Stone rafter burial is one of the high-standard tomb forms in the Tang Dynasty, generally only the royal family or royal permission can be used, but the tomb excavated in Xi'an East Chang'an Avenue, the owner is only an anonymous Sanpin official, but can be buried in the stone rafter, which is puzzling.
Originally it was to build a road but dug out an ancient tomb
In late August 2009, xi'an was in a sweltering heat with few pedestrians on the road.
However, East Chang'an Avenue was "clanging" in full swing, and it was originally the Xi'an National Civil Aerospace Industry Base that organized a construction team to build a road on the Chang'an DulingYuan due to business needs.
On what was a very unusual day, one of the workers in the construction team wiped a handful of sweat with his hand, and then swung a shovel, but was surprised to find that there was an extra hole in the dirt that should have appeared in the shovel pit.
"Where is the hole in this good soil, did you dig a rat hole?"
He squatted down and twisted the soil at will, pulled it with his hand, but found that the hole was not shallow, it seemed to lead directly to the ground, the black hole hole, revealing a cool breath, in the heat of the construction site, the contrast was very obvious.
Xi'an is one of the treasures that nurtured Chinese civilization, only the historical record has more than ten dynasties as the capital, dynasties change, people come and go, countless generations of people in this land to thrive, life and old diseases and death are buried here, the underground does not know how many secrets are hidden.
Even the people of Xi'an themselves have laughed and said: "In Xi'an, digging down a few tens of meters everywhere can see some ancient strange things", it can be seen that the excavation of tombs in Xi'an in the past few years was not a shocking event.
This road construction worker is no exception, living in Xi'an for a long time, he has heard about it, and when he sees that the inner wall of this cave is smooth and extends inward, it does not look like it was dug by animals, and it is man-made at first glance, so he immediately thought about whether he had dug a tomb again.
Thinking of this, he turned around and reported to the construction team leader that he had dug a very deep hole, looking like someone had dug it before.
As soon as the leader heard it, he came with a few experienced workers, and a circle of people carefully observed around the mysterious black hole, and dug a little deeper, and when he saw that the black hole was indeed as the worker said, he also felt that this hole had a big future, most likely it was some kind of cemetery or something.
Therefore, the construction site urgently suspended the road construction process, and contacted the Xi'an Cultural Relics Protection and Archaeology Institute to conduct a field investigation.
The size of the tomb is beyond imagination
After receiving the news, the Xi'an Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics Protection and Archaeology immediately came to the construction site.
After conducting soil investigation and exploration of the excavated hole, the archaeologists immediately determined that it was an ancient tomb.
However, no tombs have been found before, and the surrounding buildings are all around, and the archaeological team not only knows nothing about the dynasty of this tomb, but also cannot measure the direction and orientation of the tomb.
They could only dig little by little with stupid methods, and it just so happened that the construction team here had ready-made excavators and other tools, so they borrowed the construction team's personnel and tools, based on the graves dug by the workers, and slowly began to excavate from there.
Although with the help of the construction team, the excavation work has an excavator as an assistant, but the excavator shovel is too large to be finely operated, especially the experts do not know the specifications of the depth of the tomb, and what is underground is not known, so this excavator can only be used to dig out the surface soil in a large area.
So the archaeologists first asked the excavator to clean up the shallow soil.
After the excavator has completed the preliminary work, it is time to manually play.
Together with the workers, the archaeologists tentatively dug down little by little with shovels, and large beads of sweat kept dripping from their foreheads, smashing into the dirt, and quickly evaporating under the blazing sun.
"When" a sound, the shovel shoveled on something hard, "to the top!" The staff shouted excitedly.
The aimless mechanical excavations finally saw the head, and the sound was like the sound of nature saving them from the fire-roasted excavation work.
Originally a little tired, they were all beaten with chicken blood, and they worked hard, shoveling soil, small-scale blasting, and picking bricks in turn.
After a few days of hard work, on September 27, 2009, this mysterious tomb finally appeared in front of the world.
