters long and 1.6 to 3.2 meters wide. The owners of these medium-sized tombs were probably gong and high-ranking officials. In view of the records and the results of previous excavations. Experts did not rush to excavate the tombs in the tomb group. Experts targeted two medium-sized tombs in the tomb complex and a carriage pit as the targets of earlier excavations. The target of this excavation is far from the population and inaccessible. I think that the early tomb robbery activities should not have spread here. The tomb should be very well preserved. Archaeologists took the lead in cleaning up a tomb, but during the burial filling period, the problem arose! Experts found traces of vandalism, excavated down to the bottom of the tomb, and found no valuable items.
The burial pits were so large that decaying wooden vehicles were extremely difficult to clean, and they were ultimately declared fruitless. Now all the hopes of the experts are pinned on the tomb No. 3, which is about to be excavated, after all, the results of nothing are always discouraging. Is there really nothing left for posterity in this ancient land on the bank of the QiHe River? After a long search, the good news finally came from Tomb 3, and the cemetery was unusually untouched by tomb robbers. The burial of livestock, martyrs, rafters, and a large number of burial utensils appeared one after another! It should be known that the Xincun site is located in the hinterland of the Central Plains, and the geological culture has experienced countless dry and wet changes over the centuries. In such a loose and soft soil environment, the wooden coffin has long since decayed into mud. However, the lacquer layer on the outside of the lacquered wood is still preserved. In the process of cleaning up the burial pit to fill the soil, experts accidentally found some white bones on a workbench just 20 centimeters from the lid of the chamber.
Bones
These animal remains were apparently the livestock of the tomb owner, and it was common in ancient China to be buried with slaughtered livestock. There is a smashed clay pot near the livestock, which is a very typical Western Zhou funerary custom. This is to distinguish the utensils used by the deceased and the living, so it is called fragment burial. This custom originated in the early Yangshao culture, which dates back about 7,000 years, but it is very surprising that these two relic cultures appear in a tomb at the same time!
After all, such strange phenomena rarely appear in the tombs of the Zhou Dynasty, and the funerals of the Zhou Dynasty have clear rules and systems. Unbeknownst to you, the bronze inscriptions unearthed as early as 1932 have already revealed the identity of the tomb owners in the ancient cemetery. They were the defenders of the country and their courtiers, with prominent status and honorable status. The ruins of Xin Village are most likely the seat of the Wei capital. In the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, King Wu died of illness the year after the fall of the King, and his brother Zhou Gongdan decided to make a temporary regency due to the young age of King Cheng. At this time, Uncle Cai, who was in charge of monitoring the migration of Yin Shang, took the opportunity to join forces with Wu Geng, the son of King Huan, to launch a rebellion, known in history as the Rebellion of the Three Prisons. The rebellion was put down after several twists and turns, after which Zhou Gongdan's younger brother Uncle Kang was divided into feudal guards to manage the remnants of Yin Shang. The Wei state was thus established and became one of the more powerful princely states. Weiguo was located in the core of the Yin Shang Dynasty and shouldered the heavy responsibility of defending the Zhou royal family. It is precisely because of the heavy responsibility that the military strength of the Wei state in the early days of its establishment was extremely strong, and it can be called the head of the princes with the surname Ji. During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the royal family declined, zhou tianzi was no longer the co-lord of the world, the ceremony collapsed, the princes killed frequently, and the society was in turmoil. However, the Wei family, which belongs to the same lineage as the royal family, has survived many crises, and their rule over this land has lasted for thousands of years, which can be described as long-lasting! Weiguo, as a princely state with the surname Ji, why do the funeral customs of the Yin Shang era frequently appear in the tombs of the nobles of Weiguo?
Since then, two more martyr skeletons have appeared on the soil at the top of the chamber, they are not yet ten years old, which can be regarded as very young. From this we can see how miserable the fate of slaves with low social hierarchies is, and the status of people is not as good as that of pigs, dogs and livestock. The custom of martyrdom was most popular in the Shang Dynasty, greatly reduced in the Zhou Dynasty, and the nobles of the Zhou Dynasty usually used human figurines instead of slaves for burial. It can be seen that the civilization development of the Zhou royal family was indeed very developed, and civilization finally defeated ignorance. The Shang Dynasty's act of killing and martyrdom not only barbaric but also greatly destroyed social production, but also reduced the social labor force. Who is the owner of Tomb No. 3? Why were martyred slaves in his tomb? Despite the presence of so many incredible factors in the tomb, it is undeniable that Tomb 3 has brought many surprising discoveries to experts.
