One day in September 1983, archaeologists were demolishing the tomb door of a large tomb in Guyuan Shengou Village, when suddenly, a heavy bang filled the dust with a choking nose, and the leader of the team, Han Zhaomin, was suddenly pushed down by an invisible force, and was buried in the soil below his neck in an instant, just at this moment he heard someone shouting in panic: Collapse!
Tomb ruins
Perhaps it was the strength brought by the instinct to survive, Han Zhaomin used all his strength to stomp on both legs and climbed out of the rubble mound. Looking back and seeing that the other colleagues were also safe and sound, Han Zhaomin breathed a long sigh of relief.
However, what pained him was that the murals on both sides of the tomb were damaged to varying degrees due to the collapse, and these murals were the artistic creations of the top craftsmen in ancient times and had high cultural relics value. Han Zhaomin thought that he could not wait any longer, and immediately decided to ask professionals to copy the mural first.
The key next step is how to ensure the safety of staff?
At a time when there was no way out, the Guyuan Military Sub-district sent a truck of engineering planks for free, and the archaeologists strengthened the tomb wall with wooden planks, which greatly reduced the risk of collapse, and Han Zhaomin's hanging heart finally let go.
Soon, Zhang Xinzhi, director of the Guyuan Bogu Museum, led a number of female comrades of the Cultural Management Office to enthusiastically devote themselves to the copying of the murals, during which there were still sporadic dust of earth falling from time to time, and no one cared.
Unexpectedly, the accident happened again, still with the familiar loud noise, a large piece of earth fell off, and most of the female comrade Xiao Wang's body was buried in the soil.
Everyone struggled to rip open the dirt block to rescue Xiao Wang, and urgently sent her to the county hospital, and finally got out of danger after rescue.
Although they have been repeatedly endangered, when they thought of rescuing and protecting national treasures, archaeologists went down to the tomb.
This time, they first went all out to clear the dangerous earthworks, and then successfully removed the frescoes intact. There were more than 40 original murals in the tomb, but due to the serious collapse, more than 20 remain.
epitaph
After the fresco has been copied, it is about to enter the excavation stage of the main burial chamber. Due to the successive landslides, the archaeological team decided to abandon the original plan of entering through the tomb door and change to the method of the big roof.
This large tomb can have a 42-meter-long burial passage, a 3-hole patio, and it is obvious that the identity of the owner of the tomb is extraordinary, who is he? How many precious artifacts are buried in the tomb?
Everyone's heart is full of infinite expectations.
However, on the first day of the destruction of the seal, the archaeologists suffered a heavy blow because they found a robbery hole.
Without any suspense, the robbery cave has penetrated the burial chamber, and the cultural relics in the tomb are afraid of being more fierce and less auspicious, and a feeling of disappointment suddenly spreads.
A few days later, all the dirt above the burial chamber was removed, and the archaeologists were not presented with a spacious and open burial chamber, but a mountain of silt.
With the further deepening of the cleaning of the tomb, some cultural relics that the tomb robbers could not see surfaced.
A large number of brightly painted terracotta warriors were found at the bottom of the Yongdao Pass, which were arranged in an orderly and strict manner, as if guarding the tranquility of the tomb owner's netherworld.
Unearthed town tomb beasts
Soon, an epitaph appeared, and the center of the epitaph cover was engraved with nine large characters of "Inscription of Wu Junjun of the Wei Dynasty Li Clan".
Wei refers to the Western Wei, a local government that split off from the Northern Wei during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and junjun is a title for women of high status in ancient China, and these nine characters indicate that the owner of the tomb is a woman with a higher status surnamed Wu, and her husband's surname is Li.
The archaeologists were puzzled as to why the owner of the female tomb would accompany the fully draped armored cavalry, was he a female general?
The confusion was quickly dispelled as two days later an epitaph inscribed with the inscription "Great Zhou Zhu Guo Hexi Cemetery" appeared, which was the woman's husband.
His name was Li Xian, after the Han general Li Guang, who originated from Li Ling and was born in 502 AD.
In the last years of the Northern Wei Dynasty, he helped the powerful minister Yuwen Tai to establish the Western Wei regime, and saved Yuwen Tai's life several times on the battlefield, which won Yuwen Tai's trust. Later, he made great contributions to the establishment of the Northern Zhou regime by the Yuwen family, and was promoted to the Duke of Hexi County, and the general of the Northern Zhou Pillar State.
Props for the owner of the tomb
He died in 569 AD, and his 67-year-old life went through the Northern Wei, Western Wei and Northern Zhou during the Southern and Northern Dynasties of China, which can be described as witnessing the great changes of the times.
In the Book of Zhou, he was evaluated in this way: Ren is both a man of letters and martial arts, a man of great voice and a prominent voice, a highly respected person, and a glorious family.
Ercao's body and name are destroyed, and the rivers and rivers are not wasted.
However, 1500 years later, the bones of this once-famous figure have decayed to the point where only traces remain.
"Come and see, there's a lump of dirt here," cried an archaeologist who had cleaned up the burial chamber.
Han Zhaomin hurriedly stepped forward to check it out, and then used a bamboo shovel to pick up the dirt attached to it little by little, and soon this artifact first appeared the true face of Lushan.
It is a pot, 37.5 cm high, weighing 1.5 kg, with a thin neck and a large abdomen, silver, the surface part of the gilded, the body of the pot is engraved with gilded patterns and reliefs of six figures. The characters have high noses and deep eyes, and they are dressed in special clothes, and this pot does not belong to the products of Han culture at all.
At that time, no one could say why, and it was not until six years later that there was a definite answer, a silver pot in the Style of Greek Art, and the manufacturing technology originated in Persia.
Gilded gold and silver pot
Now this artifact is named gilt gold and silver pot, and has become the treasure of the Guyuan Museum.
Now there is a question, why do artifacts thousands of miles away appear in the tomb of Li Xian in the Northern Zhou Dynasty?
This mainly originated from the Silk Road, and the Guyuan that Li Xian guarded was an important node of the Silk Road.
The silver pot bears witness to the historical and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, and is also the epitome of the frequent trade on the Silk Road.
Soon an almost transparent artifact was cleared out, which also has strong Western characteristics, and archaeologists have tested the material of the artifact and showed that it is a piece of nano-calcareous glass, which belongs to a typical Persian product.
Glass bowl
At this time, there was an unexpected discovery of a golden ring at the scene. Judging from the location of the discovery, the ring should be the living object of Mrs. Li Xian.
The ring was studded with lapis lazuli, and the lapis lazuli ring was carved with a nude figure holding a garland, and many years later, a similar pattern was seen on a Persian silver plate at the Franklin Museum, which concluded that the ring should also be a Persian product.
Lapis lazuli ring
A small ring runs through things, allowing us to see that The Sino-foreign exchanges of that era were everywhere.