The tomb is in a north-south direction, the opening is in the south, the overall direction of the bird's eye view is a "knife" type, the tomb passage is long, it is a more common slope, and the tomb has a total of three aisles and three patios.
There is a Yongdao between the tomb passage and the burial chamber, which is about four meters long and made of ordinary bricks, and there is a well-preserved epitaph surviving in the Yongdao, which is covered with the words "Epitaph of the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty".
Zhiwen wrote the life of the tomb owner, indicating that the tomb owner's name was Qin Shouyi, and the character Waswan, and he was a native of Longxi, Gansu.
During his lifetime, he served as Xuanwu Wei, Qizhou Chen Cangling, Fufeng Ling, Jingzhao Wugong Ling, Jinzhou Changshi, Jizhou Thorn History, Qizhou Governor History, Chuzhou Thorn History, Wannian County Order, Jingzhao Shaoyin, and other positions, and finally to Si Nongqing, who died in Luoyang at the age of sixty-five, and was buried here from Luoyang two years later in the twelfth year of Emperor Xuanzong's reign.
After entering the tomb from the Yongdao, you can see the square burial chamber, although the area is not very large, but the decoration is extremely exquisite, the tomb wall and the tomb roof are painted, but the murals on the four walls have fallen off and are mottled, and the tomb roof can still faintly see the imitation structure of the house such as beams outlined by red paint.
In terms of shape, the four walls of the tomb are all extended arc-shaped, and the top is also arched upwards, forming a dome shape as a whole, which is about 4.6 meters high, reflecting the concept of the ancient people's heavenly circle.
Amazing is the coffin in the tomb.
In the west of the burial chamber, there is a stone rafter, four covers, ten gang plates, four base plates and ten columns together form a four-sided sloped stone rafter roof, and the stone rafter base is 2.9 meters long and 1.8 meters wide.
In addition to the exquisite shape, the surface of the stone rafter is also engraved with patterns, painted with doors and windows, male and female attendants and flowers and plants, the male attendant wears a head and stands with his hand, and the maid is plump, which is a typical Tang Dynasty image, and the overall line of the line carving is smooth and the details are complete, showing the superb skills of the carver.
The appearance of such exquisite stone rafters here puzzled the archaeological team.
According to the General Code. The Chronicle of Coffins records: "In the Tang Dynasty system, all burials must not use stone as coffins and stone chambers, and their coffins must not be carved with painted paintings, shihu mullions, and no gold and jade jewelry in the coffin." ”
In the Tang Dynasty, only royal nobles with special status or the emperor's privilege could be buried with stone rafters.
Not only that, the top of the stone rafter is also divided into three, six and nine, the coffin roof can be roughly divided into the top of the temple, the top of the mountain and the hard top of the mountain, in the early Tang Dynasty, only the empress can enjoy the top of the temple, during the Kaiyuan Tianbao years, although the shape of the top is relaxed, but the roof of the temple is still a high-specification shape, the conditions for use are more stringent.
Before qin shouyi's tomb, there were only more than twenty stone tombs unearthed on the mainland, and most of them were the tombs of imperial relatives and nobles, even if they were not members of the royal family, they were all officials of two or more grades.
According to this epitaph, Qin Shouyi's highest official before his death was Si Nongqing, who was in charge of agriculture, grain storage, and garden gardens, and the official rank during the Tang Dynasty was only from Sanpin.
Why can a mere Sanpin official be buried with a stone rafter on the top of the temple after death? It should be said that he was specially rewarded by the royal family, but there is no relevant record of Qin Shouyi in the main history.
The mismatch between this identity and the specifications of the tomb left the experts clueless, and the only possible explanation was that Qin Shouyi may have helped the royal family to do something secret that could not be said, so that he could move to this luxurious tomb two years after his death.
The tomb was stolen thanks to the remnants of precious cultural relics
More reference information can not be verified, because this tomb has been patronized by tomb robbers, and the indoor damage is very serious.
Zhang Xiaoli, a staff member of the Institute of Archaeology, said:
"The third patio in the tomb passage is the most seriously damaged, and it is closest to the burial chamber, and the tomb robbers should have entered the tomb from the third patio."
