In 1999, when the villagers of Luozhuang in Shandong Province were building a road to take soil, they inadvertently dug up a pile of bronzes, and the archaeological team that received the news quickly went to the scene, and soon after, they found a carriage and horse pit, which buried 3 carriages, and its shape and characteristics were the same as the No. 1 copper carriage and horse of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum! In particular, the shape of the ear is basically the same, even the number of iron pieces used for support, the crossbow used for protection in front of the car, and the gilded danglu that decorates the horse are almost the same, the only difference is that the one in Qinling is a bronze, and these three are real cars and real horses. In addition, the components and ornaments on the car are also gilded, and the wheels are painted with red paint, which is consistent with the ancient records of the princely carriage "ZhuLun Hua Hub, Gold Painted Five Ends".
All kinds of indications show that these carriages of Luozhuang came from Guanzhong thousands of miles away, and non-royal figures could not enjoy them, so who was their owner? His car is so similar to Qin Shi Huang's car, is there some kind of connection between them?
In addition to this carriage and horse pit, archaeologists have also successively explored more than 30 funerary pits, although several excavations, but still unearthed more than 3,000 precious artifacts, after preliminary identification, its age should belong to the late Qin and early Han dynasties. The mound that the villagers originally used to take the soil was the remnants of the sealed soil above the mysterious mausoleum, and the exploration results were even more surprising - the original area of the sealed soil was as high as 40,000 square meters, which was almost the specification of the Western Han Imperial Mausoleum! Could it be that the person buried here will be an imperial figure?
In a funerary pit in the north of the mausoleum area, archaeologists found a huge bronze hammer, about 50 centimeters high, 20 centimeters in diameter, weighing dozens of pounds, on its side, there is also carved a goshawk pattern, the whole painting seems to be made in one stroke, free from nature, vigorous and simple. Nearby, several copper doves, copper pots and copper bells have also been unearthed, and the hammer, plutonium and duo are all percussion instruments on the ancient battlefield, and the "gold" in the drumming gold refers to them. Soon after, archaeologists found a whole set of chimes and chimes in this pit, one of which was clearly engraved with the word "most". Does it mean "maximum"? But the model of this braid is obviously medium, which is really puzzling.
In the end, archaeologists excavated 140 instruments from this pit, from percussion instruments, stringed instruments, percussion instruments, to tuning tools, all available, to have a band of such a size, the owner of the tomb must be a princely figure. While excavating the funerary pits around the sealed soil, the archaeological team also carried out a preliminary cleanup of the sealing soil, and it turned out that there were many pits in these remnants of the sealing mound! Buried in it are several tons of grain, a large number of bones of pigs, sheep, cows, dogs and chickens, all kinds of spices, grease, dominoes for entertainment, wooden figurines and scales - the smallest is less than one or two, and the largest is more than 70 pounds.
In one of the pits, archaeologists also found a complete egg, as if it had just been buried in the soil, and after more than 2,000 years, it was still intact!
After more than a year of exploration and excavation, archaeologists finally figured out the layout of the entire mausoleum: located in the center of the mausoleum is a "medium" shape of vertical cave wooden tomb, the main burial chamber area of 1295 square meters, the east and west tombs add up to more than 180 meters, strangely, the tomb in the middle of the position closer to the tomb, there are 9 symmetrical curves on both sides, what are these curves used for? This is the first time such a form has been discovered. There are a total of 36 burial and sacrifice pits around the tomb, including musical instrument pits, kitchen pits, weapon pits, ceremonial wooden figurine pits, etc., arranged in three layers, presumably after the tomb is closed, layer by layer, so it seems that the tomb owner was buried in a hurry, the cemetery was not completely completed, he died, which formed such a peculiar layout.
At the end of the Qin Dynasty and the beginning of the Han Dynasty, which princely figure met the above characteristics? Due to the immaturity of the technical conditions at that time, the main burial chamber was not excavated, so there have been many opinions about the identity of the tomb owner. The most mainstream view is that the owner of the tomb should be Lü Hou, the nephew of Liu Bang of Han Gaozu and the first prince of the Lü State in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, Lü Tai, whose main basis is the sealing mud excavated from the funerary pit. Sealing mud is a mud mass with seals when the ancients sealed documents, letters and goods, and was often an important clue to infer the identity of the tomb owner. Most of these seals are engraved with the words "Lü Daguan Seal", "Lü Nei ShiYin" and "Lü Daguan Cheng", so many people believe that the owner of the tomb should be a prince surnamed Lü.
According to historical records, the Lü state of the Han Dynasty only existed for 8 years, and there were 4 Lü kings before and after, except for the first one, the rest were unnatural deaths after the loss of power of the Lü clan, and from the perspective of the scale of the tomb, only Lü Tai could enjoy such a posthumous glory. However, some of the artifacts in the tomb also appeared with the words "Qi Daguan Seal", so some people think that this may be the tomb of the King of Qi. However, these are only speculations, many questions, and can only be known until the day the burial chamber is opened.
