On October 18, 2021, the tomb of Liu He, the Marquis of Haidian, was selected as one of the "Top 100 Archaeological Discoveries in a Hundred Years" in China.
The tomb of Liu He, the Marquis of Haixia, is the most complete preserved tomb of the Marquis of Liehou excavated in mainland China.
The excavation area of the tomb is 10,000 square meters, of which more than 10,000 pieces of various cultural relics have been excavated, the most eye-catching of which is as many as 2 million coins.
So, what is the scene inside this tomb? What is the story behind the owner of the tomb?
Han Dynasty high-grade tombs have been found
On March 23, 2011, a television station worker in Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, suddenly received a phone call from a villager from Guanxi Village, Datangping Township, Nanchang City.
According to the villager, a huge tomb robbery cave appeared on the dundon hill not far from their village.
The villagers thought that the ancient tomb buried under the mountain might have been stolen, so they wanted to ask the TV station to help contact the archaeologists to investigate.
After repeated confirmation of the news, the staff of the TV station immediately reflected the situation, and the news was immediately sent to the Jiangxi Provincial Archaeological Team.
At this time, Yang Jun, the leader of the Archaeological Research Institute who was resting at home, received a call from the director.
"Comrade Yang, there is a new job, there may be tomb robbers on Dundun Mountain, you go and take a look."
Hearing the "new job" coming from the other end of the phone, Yang Jun was not too happy, because he wanted to rest at home for a few days.
However, when he thought that the area around Dundun Mountain was the fiefdom of Hai Xiahou, and indeed there was a possibility of a tomb, he was very troubled, after all, if he went, he was likely to have new discoveries.
In the end, the sense of professionalism overcame fatigue, and he decided to take a look.
When Yang Jun hurried to Dadun Dun Mountain, it was already dark, and he followed the footsteps of the villagers of Guanxi Village to the tomb on Dun Dun Mountain.
They were greeted by a dark and dull cave with a diameter of more than two meters, which could not be seen at all, and next to the tomb were scattered some broken wooden planks of coffins and white plaster mud and charcoal used to seal the tomb.
Based on these scattered items, Yang Jun preliminarily judged that this was a Han Dynasty tomb, and it was also a high-grade tomb, and its owner was most likely a certain royal nobleman of the Han Dynasty.
At this time, he already had a preliminary judgment: this was mostly the burial place of a certain Marquis of Hai in the Han Dynasty.
But for the sake of the accuracy of the information, he still found the villagers who intended to inquire about one or two.
"Many people in our village know that there is an ancient tomb on this mountain, but everyone does not know who is buried, let alone where the entrance is."
The villagers said so.
Yang Jun knew that they had no other clues, and in order to find the identity of the owner of the tomb, Yang Jun immediately decided to dig down the tomb dug by the tomb robbers.
The next morning, all the archaeological and excavation equipment were transported to Dundun Mountain.
Everything was ready, and Yang Jun led people to start the excavation of this Han Dynasty noble tomb.
Only to see Yang Jun descend the rope into the tomb, before he reached the bottom of the cave, he smelled a fragrance.
Experienced he knew that this kind of tomb, which had been buried underground for more than two thousand years, generally had no odor.
Now there is a burst of aroma, which indicates that the tomb either has some rare funerary goods, or the material used to seal the tomb is particularly good.
In either case, it shows that the owner of this tomb is very unusual.
Everyone's interest and expectations for this tomb have increased.
After Yang Jun carefully went down to the bottom of the tomb, he found that the position of the tomb from the top of the sealed soil to the center of the tomb had been opened by the tomb robbers.
Fortunately, the tomb is in the Han Dynasty roomized style, so the center of the tomb is empty.
The tomb robbers dug into the middle and did not find anything valuable, so they did not dig any further, and the main part of the tomb was intact.
This made Yang Jun and the team members very excited, and the excavation of the tomb of Hai Xiahou began.
In just one month, Yang Jun led the archaeologists to excavate all the ruins such as the tomb group cemetery, tomb area, and tomb city.
In addition, they also excavated the chema pit, according to the judgment of the number of chema pits and horses, coupled with the investigation of the ruins of the site, Yang Jun concluded that this is the tomb of the Marquis of Haixia, but it is not known which Hou Haixiahou is buried here.
Because the tomb is the most completely preserved tomb ever found on the mainland, the Jiangxi Archaeological Research Institute reported the matter to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
Experts from the Cultural Relics Bureau arrived at the DundunShan tomb site in early April, conducted extensive exploration of the tomb, and finally confirmed the facts of the tomb of Hai Xiahou.