There was originally a dead stone door separating the tomb from the tomb passage, but due to the intrusion of tomb robbers, the stone door had been broken, one door fell inward, the other door was completely broken, and the fragments were dragged into the Yongdao and the burial chamber.
In addition to the stone gate, the tomb also suffered heavy losses.
There are only some ordinary clay pot fragments scattered on the indoor floor, in addition to which only one stone rafter remains, the rest of the cultural relics have been stolen, and the murals on the tomb wall have not only fallen off naturally, but also many traces of man-made chisels.
The stone rafters were also opened by tomb robbers, and the southern end of the rafters had been completely separated from the stone rafters, and fell to the side, and the skeletons originally placed in the stone rafters were scattered on the north side of the rafters, which inferred that Qin Shou should wear valuable ornaments when he was buried, otherwise he would not have been so seriously damaged.
It can be seen that this thousand-year-old tomb can be described as a serious theft, but is everything really like this? Is there really not a single burial in the tomb left? After the experts opened the coffin later, the crowd discovered the cunning of the tomb owner, and the treasure was not less.
Judging from such a high-standard stone rafter, there should be many important cultural relics in Qin Shouyi's tomb, but their whereabouts are unknown now, and the specific whereabouts are unknown.
Despite this, the stone rafters in the tomb still have high historical research value, due to the harsh conditions on the site, the archaeologists agreed after consultation to relocate the tomb as a whole to the research room, which can not only protect the cultural relics to the greatest extent, but also help archaeologists to further understand the Tang Dynasty stone rafters.
On September 28, researchers from the Xi'an Institute of Cultural Relics Protection and Archaeology began to relocate the tomb.
Due to the large size of the stone rafters and the extremely heavy weight of the stone system, it is almost impossible to remove them from the original form, so the researchers decided to remove the stone rafters in pieces and then restore them as they were after arriving at the institute.
Speaking of simple, how to divide the weight reasonably, and restore it as it is without harming the body, this is undoubtedly a huge test.
To this end, archaeologists specifically consulted the relevant information of the stone rafter tombs previously excavated, understood the characteristics and general structure of the stone rafters, and conducted detailed structural analysis and planning for Qin Shouyi's stone rafters, and finally came up with a satisfactory plan.
After having a plan, the archaeologists first took pictures of the stone rafters in all directions, and then carefully dismantled the stone rafters into several independent parts according to the plan, and marked each part with numbers for subsequent reassembly.
The road is bumpy, in order to protect the stone rafters, archaeologists will be each part of the thick felt wrapped, because the ordinary hemp rope fixation ability is poor, according to past experience, they chose to use keel and wire to fix the stone rafters and felt in order to be foolproof.
After the stone rafters were hoisted out of the burial chamber, in the process of finally cleaning the entire tomb, archaeologists made a surprising discovery.
Since the tomb robbers entered the tomb from the yongdao no. 3 patio, the entire yongdao was covered with fragments of stone doors and clay pot pottery, and there was only a mess at a glance.
However, after all the rubble fragments were removed, archaeologists found a buried niche on the west side of the second aisle of the Yongdao, which is usually a small pavilion used to worship the gods and Buddhas, and is more common in tombs.
Although the appearance of the niche box is not surprising, in the tomb of Qin Shouyi, where all the cultural relics have been stolen, this niche box may also have some value for the study of the entire tomb.
With this in mind, the archaeologists took a closer look near the niches, and this time they really saw the treasure.
In the dirt near it, there was even Tang Sancai buried!
The archaeologists were overjoyed, and immediately used the small shovel they carried to gently shovel off the dirt, and the scene in front of them made them even more happy.
Only to see that there are a lot of Tang Sancai in the soil, either standing or upside down, with a variety of shapes, many of which are ladies, camels, cows, etc. Brush the surface of the soil with a brush, you can see their bright and smooth glaze.
Under the emergency excavation of archaeologists, a total of 82 pieces of Tang Sancai were unearthed here.
