introduction
In the Shaanxi History Museum, there is a precious Tang Dynasty cultural relic, the Tang Wu Huifei Sarcophagus, which is exquisitely shaped and is simply a miniature version of the ancient palace. This uniquely shaped coffin is the coffin of Tang Xuanzong's favorite Concubine Wu Huifei, but it is not a normal archaeological excavation, but a cultural relic returned from the United States.
Speaking of the origin of this sarcophagus, there is also a legendary story: in 2006, the Xi'an Public Security Bureau seized a mobile hard disk when cracking a cultural relics case, and there were many classified archived and exquisite cultural relics photos on the hard disk, one of which attracted the attention of the police and cultural relics experts.
Hard disk with artifact photos
In 2006, when the Xi'an Municipal Public Security Bureau cracked a case of trafficking in cultural relics, it found a mobile hard disk on a cultural relics dealer. After the police opened the hard disk, they found that there were thousands of photos of various cultural relics in the hard disk, and those photos were taken in a very professional way, and the photos were classified in files, which was obviously evidence of the sale of cultural relics by cultural relics dealers and reselling cultural relics.
In order to accurately identify the cultural relics on the mobile hard disk, the Public Security Bureau recruited experts from the Shaanxi History Museum to help interpret the pictures and provide more clues for solving the case. Soon, experts found an anomaly in those pictures, there were hundreds of photos on the hard disk recording the interior of the tomb, from the photos, the tomb wall is not only exquisitely frescoes, there is a huge sarcophagus in the center of the burial chamber, and the sarcophagus has been artificially cut. From the exquisite frescoes in the burial chamber and the huge sarcophagus, experts judged that this was a high-level ancient tomb.
There are two questions before the experts of the police and the Antiquities Department:
1. What is this tomb and where is it?
2. Who are the tomb robbers?
Obviously, solving the second problem and the first problem can be solved. The answer to question 2 was quickly found by the police, and it was on the hard drive. Through technical means, the police quickly determined the identity information of the owner of the hard disk, he was Yang Bin, a well-known cultural relics dealer in Xi'an.
Yang Bin
Yang Bin was born in 1965 and is a native of Xi'an. In the 1980s, after graduating from technical school, Yang Bin was assigned to work as an artist at the Xi'an Film Studio. During his time as an artist at Xi'an Film Studio, Yang Bin developed a strong interest in photography, and he often studied photography techniques behind the photographers of Xi'an Film Studio, and it did not take long for him to master a certain degree of photography ability.
In the 1990s, Yang Bin felt that his future in the Western Film Studio was hopeless, so he resigned and went to the sea to do business. At the beginning, he poured clothes in the clothing market in Xi'an, but it was not easy to do the clothing business, and it was very cumbersome to buy and sell goods and did not make a lot of money.
By chance, Yang Bin started a business of selling cultural relics at the recommendation of a friend. At that time, the management of the cultural relics market in Xi'an was not very sound, and there were often cultural relics for sale in the market, and once the leak was picked up, it could make a lot of money. However, selling cultural relics is a technical job, relying on the eyesight and valuation ability of cultural relics dealers, so Yang Bin learned while doing business, relying on self-taught cultural relics knowledge, he soon accumulated a lot of wealth.
However, selling cultural relics in the market is after all a small business, such a small business can not meet Yang Bin's growing selfish desires, in order to make money faster, Yang Bin hit the idea to the ancient tombs around Xi'an.
Grave
Xi'an is the ancient capital of the Thirteen Dynasties, and there are many ancient tombs left by the dynasties in and around Xi'an City. There is a joke that Xi'an is busy with subway construction personnel, but the archaeological team, which shows that there are countless ancient tomb relics under the ground in Xi'an.
After many inquiries, Yang Bin stared at an unnamed Tang tomb outside the village of Pangliu Village in Chang'an District, he heard that this ancient tomb had been stolen by others before, and many exquisite cultural relics had been excavated inside, and now there was only a huge sarcophagus left in the tomb, because the sarcophagus was too big and too heavy, so it was not stolen and excavated.
