On December 14, 2021, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage held a press conference in Beijing to announce that the "Jiangcun Tomb" in Bailuyuan is the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han.
For a while, there was a lot of heated discussion on the Internet, according to historical records, the location of the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han has always been near the "Phoenix Mouth", so before, experts and scholars mistakenly believed that the Tomb of Emperor Han Wen was in the "Phoenix Mouth".
To this end, a monument was also erected in the "Phoenix Mouth".
According to the time on the stele, the cultural relics protection unit erected the stele in 2001, which is equivalent to saying that the location of the Baling has been misrepresented for several years.
Why did archaeologists fail to discover early that the "Jiangcun Tomb" was the tomb of the Han Emperor?
How was the Tomb of Emperor Wen of Han discovered?
Below, I will take you to understand the behind-the-scenes story of the discovery of Baling.
He has been frequently harassed by tomb robbers
For tomb robbers, when the location of the tomb is found, the sealing soil is dug up, and the antique treasure wealth inside is at hand, and in the eyes of the tomb robbers, clothing fragments, books, etc. can not be sold for money are garbage, they only pay attention to those porcelain, bronzes and other things that can sell money.
Although tomb robbery is illegal, driven by high profits, many people have become tomb robbers one after another.
The place where the Han Wen Emperor's tomb is located: Bailuyuan. The tombs of the Western Han Dynasty are buried here, among which the Tomb of Empress Dou and the Southern Tomb of Empress Bo are buried here.
As a result, White Deer Plains has also become a place frequented by tomb robbers.
On April 29, 2001, when the cultural relics inspection team was patrolling the Baling Park, it found that a wheat field was very abnormal, and when it went to check, it found that there was a straw mat laid here.
The inspector policeman was alert and realized that something was wrong.
They hurriedly opened the grass mat, only to see that a hole had been dug in the ground, and the hole was about six or seven meters deep, obviously half dug, waiting to come back and dig again.
There is also an earthen pit near the robbery cave, which hides luoyang shovels, snakeskin bags and other tools for tomb robbery.
After deliberation, the inspectors decided to ambush them nearby, waiting for the arrival of tomb robbers and arresting them all.
To this end, they re-covered the straw mat on the robbery hole, restored the crime scene to its original state, and secretly hid it in the wheat field, waiting for the tomb robbers to come.
At about 11 p.m., a group of sneaky people quietly sneaked into the Baling Park and came to the scene of the crime.
The policemen who were ambushed on the side made a gesture after seeing their figures.
At this time, the tomb robber had just opened the tool of the crime and started a generator to continue digging, but unexpectedly, several policemen rushed out of the nearby wheat field and surrounded them in an instant.
Seeing the first reaction of the police, the grave robbers wanted to run, but before they could run far, they were thrown to the ground by the police and handcuffed and arrested.
After being questioned by the police, they have stolen hundreds of pottery figurines and hundreds of pottery figurines and hundreds of pottery figurine cultural relics here.
However, this is only the tip of the iceberg of the stolen tomb on the White Deer Plain, in 2001, there were many large-scale tomb robberies, some were discovered by the police, some were not discovered by the police, these tomb robbers robbed the tombs, so that the tombs were seriously damaged, and the stolen cultural logistics through the black market caused huge losses to the protection of cultural relics.
On the night of October 16, 2001, a group of tomb robbers planned to rob the burial tombs in the tomb area, and coincidentally, they found the grave robbers' caves in the sorghum field of Dizhai, so they directly followed the robbery hole and then dug down, and after digging into the burial chamber, the tomb robbers were excited.
They were secretly cheering in their hearts, and they were about to get rich.
Just when they were about to open the burial chamber, reality gave them a blow to the head, and the whole burial chamber was surrounded by wood, which was unusually hard, and it was a fool's dream to open it with bare hands.
Therefore, the tomb robbers retreated in frustration, planning to prepare the tools for opening the tomb the next day, and then enter the cave to rob the tomb.
Early the next morning, this group of tomb robbers went out to buy chainsaws, gas masks and other tools, chainsaws are to saw open the tomb, gas masks are to prevent any harmful gases inside, threatening their life safety, perhaps before the theft has more experience, I have to say that this group of tomb robbers are really thoughtful.
At night, they took their tools and quietly came to the vicinity of the sorghum sorghum robbery cave in Dizhaiyuan again.
After entering the robbery cave, they sawed through the wood around the burial chamber with a saw and burrowed into the burial chamber.