Tang Sancai, as the name suggests, arose in the Tang Dynasty, and was popular in the Tang Dynasty, mainly used for funerals, is a kind of low-temperature fired colorful porcelain, mainly composed of yellow, green, white three colors, so it is called Tang Sancai.
The shape of Tang Sancai can generally be divided into three categories: character animals, living utensils and mythological images, which mainly reflect the prosperous trade of the Tang Dynasty, the open social atmosphere and the thriving living conditions of the people of the Tang Dynasty, which is not only one of the representative types of Chinese gorgeous ceramics, but also an important reference for modern understanding of the cultural history of the Tang Dynasty.
Unfortunately, Tang Sancai decreased in the late Tang Dynasty, and gradually withered away during the Kaiyuan period.
Although the tomb of Qin Shouyi is a tomb in the Kaiyuan period, 82 exquisite Tang Sancai pieces have been excavated, and the number is so large that the skill is extremely rare in the tomb excavations of the same period in the entire archaeological community.
Therefore, as soon as these Tang Sancai were discovered, they were immediately reported to the relevant departments, which aroused the extreme attention of the department in the previous period and gave the necessary sufficient support to the archaeological team.
After excavation and restoration, this batch of Tang Sancai is composed of 18 pieces of Sancai equestrian figurines and 30 pieces of Sancai standing figurines, which is the most prominent, which not only enriches the existing Tang Sancai research on the mainland, but also helps archaeologists to further understand the etiquette system of the Tang Dynasty, and its historical importance is self-evident.
In 2020, the murals of Li Daojian, the great-grandson of Li Yuan, the great-grandson of Tang Gaozu, who were also stone tombs, were restored, and many of the researchers who participated in the excavation of Qin Shouyi's tomb participated in the restoration of the murals.
When restoring, they can always think of the magical tomb of Qin Shouyi, why is it far less than the first Si Nongqing in the center of the imperial court to enjoy similar specifications with Li Daojian? The mystery may be known only to him.
The symbolic significance of the identity of the tomb for the tomb owner has gradually become prominent in the Han Dynasty, which was reaffirmed again in 2021 at the expert demonstration meeting held by the Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau and the Xi'an Municipal Cultural Relics Bureau, which is enough to prove the importance of Qin Shouyi stone rafter for the archaeological community.
The cultural relics community has not stopped the research and development of Tang Sancai, until 2022, many university scholars took the female pottery figurines in Qin Shouyi's tomb as the research object to discuss the reasons and influences of the Tang Dynasty's aesthetic beauty of abundance.
From the surprise that the identity and specifications of Qin Shouyi's tomb did not match, to the heartache and regret that the tomb was stolen beyond recognition, to the joy of 82 pieces of Tang Sancai's appearance, the excavation of Qin Shouyi's tomb made people feel ups and downs and sighs, and it was also the perfect embodiment of "mountains and rivers are doubtful, willows are dark and flowers are bright and another village".
It is hoped that the cultural relics in the tomb of Qin Shouyi, who were scattered outside, can be returned to their places as soon as possible to make up for the missing corner of this precious Tang tomb.
bibliography:
Xi'an "Grain Steward" Tomb Sai Huangqin Traces: Tang Sancai Excavated from the Tomb; Huashang Bao, 2009.09
Xi'an found Tang Dynasty Temple-style stone rafter tombs with specifications exceeding the specifications of the emperor's relatives and relatives; China News Network, 2009.09
Xi'an discovered ancient tombs of officials during the Tang Kaiyuan period unearthed 82 pieces of Tang Sancai; China Daily, 2010.03
"Research on Stone Burial Tools in the Tang Dynasty"; Southern Cultural Relics, No. 2, 2017
Partial restoration of the mural painting of the tomb of Li Yuanzhongzu of Tang Gaozu recreates the scene of life in the Tang Dynasty; Guangming Daily, 2020.08
Confirm the historical value and significance of the Tomb of Emperor Wen of Han; Guangming Daily, 2021, 12
"Tang Sancai's Artistic Value and Modern Inheritance: A Case Study of Luoyang Tang Sancai"; Textile Industry and Technology, No. 6, 2021