As mentioned earlier, the Japanese stole the goguryeo tombs in Jilin Province, and from this article onwards, let's talk about the Japanese's excavation of the tombs of the Liao Dynasty emperors in China - the protagonist of this incident is the Japanese East Asian Archaeological Society.
Pictured: The Emperor of the Liao Dynasty was seriously stolen and destroyed, and the picture shows the exposed mural wall of the underground palace
East Asian Archaeological Society, a well-known archaeological academic organization in Japan. It was organized by Kosho Hamada of Kyoto Imperial University and Shuto Harada of Tokyo Imperial University in 1925 (14th year of the Republic of China and 14th year of Nissho Taisho), and was officially established in Todachi in March 1927 (16th year of the Republic of China, 2nd year of Nichi show). The main characters are Yukio Kobayashi and Shizo Tamura.
Around the 1930s of the Republic of China, the society systematically excavated the tombs of the Liao Dynasty emperors and other Chinese monuments in chifeng, Inner Mongolia, on many occasions.
During the Republic of China, the tombs of the Liao Dynasty emperors and the ruins of the capital city were seriously excavated many times, and these situations are mentioned in other chapters of the History of Tomb Robbery in the Republic of China. These excavations belong to the "filter pit" behavior often said in the tomb robbery circle in the past, and cannot be regarded as the first thief. Among them, with the Japanese "filter pit" activity as the most important, they took the "East Asian Archaeological Society" as the main body, in the name of archaeology and investigation, carried out a comprehensive excavation of the Liaoling Tomb in the territory of chifeng in present-day Inner Mongolia, and later published a number of monographs in this regard.
Pictured: The head plate of the coffin of the Liao Dynasty painted lacquer coffin unearthed in Inner Mongolia
⊙ the Japanese had seen the coffin of Emperor Shengzong of Liao
Chifeng, one of the birthplaces of Chinese civilization, is located in the southeast of the present-day Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, named after the ochre red peaks in the territory, and more than 6,800 ancient human cultural sites have been discovered. After history, Chifeng was the center of ethnic minority activities in northern China, and the birthplace of steppe bronze culture and Khitan and Liao culture.
For this place with a unique history, Japan, which has been voyeuristic about Chinese culture for a long time, will naturally not let go. The early and influential Japanese tomb robbers who entered the Chifeng area were called Torii Ryuzo in 1908 (34 years of Guangxu and 41 years of Japanese Meiji).
Torii Ryūzo (1870-1953), a native of Tokushima, Shikoku, Japan, was a famous Anthropologist and archaeologist in Japan. He was a long-time visiting professor at Yenching University in Beijing. The Anthropology Classroom of the Faculty of Science of Tokyo Imperial University, chaired by Shogoro Hirai and others, is a traditional archaeology research department in Japan.
Photo: Torii Ryuzo
At that time, the 12th king of Qaraqin, Gongsan Norbu, founded the "Chongzheng Academy" and hired a number of foreign teachers, including Kawahara Fuzi, who was a spy. After Kawahara's return to China, Gonsan Norbu invited Torii Ryuzo and his wife Uju Junzi from Japan to serve as the chief teacher of Yumasa Girls' School and Chongxue School, respectively. Prior to this, Torii Ryuzo had successively gone to Taiwan in China, as well as Xiang, Qian, Dian, Shu and other places to investigate.
Under the cover of his status as a teacher, Torii Ryūzo carried out a two-year-long anthropological archaeological survey in inner Mongolia. In 1911 (the third year of Xuan reunification, the 44th year of the Japanese era), the book "Mongolian Travels" was published, which described his trip to China and his investigation activities in the local area.
Pictured: Torii Dragon hiding in the area of the Left Banner of Bahrain
In 1914 (the third year of the Republic of China and the third year of The Great Japanese Orthodoxy), Torii Ryuzo published an article entitled "The Primitive Inhabitants of Eastern Mongolia", which caused a shock in the world archaeological community. Subsequently, archaeologists from the East and the West followed.
Torii Ryuzo went to the Left Banner of Bahrain three times in 1908 (the 34th year of Guangxu and the 41st year of the Japanese Meiji), 1930 (the 19th year of the Republic of China, the 5th year of the Japanese Showa) and 1933 (the 22nd year of the Republic of China, the 8th year of the Japanese Showa) to carry out cultural relics surveys.
In 1933 (the 22nd year of the Republic of China, the eighth year of the Japanese Showa), Torii Ryuzo was commissioned by the Japanese "Institute of Oriental Culture" to once again go deep into the Northeast and Chifeng regions to investigate the remains of the Liao culture and the relics of the Neolithic Period. Torii Ryuzo used his connections with the Qaraqin royal palace to win the support of the Mongolian elites of the Zhao and Zhuo leagues, and was escorted by the local royal guards when "investigating" throughout the territory. It has successively patronized a large number of Liao Dynasty sites such as Liaozhongjing, Liaoshangjing, Zuzhou, Gyeongju, Dongshan Grotto Temple, and Liaoqing Mausoleum.
Pictured: The Liao Dynasty painted the coffins of the four gods and nobles
Torii Ryuzo later said that when he entered the circular back room of the Tanglin Underground Palace of Liao Shengzong in the Liaoqing Mausoleum, he also saw the coffin of Emperor Shengzong of Liao, which was neatly arranged with wooden figurines dressed in Khitan and Han costumes. Today, most of these relics have disappeared, and only 2 wooden figurines with scarves on their heads and eyes staring ahead have been found.
Three "investigations" of Ryuzo Torii stolen a large number of Chinese cultural relics. Later, without permission from the Chinese government, he smuggled all the stolen cultural relics back to Japan. Now, in the museum built in his hometown of Tokushima City, a large number of precious cultural relics excavated in Chifeng are displayed, of which the funerary items in the Liaoqing Mausoleum are the most precious.