But the results inside made them a little disappointed, there was no gold and silver treasure, only many clay figurines, which were not expensive in the market.
They threw some clay figurines into snakeskin bags and returned disappointed.
This group of tomb robbers originally thought that after the pottery figurines got to the cultural relics market, there would be very few buyers to buy, but they did not expect that many people were willing to buy, and then this group of tomb robbers saw that it was profitable, drilled into this tomb chamber again, and stole 180 pieces of pottery figurines, the price rose from 300 yuan at the beginning, to 800 yuan at the end, and was acquired by the cultural relics dealer "Meng Boss", and made a wave of fierce profits.
This gang of tomb robbers originally thought that this tomb robbery would pass like this unconsciously and would not be discovered by the police, but they did not expect that two months after the incident were exposed.
Among the tomb robbers, there was a man named Huang Shimin, who stole pottery figurines in addition to selling them to cultural relics dealers, and he also privately collected several.
One day, when his wife was cleaning up his clothes, she suddenly found that the box containing clothes was wrapped with a naked figurine, and the wife thought to herself, how can there be such a thing in her husband's box, will he mess with him behind his back, is this his lover sent?
This incident made her heart extremely upset, so she told her hometown about it.
Who knew that this fellow reflected the situation of Huang Shimin to the police, and after the police saw the naked female figurines, they felt that things were not simple, and then reflected the matter to their superiors.
After a series of investigations, Huang Shimin's tomb robbery was completely exposed, under the interrogation of the police, he confessed the beginning and end of the matter, Huang Shimin told the police that a few months ago, he and a group of people dug up an ancient tomb, and stole hundreds of pottery figurines inside to sell...
Under Huang Shimin's honest account, the rest of his accomplices were also arrested one after another and were finally punished by the law.
Fortunately, some of the pottery figurines stolen by the tomb robbers were later recovered, avoiding a greater loss of cultural relics.
In addition to some pottery figurines circulating in China being recovered, there are also pottery figurines that have been transferred abroad, which have also been recovered. At that time, some black clay figurines appeared at the Southby Auction House in the United States, and experts in the Chinese cultural relics circle noticed the black clay figurines, and the 6 black clay figurines were eventually recovered.
Rescue excavations by cultural protection agencies
In the years that followed, the tomb robbers still remained stubborn, and frequently attacked places such as the ancient tomb of Jiangcun and the tomb of Empress Dou.
These tomb robbers took advantage of the quiet of the night to quietly intervene, some continued to dig along the previous robbery holes, some reclaimed new robbery holes, in order to quickly dig the ancient tomb, they even used explosives.
The robbery hole blown out with explosives, in addition to the speed of excavation will become faster, there is no other benefit, the excavated robbery hole, not only is not strong but also has the risk of collapse, and even destroy some cultural relics in the tomb.
But tomb robbers don't think about this, they just dig quickly and take the artifacts out to sell.
In this way, in the past few years, the vicinity of the ancient tombs of Jiangcun, Empress Bo and Empress Dou in this area has been very seriously damaged, and several robbery caves have appeared in this area, and countless cultural relics have been lost, causing huge losses.
In fact, this area has always been guarded by cultural relics stewards, and the police will patrol and investigate in this area from time to time, but these tomb robbers are really invincible, during the day, they almost never come out, every night is quiet, in the middle of the night will quietly rob the tomb, which is extremely abominable.
Because the tomb robbery in this area was really too badly damaged, since November 2017, the relevant departments in Shaanxi have begun to carry out rescue excavations in areas with serious theft, such as the Jiangcun Tomb.
What is salvage excavation?
There is a provision in the "Measures for the Administration of Archaeological Excavations" promulgated by China, that is, archaeologists cannot take the initiative to excavate ancient tombs, and should focus on protection and rescue first.
Therefore, this is also one of the reasons why many ancient tombs are found by tomb robbers first, because archaeologists cannot take the initiative to dig, and only tomb robbers can carry out rescue excavations on the grounds of protection after excavating ancient tombs.
But it is regrettable that many tomb robbers will not only loot the treasures in the tomb when robbing the tomb, but also destroy the evidence of their own visits in order to destroy the scene and destroy the evidence of their own visits, and even wantonly destroy the tomb itself, making it difficult for archaeologists to excavate and study.
For a long time, Western countries did not recognize the existence of a Shang Dynasty in China, because all the archaeological evidence in China at that time could only go back 3,000 years at most.
Although there are documentary records, Western countries do not recognize these, and they will only believe them if real ancient artifacts are unearthed.
