| Beijing News Aerial Photography: Han WenDi's Tomb |
On December 14, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage held an important progress work meeting on the major project of "Archaeology in China", at which it was announced that the great tomb of Bailuyuan Jiangcun in Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, was the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han.
Soon, this news quickly rushed to the top of the hot search!
This announcement is also the first time that the mystery of the Great Tomb of Xi'an Bailuyuan Jiangcun has been revealed! Until the identity of the owner of the tomb was confirmed, the tomb in Bailuyuan, Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, was called the "Jiangcun Tomb". Through meticulous excavation and careful analysis, the archaeologists judged that the "Jiangcun Tomb" was the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han.
At this point, since the Yuan Dynasty, historical records have recorded that Emperor Wen's tomb is located under the mouth of the phoenix, and this "thousand-year-old fallacy" must finally be corrected!
Gangchon Tomb
Jiangcun Tomb: Located in Baqiao District, Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province. In 2016, the outer pit of the Jiangcun Tomb was disturbed, in order to confirm the preservation status of the tomb and the distribution of the surrounding cultural relics, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, archaeologists conducted systematic archaeological investigation and exploration of the Jiangcun Tomb and its nearby Empress Dou Mausoleum, The Southern Tomb of Empress Bo and the "Phoenix Mouth" site that is said to be the Tomb of Emperor Wen of Han, and carried out archaeological excavations of the hidden pit outside the mausoleum, and now basically confirmed that the Jiangcun Tomb is the tomb of Liu Heng, the emperor of the early Han Dynasty of the Western Han Dynasty.
△ "Jiangcun Tomb" is located relative to Xi'an City
Jiangcun Tomb is located at the western end of Bailuyuan in the eastern suburbs of Xi'an, about 800 meters northeast is the Mausoleum of Empress Dou, about 2000 meters southwest of the Southern Tomb of Empress Bo, and about 2100 meters north is the "Phoenix Mouth" location where the former state security unit Baling is located. Literature records that the Han Wen Emperor's mausoleum is in the "Phoenix Mouth", therefore, the archaeological team used archaeological exploration, geological exploration and other technical means, many times to conduct a large-scale and meticulous exploration of it, in addition to the "Phoenix Mouth" under the more than 10 Tongming, Qing stele stones, no tomb relics were found. Archaeological exploration confirmed that there were no Han Dynasty tombs at the "Phoenix Mouth" site, which was excluded as the possibility of a baling tomb.
Jiangcun tomb plane is "Ya" shape, the surface of the land is not sealed, the burial chamber side length of about 72 meters, more than 30 meters deep, more than 110 outer hidden pits were found around the tomb, the outer pit has pebble paved cemetery facilities (tentatively named "Stone Boundary"), the side length is about 390 meters, the four sides of the stone fence are directly in front of the door site, it is speculated that it may be an independent imperial mausoleum (Empress Dou's mausoleum also has an independent mausoleum). The tomb of Empress Dou is now "covered with bucket-shaped" sealing soil, 23 meters high, and the tomb shape is "Ya" shape, with the longest tomb passage in the Middle East and an exploration length of 77 meters. The remains of the cemetery wall found outside the Jiangcun Tomb and the Mausoleum of Empress Dou are speculated to be in the same mausoleum, which is about 1200 meters long from east to west and about 863 meters wide from north to south.
Archaeology has excavated 8 outer hidden pits of Jiangcun Tomb, unearthed more than 1500 pieces of pottery figurines, copper seals, copper carriages and horse ware, ironware, pottery, etc., and the copper seals have many official seals of the Han Dynasty, such as "Chefu", "Instrument House", "Riding Thousand People", "Fuyin", "Cangyin", "Zhongsikong Seal", "Zhongsikong Cheng", etc., especially the discovery of the convict figurines is the first time in China, indicating that the outer hidden pits around the Jiangcun Tomb should be built to imitate the actual official office and the government treasury.
△ Seal of the Official Office of the Han Dynasty
△ Torturers
The Tomb of Emperor Wen of Han has previously carried out many archaeological work:
In 1966 and 1975, Mr. Wang Xueli and Mr. Wu Zhenfeng of the Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee rescued and excavated the burial pits of Baling and Nanling.
In the 1980s, Mr. Liu Qingzhu and Mr. Li Yufang of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences conducted archaeological surveys and surveys of Baling and Nanling, laying the foundation for subsequent archaeological work.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the Xianyang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology conducted archaeological surveys and explorations on Baling and Nanling. From 2006 to 2009, the Xi'an Institute of Cultural Relics Protection and Archaeology conducted rescue exploration and test excavation in the Baling Tomb Area, and found the Jiangcun Tomb and its funerary pit, which provided important clues for determining the specific location of Baling.
