Datong City Small Station Village Flower Pagoda Taipei Wei Tomb Cleanup Briefing
Cultural Relics, No. 08, 1983, Datong City Museum, Ma Yuji
On September 17, 1981, an engineer of a certain unit of the Datong garrison dug a trench for the exercise and found a Northern Wei tomb. The Datong City Museum sent staff to clean up, and the cleanup was completed by September 23. The briefing is as follows.
1. Burial location and kudzu chamber structure
This Northern Wei tomb is located in Huafang Tower, a small station village five kilometers west of Datong City, south of Tongyun Highway, and half a kilometer west of Wuzhou Mountain Dew. The tomb consists of a burial passage, a corridor and a front and rear burial chamber, with a total length of 12.2 meters and a maximum width of 4.62 meters (Fig. 1), made of blue-gray plain bricks. The length, width and height of the tomb tiles are 35x17x6.5, 36 x 17 x 6.8, and 37 x 17 x 6 cm, respectively. The tomb is 5 degrees east-south.
The cemetery had been destroyed before excavations. The Yongdao gate has a sealed door brick, built of Ding brick, 2.1 high, 1.99 wide and 0.35 meters thick. The yongdao is 5.1 meters long, 1.46 wide and 1.97 meters high. The east and west walls of the Yongdao road are first built with two layers of smooth bricks, on which two dings and one shun are used as one layer, and after three layers are built, they gradually rise up, and the top is arched. The ground of the Yongdao slopes about 2 degrees down from south to north (Figure 2).
The antechamber also has a door and a closed door brick, which is 1.3 meters high, 1.4 wide and 0.35 meters thick, and the bricks are one by one, and are built of yellow-brown plain earth. The front chamber is 2.3 meters long, 1.38 wide and 1.97 meters high. The east and west walls are masonry the same as the yongdao, and the top is also arched. The top of the door opening between the front and rear chambers is two coupons and one volt, that is, one volt is sandwiched between two layers of vertical bricks. The top of the rear chamber was completely destroyed, and the four walls were also destroyed even more, only the northeast corner remained higher (Figure 3). The four walls were first built with two layers of smooth bricks, and then two dings and one smooth as one layer, six layers in a row, and then the ding bricks were staggered to the top, and they were also built with yellow-brown plain earth. The middle of the four walls of the posterior chamber is convex outward, the east wall is 4.4 meters long, the central convex is 10 cm, the south wall is 4.47 m long, the middle is the Yongdaokou, the west wall is 4.3 meters long, and the central outer convex is 11 cm; the north wall is 4.63 meters long and the central outer convex is 19 cm.
The burial chamber and the corridor have two floor tiles, the first floor is made of polished bricks, and the second floor is herringbone masonry.
2. Unearthed relics
The tomb was severely damaged before it was cleaned up. In addition, a large number of bricks and silt were found under the north wall of the back room, and it was analyzed that there were early robbery holes in the middle of the north wall. Most of the artifacts in the tomb were stolen or destroyed, and only gilded Persian silver plates, high-foot silver cups, silver ear cups, iron coffin rings, iron coffin nails, iron flower coffin ornaments, stone lampstands, epitaphs, celadon pieces, pottery pieces, iron axes, iron pickaxes and other relics were excavated, which are now described as follows.
silverware
Gilded Persian silver plate. Disc height 4.1, caliber 18 cm, hoop foot diameter 4.5, height 1.4 cm. There are three spirals along the inner edge of the disc. In the center of the disc there is a knocked flower convex figure, deep eyes and high nose, curly hair and long hair, wearing a crown on the head, ears and necks are decorated with jewels, wearing tights and pants, with streamers, and holding long-handled weapons. There are three wild boars in the surrounding vegetation. The picture seems to be a hunting map. The silver plate is finely made, and the picture image is realistic (plate one figure 4 and 5).