Excavations of the tomb of Marquis Hai
The excavation work of the archaeological team first began with the surrounding funerary tombs, and a large number of types of and finely crafted harnesses were first excavated, which were engraved with dragons, birds, sun, moon and stars and other complicated patterns.
In the cloister of the tomb, the archaeologists found a large number of cultural relics, all kinds of chimes, musical instruments, all kinds of books, wood chips, as well as very finely crafted bronze goose lamps, bronze mirrors, countless agate, gems.
These are all rare cultural relics of the Han Dynasty.
The more the archaeologists dug down, the more shocked they became: Which haikuhou in history is this? There will be such a wealth of funerary goods.
With the progress of archaeological work, the funerary tombs were gradually excavated, which also took 4 years for the archaeologists.
Finally, the archaeological excavations of the main burial chamber began.
Because the tombs of The Marquis of Hai are very rare in the archaeological history of the mainland, they have continued to attract the attention of people all over the country and even the world in the past few years.
Therefore, during the excavation of the main burial chamber on November 14, 2015, CCTV broadcast the excavation site live.
At about 9 a.m. on November 14, excavations officially began.
Archaeologists first excavated a set of lacquer screens and horseshoe-shaped gold objects, and then found a portrait of Confucius in the west of the main coffin room, and later according to experts, this may be the earliest confucius portrait found on the mainland.
The discovery of Confucius's portrait surprised the archaeologists, and they were even more surprised and shocked.
The next day, the archaeologists excavated more than 10 tons of copper coins in the burial chamber, and later it took archaeologists half a year to count these copper coins alone, but archaeologists also confirmed the han Dynasty's thousand-digit measurement units.
On 17 November, a large pile of gold objects was found on the west side of the main coffin chamber, more than a hundred kilograms of pure gold alone.
In the subsequent excavations, the archaeologists successively excavated jade swords, jade ear cups, insect percussions, bronze carriage and horse tools and other very precious and historical relics.
In the end, only the tomb owner's coffin remained unopened.
Because of the limited conditions at the tomb site, archaeologists decided to move the entire coffin to a special research institute and then open the coffin in order to protect the cultural relics in the coffin to the greatest extent.
When the coffin was opened, it was filled with jade, swords, and jade, but the bones of the tomb owner had turned into dirt.
Originally, archaeologists were very much looking forward to finding such a rare treasure as the golden jade robe in the coffin, but what shocked the archaeologists was that the owner of the tomb did not use the golden jade robe at all, but a more precious glass, and under the body of the corpse was a glass mat, which was more honorable than the golden jade coat.
With the opening of the main coffin, the identity of the owner of the tomb became better and better.
On March 2, 2016, at the press conference of the Tomb Excavation Exhibition, archaeologists announced the identity of this Hai Di Hou, who is the first generation of Hai Di Hou Liu He.
According to Xin Lixiang, an expert from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, "We determine the identity of the owner of the tomb in three ways. The first point is that the excavated wooden mu is a note written by the tomb owner to the emperor, and the date of the fold is consistent with the age of Liu He as the Marquis of Haixia; the second point is that several of the excavated gold objects have the words 'Chenhe' engraved on the bottom; and the last point is that the tomb owner wears a private seal around his waist, and the words 'Liu He' on it are still very clear. ”
When the owner of the tomb was announced, many netizens could not believe it, but many netizens also questioned: How could it be him?
People familiar with the history of the Han Dynasty know that although Liu He was a royal nobleman and even served as an emperor for 27 days, his fate was not good, he was even stripped of his throne in middle age, coupled with his arrogant and lavish personality, it is reasonable to say that after his death, it is impossible to have such a rich family foundation for funeral, so what is the matter?
The tomb of the first generation of the Marquis of Haixia
Liu He was actually the grandson of Emperor Wu of Han and the son of Liu Ji (劉髆), the Prince of Changyi.
Born in the royal family, Liu He was pampered and habitual from an early age, and when he grew up, he also formed an arrogant and lascivious personality, did not care about political affairs, and spent all day idle and spent days drinking.
Liu Ji was crowned the King of Changyi in the fourth year of the Tianhan Dynasty, and although he did nothing in his life, this was also a very important reason for his good death.
In 88 BC, Liu Ji died, and his other two sons died prematurely, and the younger son Liu He succeeded his father to the throne and became the new King of Changyi.
Except for Liu He, liu he had no other descendants under his knees, so Liu He inherited all of Liu He's family property while inheriting the king of Changyi.
Speaking of Liu Qi's family property, it can be said that it is very substantial.