At that time, in order to deduce the evidence of the existence of the Shang Dynasty civilization, mainland experts used small brushes to brush out the ruins of the early capital of the Shang Dynasty little by little in the rammed earth foundation site where there was nothing, and found a small number of Shang Dynasty bronzes, using these evidences to make the West recognize the existence of the Shang Dynasty civilization and push the civilization trajectory of Chinese history forward for another 1,000 years or so.
From this story, it can be seen that the excavation of cultural relics has played a crucial role in deducing history.
These tomb robbers, stealing not only some cultural relics, but a piece of history, these histories should have been written in the annals of history, but because of some of the small profits of the tomb robbers, they destroyed the evidence of the existence of civilization, which makes people feel chilling...
After the order of the relevant departments was issued, archaeologists immediately rushed to the site of the ancient tomb in Jiangcun to conduct an investigation and led professionals to carry out rescue excavations.
After the investigation of the site, archaeologists found that almost every burial pit here has a robbery hole, which shows that more than a wave of tomb robbers have come.
Although some cultural relics were stolen by tomb robbers, there are still many cultural relics in the burial pit that have not been taken away, these are mostly some building materials, agricultural tools, copper coins and other things, these things are not valuable in the eyes of tomb robbers, but for archaeologists, these are treasures, all have great research value.
Archaeologists carefully extracted many artifacts and valuable fragments from the silt, and kept these things for later research.
After four years of excavation and research, experts are convinced that the "Gangchon Tomb" is not a simple ancient tomb.
In the process of excavation, several small seals have been unearthed, which are by no means toys played by the owner of the cemetery, symbolizing the noble status of the owner of the cemetery.
These small seals with a diameter of less than 1 centimeter are engraved with the words "Zhongsikong Seal" and "Chefu", which indicate that the seals are of an official nature, and that there is a circle of outer hidden pits around the periphery of the "Jiangcun Tomb", which shows that the identity of the owner of the "Jiangcun Tomb" is not simple, and may be the person who leads these official offices.
In addition, the shape of the "Jiangcun Tomb" is the shape of the "Ya", and in the Han Dynasty, only the emperor and empress were eligible to use the "Ya" character as the tomb shape system.
Among them, the Tomb of Empress Dou is on the northeast side of the "Jiangcun Tomb", and its shape is also in the shape of a "Ya", and when exploring the "Jiangcun Tomb", archaeologists found that the "Jiangcun Tomb" is connected to the rammed earth wall of the Dou Empress Mausoleum, which is equivalent to saying that this rammed earth wall encloses the "Jiangcun Tomb" and the Tomb of Empress Dou together.
This phenomenon of "closing the siege" is obviously the joint burial of the empress.
The discoveries of this kind are all pointing in one direction, and the "Jiangcun Tomb" is likely to be the tomb of the Han Emperor.
Some people may suspect that the historical records do not record that the Han Wen Emperor's tomb is in the "phoenix mouth"?
In some historical materials, it is indeed said that the Han Wen Emperor's tomb is in the "phoenix mouth".
According to a sentence in the ancient book "Class Editor Chang'an Zhi": "Emperor Wen's tomb is under the mouth of the Northern Phoenix of Bailuyuan, forty miles east of jingzhao tonghuamen.".
But in 2011, in the archaeological work of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China, there was an inspection of the "Phoenix Mouth", and the expedition team almost turned over the "Phoenix Mouth", and no traces of tombs were found here, and even the caves were rare, so it can be seen that there is indeed no Han Emperor's mausoleum here.
Under all kinds of evidence, the true identity of the owner of the tomb of "Jiangcun Tomb" was confirmed, and on the morning of December 14, 2021, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage announced that the "Jiangcun Tomb" was the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han, and at this point, the name of the tomb of the Eleventh Emperor of the Western Han Dynasty was all determined.
Fortunately, the "Jiangcun Tomb" has been protected by the relevant departments, and the loss of cultural relics is not too much, which is also convenient for scholars to follow up in-depth research, I believe that under the continuous research of historians, the civilization trajectory of the Western Han Dynasty will be continuously completed.
Summary: Tomb robbery is an undesirable act of breaking the law, from ancient times to the present, tomb robbers for the sake of profit driven, constantly excavating ancient tombs, stealing caves, countless civilizations and ancient logistics losses, so that many historical mysteries no longer have the opportunity to answer, again quoting a sentence said in the previous article, tomb robbers stole not only some cultural relics, but also a piece of history ...