One ear cup. Shaped like a yuanbao, the two ends are upturned, similar to the Chinese ear cup. The cup is 12.9 cm long, 7.2 cm wide, 4.3 cm high at both ends and 3.6 cm high in the middle. The bottom of the cup has an oval circle foot, 4.3 meters long, 3.9 meters wide, 0.4 cm high, and the foot edges are beaded. The left and right ears are 0.4 cm below the rim of the mouth, 5.8 cm long and 1.1 cm wide, and have double rows of beads around the ears. This cup is an innovative work based on the Han'er cup, elegant in shape and well preserved (Plate 1:2)
One goblet. Disabled. The ventral diameter is about 12.7 cm and the plantar diameter is 6 cm. The cup wall is extremely thin, only 0.01 cm (Figure 6).
ironware
Four coffin rings. It is made of iron bars with a diameter of 12 cm. The ring diameter is 10.3 cm, and the interface is flat and markless. Excavated in the middle of the back chamber (Figure 7)
Coffin nails eleven pieces. The nail cap is a cone, the nail body is a four-sided body, tapering from top to bottom, the maximum diameter is 0.8 cm, and the length varies from 16-21 cm. It was also excavated in the middle of the posterior chamber (Fig. IX).
Four pieces of coffin ornaments. Flower shape, diameter 6.5, thickness 0.1 cm. It was excavated in front of the original coffin (Fig. 8).
In the silt in the east-central part of the north wall of the burial chamber, an iron pickaxe and an iron axe were unearthed, which are probably tools left by early pirates.
stoneware
Three pieces of a lampstand. It was excavated in the southeast, southwest and northeast of the posterior chamber. Made of yellow-white sandstone, it is basically the same size. Height 52 cm, upper oil bowl mouth outer diameter of 16.5, inner diameter 12.5, height 9.5 cm, lampstand waist height 30.5 cm, square base side length of 17 cm, the base and the two-story platform on it a total height of 12 cm (Figure 1 O).
One epitaph. It was excavated in the southwest of the posterior chamber. Limestone, black cyan. Height 42, width 33, thickness 8.3 cm, base length 42, width 25.5, height 15 cm. The inscription is a Wei stele, divided into twelve lines, twelve characters per line, counting 141 characters, each word is 2.8 cm square, and the words are engraved with thin lines between the words (Figures 11, 12).
In addition, in front of the original coffin, a large number of pottery and porcelain pieces were also cleared, and due to the serious damage, the shape of the vessel could not be recognized.
3. Summary
According to the epitaph, the tomb owner's name is Feng and Sudden. This person is not found in the Book of Wei. Extrapolating from the inscriptions, he was born during the reign of Emperor Taiwu, and the scriptures were written in the dynasties of Cheng, Xianwen, Xiaowen, and Yiwu Emperor. When the Northern Wei Dynasty moved its capital to Luoyang, he also went with him. The inscription does not record his exploits to the Northern Wei Dynasty, only his official titles. Fenghetu Tomb is a small tomb after the Northern Wei Dynasty moved the capital Luoyang, the shape is relatively simple, the four walls of the interior are not painted, which is about his death in the second year of Jingming (501), and then in the first year of zhengshi (504) for the second burial. In the epitaph there is a record of "Bu Zhaowu Perimeter". There were four counties in Northern Wei Dynasty, Namengcheng, Taiping, Wuzhou, and Yonggu, and the boundaries of each county were unclear, and the records in the epitaph of the present-day Feng clan provide empirical evidence for the location of Wuzhou County, Northern Wei Dynasty County. The gold and silver plates unearthed in Jizhong are the crafts of the early Sassanid Dynasty of ancient Persia, which is the first Persian silver plate unearthed in China. In the past, Datong has also unearthed silver bowls and gold tall copper cups with a strong West Asian style. These artifacts are all physical materials for the cultural exchanges between China and the West during the Northern Wei Dynasty.
(Excavation participant: Zhang Shengli)