In the spring of 2004, while Xi'an was building urban infrastructure, the engineering team found an ancient tomb under a huge garbage heap! The owner of the tomb has no coffin and no rafters, only the skeleton lies horizontally in the tomb chamber, or a "foreign friend"!
The area where the ancient tomb was found is located in the Shanglinyuan Community of Dizhai Village in the North Second Ring Road of Xi'an City. Just near the community, there has always been a large garbage heap that has not been managed.
This time, after the municipal infrastructure project was launched, the garbage heap also became the main target of disposal.
However, no one thought that under the garbage heap that did not know when it was covered with garbage, there was actually a secret hidden more than a thousand years ago...
With the entry of archaeologists, the form of the underground tomb has gradually emerged. It is a vault-roofed earthen cave tomb with a sloped burial passage.
The whole tomb is composed of three parts: the tomb passage, the Yongdao and the burial chamber. The cemetery has been destroyed by excavators and the bottom opening is opened at a depth of 7.9 meters above the ground. The plane of the burial chamber is close to square, and the roof of the tomb has collapsed (probably also crushed by so many years of domestic garbage...). ）
The tomb is guarded by two doors, the first is a brick door, and the sealed door bricks are only more than 30 centimeters left, which is in ruins. Further inside is the second gate, a stone gate.
Fortunately, there are no traces of theft in the tomb! Modern grave robbers may not have imagined that there is an ancient tomb hidden under a garbage heap! It can be said that it is also "sloppy"...
Push open the well-preserved stone door, and the scene inside the tomb is clear at a glance! Just in the middle of the north side of the tomb, a walled stone collapsed in front of everyone's eyes!
Fixing their eyes again, the archaeologists took a deep breath! A skeleton of a human that had turned into a skeleton appeared!
He lay on his back on a stone collapse, his head facing west and his feet facing east, and the brocade robe wrapped around his body, although old and decayed, could still be seen in the traces of silk.
Apparently, he was the owner of this tomb!
The strange thing is that the owner of the tomb has no coffin and no coffin, so he lies directly on top of the stone collapse! This burial custom is obviously different from that of the Central Plains...
Immediately after, the archaeologists made amazing discoveries when cleaning up the bones of the tomb owner! He contained an ancient Roman gold coin in his mouth and a Northern Zhou Dynasty Buquan coin in his right hand!
In the face of such a "peculiar" burial state, the archaeologists have long speculated in their hearts. This tomb owner is probably not a Central Plains native!
Because it is more than 150 meters away from this tomb, the Shaanxi archaeological team once excavated a tomb that is very similar to it - the Tomb of Northern Zhou Anjia! It was a "Sogdian" tomb.
The Sogdians are our term for some of the ethnic minorities living between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In ancient Chinese history books, it is called "Zhaowu Jiu Surname".
Their homeland was the Sogdian region between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers in Central Asia, centered on Samarkand (in present-day Uzbekistan), with nine oasis kingdoms, namely Kang, An, Cao, Shi, Shi, and Mi.
At this time, the epitaph in the burial chamber was also discovered. Through the 397-character Wei Shu engraved in the epitaph, the life of the owner of the tomb is told...
The owner of the tomb is indeed a Sogdian, but he already has a very Chinese name "Kangye". The epitaph mentions that Kang Ye is a descendant of King Kangju and has lived in the Central Plains for many years.
Kang Ye's father was recommended by the CheQi generals, Yongzhou Hu Yao, and Hu Guohao to become the Great God in the tenth year of the Western Wei Dynasty (544 AD). Kang Yezi inherited his father's inheritance as the Great God, died in 571 at the age of 60, and was posthumously added to the Ganzhou Assassin History!
The truth is clear. This is a foreigner born in the Central Plains region. From the various funeral customs of "combining East and West" in Kangye Tomb, we can also see the mental process of this "crooked nut".
Since living in the Central Plains since childhood, Kang Ye has been deeply influenced by Chinese funerary culture and customs. He was buried with coins in his mouth and in his hands, which was also influenced by the mainland burial customs of "mouth", "jade" and "rice". However, he was mouthed with ancient Roman gold coins, which in turn combined with the customs of the Sogdians.
As a result, the Kangye tomb found in the Xi'an area became a precious reference for the cultural exchange between China and the West during the Northern Zhou Dynasty.
Because the Sogdians advocated Zoroastrianism, they generally practiced cremation after death, leaving no bones! Kang Ye did not honor this custom, but lay on the stone collapse without a coffin!
Therefore, the remains of KangYe have also become the only well-preserved skeleton of the Northern Zhou Sogdians in China.