In 2018, the excavation of the seal of "Nephew Axia Wang" (དབོན་འ་ཞ་རྗེ་ཕྱག་རརྒྱ།) has attracted great attention at home and abroad. I personally did not study this in depth, but with the guidance and help of many teachers and friends in the Tibetan and archaeological circles, I wrote a small article and talked about some understandings from various aspects such as seals, Dunhuang documents, and Xianbei gold and silverware, in order to seek advice from the Fang family.
(1) The seal is a symbol of status
Since the Han Dynasty, seals (jade, gold and other materials) have been widely used in China, and it is a symbol of status and status. There does not seem to be a need to renegotiate this issue. I will also give an example of the historical data that everyone is familiar with.
The seal of the Prince of Han and Jin, this is everywhere:
During the Han and Jin dynasties, the imperial court appointed the leaders of the frontier nationalities as kings and marquises:
Among them is the Xianbei Guiyi Houyin:
In the Dunhuang Tubo literature, it is common to see the official government or senior monks using the seal:
Above, the seals are all about showing the identity and status of the owner.
Therefore, the nephew of Blood Wei No. 1, Asha Wangyin, should naturally be the identity of the owner of the tomb.
(2) King Axia is the King of the Murong clan of Tuguhun
Seals are one thing. The question is whether this nephew King Asha is King Tuguhun? I think that the Tuguhun King Mohe Tuhun Khan (his mother, the Princess of Tubo State), who has been notified of high-tech means of testing and identification, and who has been verified by experts, should be correct. There have been many publications of relevant evidence and reasons, and the author will not repeat them; two additional bases are provided:
First, the Axia recorded in the Tibetan literature in Dunhuang is Tuguhun, also called Retreat. The Chinese historical record is called Achai, but the Tibetan-Chinese cross-reference book in Dunhuang (P2762V) clearly states that འ་ཞ་i.e. retreat, འ་ཞ་རྗེ་i.e. the King of Retreat (right); this འ་རྗེ is the same as the འརརྗེ་text. Here are also written Han (རྒྱ) and Han Tianzi (རྒྱ་རྗེ), Hui (དྲུ་གུ, i.e., Turkic) and Uighur kings (餲ུ་ག་གུ་རྒྱལ་པོ). This document was written nearly half a century after the end of Tubo's reign in the era of the Zhang clan's return to the rebel army in Dunhuang, when Tubo had always been the lingua franca of the various ethnic groups in the areas he had occupied, especially the lingua franca of official documents. If it is said that even if the Axia on the seal is not the same thing as the Achai in the Han historical records, the most original record of the Dunhuang literature should not be wrong.
The second and most important point is the historical origin of Murong's developed and advanced gold processing and use since ancient times. As a branch of the Xianbei clan, the Murong clan came from the northeast to the northwest. As early as the Han and Jin Dynasties, the Xianbei people in the northeast and north already had a developed economic culture. This point is reflected in the cultural relics excavated from the tombs of humble nobles in the northeast, especially the various gold objects and gold ornaments unearthed. The most famous are gold ornaments, such as Murong Xianbei gold ornaments collected in the Liaoning Provincial Museum and Inner Mongolia:
Let's look at the gold ornaments excavated from tomb No. 1 in Blood Wei and other surrounding tombs:
Compared with the two, the space is from northeast to northwest, and in time from Han to Tang, the same line is inherited. In particular, animal gold jewelry is very distinctive, although it is separated by five hundred years and spans tens of thousands of miles, it is still very similar to the hand of one person. This reflects the inheritance of an ancient national craft. Moreover, in the northeast, north and Qinghai, thousands of such gold jewelry have been unearthed and can be specifically compared.
Therefore, whether it is Blood Wei No. 1 or some other tombs around it, it should be the Murong family of the ancient Xianbei clan, especially the tombs of princes and nobles.
(3) The strength and prosperity of the Xianbei Murong clan
Xianbei belonged to the Donghu tribe, which had long been active in the wider area of northeast and northern China, and was found in historical records during the Eastern Han Dynasty. During the Wei and Jin dynasties, the Murong clan, along with Tuoba, Duan, Yuwen, and Qifu, all became large tribes of the Xianbei tribe, which dominated northern China for hundreds of years. Among them, Murong Shi established the Former Yan, Later Yan, Southern Yan, Western Yan and Northern Yan regimes in the Sixteen Kingdoms era. One of them arrived in the Qinghai area of Gansu very early, which was the Tuguhun Kingdom that later submitted to the Tang first and then to Tubo. But before the rise of Tubo, thanks to the foundation laid by the ancestors of the Xianbei people, Tuguhun was very strong and prosperous from the beginning. As a nomadic people, mastering advanced gold processing skills, and have always attached great importance to and carry out commercial trade; because of its remote location, it has not posed a threat to other ethnic groups for a long time, but has used the rich resources of this region to continue to develop animal husbandry and handicrafts, and to communicate with the surrounding areas for friendly exchanges and common progress.