From 2011 to 2013, according to the archaeological work plan of the Western Han Dynasty Emperor's Mausoleum, Jiao Nanfeng, a researcher from the Shaanxi Archaeological Research Institute, led a team to carry out a large-scale archaeological investigation and exploration work on the Baling and Nanling tomb areas, and roughly explored the distribution range and shape layout of the remains of the two mausoleums.
The archaeological work has continued since 2017, and the exploration and discovery of the "stone boundary" of the Jiangcun Tomb, the outer cemetery wall of the Jiangcun Tomb and the Tomb of Empress Dou, as well as the architectural sites and pottery kilns, excavated the ruins of the Jiangcun North Pottery Kiln, the Outer Hidden Pit of the Jiangcun Tomb, the Outer Hidden Pit of the Nanling Tomb, the Han Tomb of Lijia Village, etc., cleaned up and excavated more than 2,000 pieces of jade clothing pieces, more than 200 precious cultural relics such as trick figurines, pottery chimes, and chimes, as well as a large number of pottery figurines, pottery, iron, copper utensils, lacquered wood (including wooden carts) remains. Up to now, the archaeological team has excavated tens of thousands of cultural relics such as typical dressed pottery figurines, plastic clothing painted figurines, gold and silver ware, bronze carriage and horse ware of the Western Han Dynasty.
△ Baling
△ Emura Tomb K38 panorama
△ Nanling
△ Nanling NWK1 dragon head gold flower ornament excavation site
△ Nanling gold ware
△ Nanling iron tools
△ Baling copper gear
The shape and scale of the Jiangcun Tomb are in line with the specifications of the highest level of tombs in the Western Han Dynasty, as well as the location relationship with the "Tomb of Empress Dou" and the "Tomb of Empress Bo", and the ruins around it, forming a relatively complete mausoleum area, which is similar to the shape and system elements of the Western Han Emperor's Mausoleum such as the Han Gao Ancestral Mausoleum, the Han Jing Emperor Yang Mausoleum, and the Han Wu Emperor Mao Mausoleum, with similar layout, the overall scale is comparable, and there is an obvious development and evolution trajectory. Expert comprehensive analysis confirms that the "Phoenix Mouth" where the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han was located is only a natural loess beam, and the newly discovered Tomb of Jiangcun is the real Tomb of Emperor Wen.
How was the Gangchon Tomb discovered?
Emperor Wen of the 11th Western Han Dynasty buried Bailuyuan. The Book of Han says: Emperor Wen of Han "in the summer of the seventh year, in June, the emperor collapsed in Weiyang Palace." ...... Otomi, buried in the Tomb of the Ba. "Water Sutra Notes • Weishui" Yun: "Bashui Li Bailuyuan East, that is, the west of Bachuan, Emperor Wen of Han buried on it, called the Baling Tomb." "The Great Tomb of Gangchon is located at the western end of the White Deer Plain, which is in line with the historical records.
【Empress Bo Nanling】
Empress Bo's Southern Tomb is located in the northwest of Baoqizhai Village, Dizhai Street, Baqiao District, Xi'an City, about 2,000 meters north of jiangcun tomb. After exploration, it was found that the South Mausoleum Chamber deviated from the sealing soil to the east, the sealing soil was 25 meters high, the tomb shape system was also "Ya" shape, and the east tomb road was the longest.
The photography | solemn
There are 39 excavations in the small outer pit in the northwest of Nanling, and the excavation work is currently underway, and some of the pits have been exposed to the bottom of the pottery coffin, which contains animal remains, and the preliminary identification of its species are golden monkeys, red-crowned cranes, turtles, etc.
Nanling excavated three outer pits on the west side of the sealed soil, all of which are long strip vertical holes with slopes at the western end, with a length of 21-42 meters.
Four major pieces of evidence reveal the "mystery of the baling"
This archaeological work negates the traditional understanding that the "Phoenix Mouth" is the tomb of the Han Emperor, determines the exact location of the Tomb of the Han Emperor, and solves the problem of the name of the eleven imperial tombs of the Western Han Dynasty. The structural layout of the double mausoleum, the imperial tomb center, and the outer tibetan pit shows obvious differences with the Han Gaozu Changling and the Han Hui Emperor An Mausoleum, laying the foundation for the imperial tomb system in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty, including the basic grasp of the scale, shape, layout and connotation of the Western Han Emperor's mausoleum, including the Han Wen Emperor's Mausoleum, providing detailed archaeological data for the study of the formation and development of the Western Han Imperial Mausoleum system, and laying the foundation for the in-depth study of the ancient Chinese imperial tomb system, which is of great significance.
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