One day in June 1990, archaeologists at the Hepu County Museum conducted a fieldwork near Huangnigang, not far from the county seat, while a nearby brick factory was carrying out soil extraction operations, and workers excavated some Han bricks with ornaments. Experts immediately began to carry out rescue excavations of the land taken from the brick factory, and soon a tomb from the Eastern Han Dynasty was revived, which was the No. 1 Tomb of Huangnigang.
This Eastern Han tomb is 25 meters long, 2.6 meters deep and 4.2 meters wide, and is a brick and wood structure tomb, including a sloped tomb passage into the burial chamber, three parts of the front and rear chambers, and the floor of the tomb is paved with fine small checkered Han bricks.
Due to its age, the owner of the tomb has long since decayed, and experts can only infer from the size of the coffin that the male tomb owner is about 1.8 meters tall. Awakened from their slumber, there are more than 300 precious burial artifacts, of which there are eight first-class cultural relics alone.
In the rear of the back room of Huangnigang No. 1 Tomb, a bronze warehouse architectural model was unearthed, the copper warehouse was 54 cm high, the surface width was 58 cm, there was a gabled tile roof, and the tile surface was engraved with fine straight stripes, and the craftsmen used this exquisite detail to imply that the imitation building was made of bamboo grass.
Below the flat surface of the building, there are four high feet supported. This is the typical pole-railing building in the Lingnan area. On the door of the copper barn, there is a flying phoenix figure, the left and right panel walls are carved with a mighty samurai, the left and right gables are carved with a bird-headed animal dance and a turtle riding nine lanterns, the back wall is divided into three compartments, the center is carved with a tiger that turns back and opens its mouth, the left and right two compartments each depict a flower tree on the Cloud Mountain, and there is also a flying phoenix on the top of the tree.
Jiang Tingyu, former director of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Museum: After the Central Plains culture unified Lingnan through Qin, it continued to spread to Lingnan, and it is a strong culture. Lingnan talents carved some of these stories, themes, animals and plants into his bronze ware, which is a fusion of cultures.
Although this piece of jade bi is recognized as a second-class cultural relic, it is particularly eye-catching. It has a diameter of 18.3 cm, an inner diameter of 3.5 cm and a height of 27 cm. Bi is white jade and opaque. The upper part of the bi is carved with double dragon buttons, and the center of the new is engraved with the six characters of "Yi Descendants Day chang". The body is covered with grain patterns, the cloth is orderly, and the outer edge of the bi is decorated with a circle of convex string patterns, with exquisite craftsmanship and neat layout, which is a rare masterpiece in Han Dynasty jade carving.
As early as the pre-Qin period, tianzi and princes used jade for sacrifice, which can basically be divided into six types of "Bi Qun Gui Zhang", which are used to worship the heavens, so they rank first.
At that time, people also had some regulations on the form of jade bi, and it was said in the Erya: "Meat is better than bi, good times meat is called yi, and meat is good as a ring." By the Han Dynasty, the use of jade bi also gradually transitioned from a serious ritual vessel to a decorative ornament with a function of revealing identity, and the more complicated the craftsmanship, the more it can highlight the extraordinary status of the owner of the jade bi.
Lian Shiming, director of the Hepu Han Dynasty Culture Museum: This side of the Kou Yu Bi is the standard instrument of the Han Dynasty Out of the Kou Yu Bi, which has the six characters of "Yi Zi Zi Day Chang" out of the Yu Bi, which is currently only this side.
In addition to this rare jade bi, the treasures beside the tomb owner are all ingenious and dazzling. People can't help but ask, surrounded by such magnificence, who is the owner of The First Tomb of Huangnigang? Next to the owner of the tomb, experts found two seals, indicating the true identity of the owner of the tomb.
Lian Shiming, director of the Hepu Han Dynasty Culture Museum: The tomb of Huangnigang No. 1 has two seals unearthed, one is the turtle new copper seal, which is "Chen Praise". The other is the talc seal "Xu Wen Lingyin", so this Huangnigang No. 1 tomb is a Han tomb excavated by hepu Han tombs, and the owner of the tomb is very clear.
Xuwen is located today at the southern tip of the Leizhou Peninsula, choking the throat of the Qiongzhou Strait, and is one of the starting ports of the "Silk Road" on the Western Han Sea. As early as the sixth year of the Han Wu Emperor Yuanding, that is, in 111 BC, the Han army pacified South Vietnam and established seven counties in the Lingnan area. According to the Book of Han and Geographical Records, Xuwen was the first county of Hepu County. In the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, the order changed, and Hepu became the first county. In historical records, a county below and the county name in front is generally the seat of the county. It can be inferred that the county seat of Hepu County was once Xu Wen, who moved to Hepu at the latest in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
In the 1980s, near the grass shoe village in Lianzhou Town, Hepu County, the archaeologists confirmed a large-scale Han Dynasty city site, with a circumference of about 1300 meters, one facing the river, three sides of the excavation moat and the river water, the city has a complete Han Dynasty pottery workshop remains and settlement area, full of life, from the scale of the city site, the grass shoe village site may be the relocated Hepu County. To this day, the Hanjing in the ruins of Grass Shoe Village has not dried up.
The "Table of Hundred Officials and Secretaries of State" of the Book of Han says: "The county order and the chief are all Qin officials, who rule their counties." More than 10,000 households are ordered". That is to say, although Xuwen County at that time may no longer be the seat of Hepu County, it is still a large county with more than 10,000 households.
However, as the highest official of such a large county, Chen Bao, his "Xu Wen Ling Seal" was made of inexpensive talc, which had almost collapsed by the time of excavation, and the seal body seal engraved on the seal was also extremely sloppy. What's going on here?
Lian Shiming, director of the Hepu Han Dynasty Culture Museum: The normal official seal, it is the Han Dynasty has strict regulations, and then he adopts the copper system, and the printing pattern it uses is very regular, so from these characteristics to compare this talc Xuwen County Lingyin, it completely belongs to the style of a temporary production of the seal, not the official seal in the official palace.
In the Han Dynasty, Hepu was busy and gathered immeasurable wealth at home and abroad. The polyhedra amethyst charms, aquamarine column stone charms, lake blue glasses and other utensils found next to Chen Bao are all from outside China. The ultra-high-standard funerary utensils and his penchant for collecting treasures seem to indicate that this mysterious Xuwen County Ling has an extraordinary life. What kind of person is he? Why is he buried in Hepu? As a local county order, how did you get these rare treasures?
Unfortunately, in the existing historical materials, we cannot find records about the Han Dynasty Hepu Chen Bao. Chen Bao lived a desirable and prosperous life before his death, and buried his treasures in the ground after his death, and the past events of more than 2,000 years ago were confusing. In the puzzles of history, people continue to explore, and the road to the truth will eventually be revealed to the eyes of the world.