In August 2020, when the construction of the archaeological site in Zhangwangqu Village began, an elderly man surnamed Jia in the village told the staff of the archaeological team: "My aunt's grave is in this excavation area, it has been a long time, I want to move away, and now I can't find it." But I was buried in a large crock pot, and you met me when you dug it, so let's give us a notice. ”
We left the phone of the elderly, and the excavation work began normally. In the middle of November, there was a ash pit in the expedition in charge, and the mouth of a large urn was exposed, and I thought it could hold a person, so I told the person in charge to come and see if it would be a grave to be moved. We shoveled some down with a shovel, and it turned out to be only a well-preserved mouth edge of a large urn, and there were no bones left inside.
■ Archaeological site of Zhangwangqu Village | Source: Shaanxi Archaeological Research Institute
Teacher Shi said that the range of people refers to this piece, we jumped to the surrounding four probes to look for, just in the middle of the north side of the probe adjacent to my probe, Teacher Shi found a half-cut urn, which can see some of the human bones leaking out of the ground. This is very consistent with the old man's description, and he immediately called to inform the family. The owner was from the village, and within half an hour, he arrived at the construction site and confirmed that this was his aunt's tomb. He enthusiastically smoked the workers and thanked the archaeological team for worrying about him.
The old man said, "I'll go back and buy a red cloth to cover her first." Half an hour later, the old man took a piece of red dragon and phoenix silk cloth neatly covered the mouth of the broken clay pot, covered it with another layer of colored stripe cloth, and then pressed small bricks on the four corners.
I was very touched to see this scene, an old man in his seventies who had not forgotten his aunt.
In the process of chatting with the old man, I heard some things that surprised me, he told me that he had never met his aunt, and he also knew from the elders of the family, the aunt was named "Jia Huiwen", who died of tuberculosis at the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and was a college student in his twenties. Originally buried in Xi'an, when they returned to Zhangwangqu Village with their families, they reloaded their aunt's remains in large clay pots and buried them in the fields north of Zhangwangqu Village.
■ Schematic map of the location of the ruins of Zhangwangqu Village | Source: Shaanxi Archaeological Research Institute
These things have been explained by the old man in the family, so the old man has never forgotten. One morning in late November, the old man and the people of the funeral home held a simple ceremony next to their aunt's tomb, lighting red candles, burning paper money, and erecting a handful of incense. He took his aunt's remains out of the jar, wrapped them in a large red silk cloth, and went back to the funeral home for cremation.
After this incident, on the one hand, I feel that the Jia family's family style is really good, and it has indeed achieved a good inheritance in filial piety. On the other hand, it makes me rethink the human bones in archaeological excavations (what I mean here is more about the remains of ancient people who entered the period of historical civilization).
Ten years ago, I first saw a Tang Dynasty woman's plaster bag, because she had a copper belt around her waist, and for more rigorous laboratory excavations, the remains of the waist were intercepted and packed with copper belts. Of course, such cultural relics have indeed been better protected, as for the truncation of human bones, at that time I always felt that there might be something inappropriate.
Seven years ago, I was in real contact with field archaeological excavations for the first time, and the leader sent the skull remains of the tomb owner excavated to a university laboratory, and when I entered the laboratory, I heard a bit of a harsh grinding sound, I asked what it was for, and I got a reply that the human bones were ground into powder to extract what ingredients to do research, and at that time, my brain only popped out four words" "frustrated bone ash".
Of course, these ideas contain a lot of personal biases and limitations, and I sometimes even think that I am too pedantic. Due to the needs of cultural relics protection and physical anthropology, some things have to be done, and such research is undoubtedly of great archaeological significance.
Over the years, I have been studying archaeological excavations intermittently in the field, in addition to the important prehistoric human bones will be properly protected or extracted as a whole, the final direction of human bones, there are two general directions, one is to be packed into the warehouse for research needs, the other is to do the site after the sex, age identification, is landfilled.
I am a person in my early thirties, and whenever I encounter the remains of people in my thirties and thirties at work, I always feel a lot of emotions, and I am glad that I am still standing in this world. I often consider myself an atheist, agree that archaeological excavation is a scientific work, and that once a person dies physically, it is the real end, and as for the remains, they are pure material, which is not a big deal. I have to say that I am contradictory, sometimes compassionate and sometimes cold to the remains of the ancients.
However, the Chinese nation is a nation that values its ancestors, roots, and filial piety, and how to correctly and reasonably arrange the remains of the ancients is definitely something worthy of in-depth consideration. So many nameless ancients beneath the earth are our common ancestors in a broad sense, and we must all do some work with reverence.
Recently, after listening to the speech of archaeologist Xu Hong, there is a paragraph suitable for the end of a small article, which is excerpted as follows:
"We should pay attention to the objects of our excavations, and some thinking about ethical issues should be more serious issues." ...... We also sometimes reflect that the remains of the ancients we can not move, because he also has an ethical problem. Chinese his concept was to settle down, and personally he agreed that his bones would be displayed in the window of the museum? This is really a relatively heavy issue, that is, the relationship between archaeology and ethics, and we in the Chinese archaeological community have not yet launched such a discussion. Archaeology is originally an imported product, in the Western academic community, they are already considering such issues more seriously, and some of their practices are worth learning from me. ”
Author | Wu Hu | Shaanxi people