Yang Bin found a few people to dig a robber hole first, he personally drilled into the ancient tomb to check the situation, after entering the ancient tomb, he found that there was only a huge sarcophagus and exquisite murals on the tomb wall. Seeing this scene, Yang Bin was very excited, and he used his excellent photography skills to take pictures of the murals and coffins in the tomb, and then took the photos around to look for buyers. Later, an American antiquities dealer agreed to buy the huge coffin for $1 million.
After finding a buyer, in 2004 Yang Bin found a group of people and began to rob the tomb. In order to hide their eyes and ears, they dug graves at night and rested during the day, and some nearby villagers sensed that something was wrong and went forward to inquire, only to be scared away by several strong men with knives and sticks.
Because most of the young and middle-aged people in Pangliu Village went out to work, and the people left behind at home were old, weak, sick and disabled, unable to organize personnel to fight with them, so yang Bin and his gang's tomb robbery operation went very smoothly, and in only 6 days, they cut the sarcophagus and mural into pieces, and hoisted out of the ancient tomb with a local crane called "Hulujing".
Yang Bin's gang of tomb robbers showed his professional means of tomb robbery in the process of stealing this ancient tomb, and later the police found in his hard disk that he made a detailed plan for this tomb robbery, which not only had a plan for how to cut the murals and sarcophagus, but also how to transport and preserve the plan, some of which he had researched himself, and some of which were directly from overseas professional buyers.
The sarcophagus and murals were first transported to a warehouse in the eastern suburbs of Xi'an, after which Yang Bin received $1 million from a buyer, who transported the sarcophagus to Guangzhou in a logistics truck and smuggled them to the United States from there.
Concubine Wu
According to Yang Bin's confession, the police quickly found the tomb he stole, and the archaeologists opened the tomb and found that the tomb was empty, and only a "beauty picture" mural was left in the tomb after being looted by Yang Bin. According to expert identification, this ancient tomb is the tomb of Wu Huifei, the favorite of Tang Xuanzong Li Longji, Jingling.
As we all know, Tang Xuanzong Li Longji and Yang Yuhuan had a poignant love story, but before Yang Yuhuan appeared, Tang Xuanzong's favorite was Wu Huifei.
Concubine Wu huifei is the niece of the absolute empress Wu Zetian, he was born beautiful, ice and snow smart, when he was young, he was sent to the palace by his father, accompanied by Wu Zetian, and deeply doted on by Wu Zetian.
The well-behaved and beautiful Concubine Wu Hui was favored by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and became an imperial concubine after becoming an adult. She gave birth to four sons and three daughters for Tang Xuanzong in her lifetime, and Tang Xuanzong even wanted to make Wu Huifei empress at one time, but because the courtiers had many scruples about Wu Huifei with the surname Wu after Wu Zetian was liquidated, the imperial court unanimously opposed Tang Xuanzong's establishment of Wu Huifei as empress, and Wu Huifei ultimately failed to become an empress.
However, this did not affect Tang Xuanzong's favor for Concubine Wu Huifei, who was Tang Xuanzong's favorite imperial concubine during her lifetime. After Wu Huifei's death, Tang Xuanzong posthumously named her "Empress Zhenshun", and the two words "Zhenshun" can be seen in the status of Wu Guifei in Tang Xuanzong's mind, and Wu Huifei's mausoleum was later called "Jingling".
Wu Huifei had a smooth life and was deeply favored by Tang Xuanzong, and she may not have even dreamed that more than 1,000 years after her death, not only was the tomb stolen and looted by tomb thieves, but even her coffin was sold abroad.
epilogue
After learning that Wu Huifei's sarcophagus was sold to the United States, the relevant departments found that the purchase of the sarcophagus was a wealthy American businessman after investigation, and after negotiating and communicating with the rich businessman, China finally pursued Wu Huifei's sarcophagus back to China in 2010 in accordance with the cultural relics recovery law.
Wu Huifei sarcophagus was later sent to the Shaanxi History Museum, this sarcophagus is one of the few sarcophagi in China's history to be built in the shape of a house, its cultural relics value is very high, for experts to study the history and culture of the Tang Dynasty provides a rare physical basis, is a national treasure level of cultural relics.