A large number of bronze ceremonial vessels and a small number of weapons have been unearthed in the soil in the southern part of the chamber, which is more abundant than the harvest in 1932! The huge contrast makes the experts rejoice and rejoice! It seems that the success of solving the mystery of the tomb is just around the corner. Under the guidance of senior experts
The previously humble details of the tombs were quickly magnified, and these details brought subversive new understandings to the experts! Among the newly discovered bronze knights, experts have found many remnants of unknown liquids, you know that the knights are wine vessels! It is also one of the important burial items in the tombs of nobles in the pre-Qin period. They are usually beloved objects that the owner of the tomb drank and used during his lifetime.
In the tomb, there are not only a lot of delicious food in the world's best wine! After all, the ancient Chinese paid attention to the funeral custom of dying like a life, which is not an empty phrase! Due to its age, it has long been impossible to distinguish the nature of the residue. It's not hard to imagine how delicious these foods are! While cleaning up the burial artifacts stacked on top of each other, experts found a number of mesh marks, which are the remnants of silk and linen. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, bronzes wrapped in silk textiles were stacked in the corner of the rafters, which shows that the owner of the tomb cherished these artifacts very much. Who knew that after the experts saw the skeletons of the three animals above the rafters, they were even more shocked to lose their jaws! Know that these three animals are the three animals that the ancients used to sacrifice the dead! But the dogs in these three animals were replaced by pigs. This seemingly minimal detail has an unusual meaning, and such a replacement is unusual during the tightly ritualized two-week period. This substitution increased the level of sacrifice, and the sacrifice was changed from three animals to a taijo. The Zhou Li records that the Tai Prison was a sacrifice specification that could only be used by the emperor's sacrifice designers. Is it difficult to become a tomb owner whose identity is comparable to Zhou Tianzi? Why did this high-ranking nobleman of the defending country have such obvious insincerity? Didn't he know that his power and wealth were given by the Son of Heaven?
Although the etiquette law of the Zhou Dynasty was strict, during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the ceremony collapsed and the phenomenon of trespassing occurred from time to time. However, due to the magnitude of the price paid, trespassing was extremely rare during the two-week period. It seems that there is such a possibility that the No. 3 tomb of Xincun may not belong to the Zhou people's burial place of the Zhou Dynasty. Since the ruins of Xin Village are very close to the Yin Ruins, perhaps some unknown place on the banks of this ancient QiHe River is the last capital of the Shang Dynasty! With the proof of the unearthed weapons, experts determined that the owner of Tomb No. 3 was not only Kong Wu powerful, but also most likely a general who fought on the battlefield! However, the preservation status of these weapons is very different from that of the neighboring ceremonial weapons! Due to the collapse of the burial chamber, the hollow bronze ceremonial vessels have been damaged to varying degrees, but surprisingly, the damage to the solid bronzes seems to be more serious! Judging from the traces of damage, this damage is not caused by the preservation environment and human use. They are caused by deliberate damage, and this bizarre funerary custom is often referred to as the destruction of soldier burials!
After the establishment of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the ruling class stopped the flag and cut the equipment to form such a peculiar funeral custom. At the same time, the destruction of military burials often only appeared in the tombs of the princes surnamed Ji. It is a typical symbol of the princes of the Zhou Dynasty. The appearance of the burial custom of destroying soldiers proves that the owner of Tomb No. 3 is indeed subordinate to the princes surnamed Wei Guoji, and it is very likely that he is a Wei Marquis!
However, the ceremonial vessels with the burial reflect the customs and characteristics of the remnants of the Shang Dynasty, from which experts deduce that the owner of Tomb No. 3 is most likely a Yin shang nobleman who was not accepted by the ruling class of the Wei state! Only in this way can the tomb of this Weiguo nobleman appear a large number of ancient funerary customs of the Yin Shang period. For the jade stored by the tomb owner, the experts can be described as very careful in extracting it, and the excavation of jade ge and Kou rong is more serious about the identity of the high-ranking nobleman of the tomb owner! Burying jade is indeed one of the funerary customs of the middle and high-ranking nobles in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the large noble tombs of the Warring States period are buried together. The funeral ceremony was also one of the symbols of aristocratic power in the Western Zhou And even the Spring and Autumn Warring States period.
However, further research and excavations have shown that mulberry leaves during the Western Zhou Dynasty could not only be used to feed silkworms, but perhaps also an important food source for people. Of course, as the tomb owners of high-ranking nobles can enjoy meaty food for a long time, the nobles have more abundant nutritional sources in their diet, so their bodies are stronger than ordinary people, and their bones are thicker!
In the middle of the burial chamber, there is an earthen pit where the bones of a dog are buried, which is located in the waist pit below the waist of the tomb owner, which is generally difficult to find.
Waist pit
The use of waist pits and burial with dogs is also a very typical funerary custom of the Shang Dynasty nobles. However, given that the owner of the tomb was originally a descendant of the Yin shang nobles and died during the period from the establishment of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Three Prisons Rebellion, these chaotic forms of burial are also understandable.