It is said that the Xianbei tribe originally had a written script, but it was banned after the reform of Emperor Xiaowen of northern Wei and switched to The Chinese language. The humble gold ornaments we see are engraved in Chinese. Therefore, in the future, whether it was subject to the Tang Dynasty or to Tubo, as a Xianbei murong clan, he was able to follow the customs, use The Han or Tubo script, and abide by the various systems of the Tang Dynasty or Tubo, all of which was logical.
As for the Central Asian elements of the pattern of the gold ornaments, this is also easy to understand, that is, the result of the mutual exchange between the various ethnic groups in this vast region, Tuguhun as Murong Xianbei, the absorption and integration of foreign cultures is their strength. Central Asian gold ornaments were influenced by Xianbei, that is, the gold jewelry popular in Sogdia was also influenced by Tuguhun, or directly processed and manufactured by Tuguhun – it is said that this aspect has also been found in the record.
The history of the Xianbei people is far older than that of Tubo, and the era of prosperity and strength is even earlier than that of Tubo; the economic culture of the Murong Kingdom of the Xianbei tribe in the Han and Jin Dynasties is more developed than that of Tubo in the Tang Dynasty; gold and silverware was later widely used in Tubo, which should also come from the spread of Murong Clan; Murong Clan moved west and settled in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau for a long time, which also played a role in promoting the progress and development of Tubo and surrounding society.
Conclusion: Tuguhun Tomb
As experts have determined, the tomb of Dulan Blood Wei No. 1 is the tomb of King Tuguhun. Historically, the people of all ethnic groups in China have made tremendous contributions to the prosperity and development of the Chinese nation. Although some ethnic groups have disappeared into the long river of history due to their integration into the big family of the Chinese nation, their contributions will not only live forever in the annals of history, but also continue to be confirmed by archaeological excavations. The Blood Wei No. 1 Tomb is the ironclad evidence of the Xianbei Clan!
In addition, the Tubo costume figures on the relevant Tuguhun tomb coffin paintings are mandatory requirements for all the residents in the ruling area during the Tubo occupation period, such as the costumed offering portraits of the Dunhuang grottoes created in the Tubo era, and there are inscriptions that prove that they are basically not Tubo people; the offerings of Murong Shi in the Dunhuang murals are generally dressed in Hanfu, and it is logical to wear costumes in the Tubo jurisdiction era. On the one hand, this aspect also shows that Murong Xianbei was able to follow the customs and has a strong ability to accept and integrate foreign cultures.
See "The Seal of the Nephew Achai King" Blood Wei No. 1 Tomb Identity and Clan Determination! Expert Argument: An Epoch-Making And Important Discovery on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau! (Web Data, January 2021). "Qinghai Dulan Hot Water 2018 Blood Wei No. 1 Tomb: Wooden Stone Five Shrines, FrescoEd Coffin Complete", (Network information, May 2019).
See "The Golden Seal of the Two Han Dynasties, Wei and Jin Dynasties: The Seal of the Golden Official Seal of the Princely General Zhang", (Online Information, 2018), and various related catalogues.
See Hao Keyu, "On the Phased Characteristics of the Development of Humble Human Gold Jewelry: An Investigation Based on Quantitative Statistics", Cultural Relics Spring and Autumn, 2019.3; Golden Glory: Famous Gold Artifacts under the Influence of the Silk Road, Golden Grassland and Nomadic Civilization (Web Data, 2018). Ulantoya and Kong Qun, "The Gold and SilverWare of the Xianbei Nation", Inner Mongolia Pictorial, No. 4, 2007; Zhang Jingming and Zhao Aijun: "Xianbei Gold and Silverware and Related Problems", "Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Inner Mongolia", No. 1, 2002, et al.
See Ma De, "A Small Discussion on The Costumed Figures in the Dunhuang Murals", in", in "A Study of the Grottoes and Tibetan Buddhist Art during the Reign of Dunhuang Tubo", Gansu Education Publishing House, September 2012.
Source: Dunhuang Research Institute, Author: Ma De