Although he was only a king of Changyi who had no real power, he was very popular with Emperor Wu of Han because he was the younger son of Emperor Wu of Han.
In addition, coupled with the fact that Liu Qi's birth mother is a famous beauty in history, with the appearance of falling into the country and the city, she is deeply loved by Emperor Wu of Han, so Emperor Wu of Han loves Wu and Wu is also more loving to Liu Qi.
At that time, under the leadership of Emperor Wu of Han, the Great Han successfully defeated the nomads in the Western Regions, so the Western Regions would pay tribute to the Great Han every year.
Every time he received a tribute, Emperor Wu of Han would give priority to Liu Qi to choose his favorite items from them.
Emperor Wu of Han used sweat and blood to create some golden horseshoes to reward the princes and meritorious ministers who were divided into seals, and although Liu Ji was useless and nameless, he also received a lot of rewards from Emperor Wu of Han.
Therefore, when Liu Qi died, he left a very large fortune for Liu He, which also laid the groundwork for him to have such a rich funerary product in the tomb.
Originally, according to Liu He's personality, he might have stayed in his fiefdom for the rest of his life to find fun and be a happy and happy king of Changyi.
However, as a child of the royal family, many things are often involuntary.
In 74 BC, Emperor Zhao of Han died at a young age, leaving no heirs.
As a result, the powerful general Huo Guang prepared to support Liu He, the king of Changyi, as the new emperor. Huo Guang, as a relative of the emperor and a relative of the state, also held military power, so there was almost no obstacle to the establishment of a new emperor, and Liu He became the son of heaven of the Han Dynasty.
Even when he became emperor, Liu He failed to change his nature, and still ignored the government and politics every day, only caring about pleasure.
In the short 27 days of his reign, Liu He issued dozens of orders asking officials across the country to help him collect rare treasures.
Some courtiers could not see it anymore, so they went to counsel and persuaded him, and as a result, all the courtiers who went to the court were imprisoned.
Less than a month after Liu He's reign, more than a thousand requisitions of materials took place throughout the country.
Although Liu He was soon ousted from power, some of the materials scavenged from all over the country this time flowed under Liu He's door, which was another part of Liu He's burial supplies.
After being ousted by Huo Guang, Liu He returned to his hometown and became his own King of Changyi.
Later, when Emperor Xuan of Han ascended the throne, he was always worried that Liu He would threaten his throne, so he found an excuse to demote him to the Title of Marquis of Haixiao, which was also the origin of the first Marquis of Haixia.
In 59 BC, Liu He died, and according to the ceremonial system, his title and family wealth would be inherited by his sons, but his two sons died inexplicably when they were about to succeed to the throne, and the historical evaluation of this history is "the royal family of Changyi".
Without the heirs, Liu He's huge family property was thus all brought into the grave, which is why Liu He, although he had no power and no power, had a large number of funerary products.
In 2016, the excavation of the tomb group of Liu He of Haidian came to an end.
The excavation lasted more than 5 years and was well worth it for all the archaeologists and staff. Because the tomb of Hai Xiahou is the best preserved Han Dynasty tomb in terms of structure and layout excavated on the mainland.
In addition, the number and preciousness of the cultural relics unearthed are not inferior to the Mawangdui tombs, which are of great significance to the study of the history of the Han Dynasty.
Finally, for the matter of archaeology, some people feel that this is not much different from tomb robbery, that is, tomb robbery under the banner of the official.
This is Omura's fault, because although many times tomb robbers do the same excavation work as archaeologists, their purpose is very different.
Tomb robbers only want to sell cultural relics for profit; while archaeologists hope that these cultural relics can be seen again and show us their cultural heritage and historical value.
This is a completely different starting point, and we cannot confuse it.
We should pay tribute and gratitude to the archaeologists for their work, because they have allowed us to see the profound cultural accumulation of the Chinese nation's 5,000-year history.
Resources
"2015 Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries Released, The Tomb of Liu He, Marquis of Haidian" Phoenix.com[Cited on 2016-05-07]
"Nanchang Han Dynasty Hai Xiahou Houguo Ruins Museum" Yangguang Network[Cited on 2015-11-10]
"The main coffin of the Nanchang Western Han Tomb has entered the cleaning stage" Junmeng Network[Cited on 2015-12-16]
"Nanchang Western Han Hai Xiahou Tomb Owner Confirmed to Be "Han Abolished Emperor" Liu He" Xinhua Net[Cited on 2019-03-14]
"China unearthed 2000 years ago the tomb of the Marquis of the Western Han Dynasty, found more than 10 tons of copper coins" overseas network[Cited on 2019-03-14]