The Yujiaba Warring States Warrior Tomb Group was revealed

The Yujiaba Warring States Warrior Tomb Group was revealed

Liu Dengping/Finishing

Ba, only recorded in the "Huayang Guozhi", the number is not more than a thousand words. The many questions left by Pakistan have always been a major mystery in archaeology.

In 2000, an archaeological team led by Luan Fengshi, a professor at the School of History and Culture of Shandong University, discovered a large group of Warring States tombs in Yujiaba, Qinyun Village (formerly the Twelve Groups of Yun'an Village), Qukou Town, Kaixian County, and unearthed hundreds of remains of Pakistani warriors. One asks, why are so many Ba warriors buried here?

The Warring States Tomb was unearthed by accident

Yujiaba is located in Qinyun Village, Qukou Town, Kaixian County, on the right bank of the Pengxi River, a tributary of the Yangtze River, 14 kilometers northwest of the county seat, and 1 kilometer south of the boundary of Yunyang County. The central geographic coordinates are 108 degrees 33 minutes 00 seconds east longitude and 33 degrees 08 minutes 23 seconds north latitude. The altitude is 151-159 meters, the main part is below 156 meters above sea level. It consists of two low, roughly parallel mounds surrounded by mountains. The ruins of the cemetery are located on the slope of the river northeast of Yujiaba. The cemetery is about 410 meters long from north to south and about 170 meters wide from east to west, showing a crescent arc and covering an area of more than 50,000 square meters. The content of the site is mainly divided into two major stages. In the early period, it was a group of tombs with Ba characteristics in the middle and late Warring States periods, and in the late period, it was the site of the Yuan and Ming dynasties. The site was discovered in the 1987 county-wide cultural relics census and was collected from the hands of the masses. In July 1992, it was re-examined and confirmed by the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. Due to the construction of the Three Gorges Water Conservancy Project, the Yujia Dam will be submerged. In accordance with the requirements of the "Three Gorges Project Construction Committee of the State Council" "Three Gorges Project Flooding Area and Relocation Area Cultural Relics Protection Plan", the Chongqing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics entrusted Shandong University to carry out the archaeological excavation of Yujiaba.

The discovery of the cemetery was purely accidental. Due to the perennial erosion of the river, the side of the slope near the riverbed often collapses, and because the villagers often burn bricks and soil here and renovate the terraces, they have dug out bronzes and other objects. According to villager Gao Min'an, in the 1970s, the bronzes dug up here were sent to the scrap collection station in sacks by the villagers to sell for a little money.

The constant discovery of "scrap" has attracted the attention of experts. In 1992, the Three Gorges Archaeological Team of the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology confirmed that this place was a cemetery of the Warring States period. In February 1994, commissioned by the Chongqing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics, the archaeological team of Shandong University investigated and excavated the site. From October 2000 to June 2007, the Department of Archaeology of Shandong University conducted large-scale excavations in Yujiaba continuously, with a total excavation area of 28,000 square meters, excavated 262 tombs from the middle and late Warring States period to the Western Han Dynasty, and excavated 1339 cultural relics. Among them, there are 629 bronzes, 574 pottery, 70 jades, and 66 other cultural relics such as lacquerware.

Samurai tombs dominate

The yujiaba tombs are all rectangular earth pit vertical pits, the coffins are rectangular, and most of the tombs have only one deceased person. The deceased was laid flat, on his back, with his lower limbs straight, and his hands crossed over his abdomen.

Of all the funerary artifacts unearthed, the most common are bronze weapons, which are found in almost all tombs. The complete combination of weapons is go, sword, spear, 钺 (pronounced same month, a weapon similar to an axe), and slash (a weapon similar to a short sword). All the weapons were placed on the right side of the deceased, and the hilt of the sword was exactly the position where the deceased held the sword before he died, as if the deceased still maintained a fighting posture.

Archaeologists say that the history of the Ba people is a history of war. For The Pakistani people, a nation that accompanied the war, it is impossible not to feel tragic after death to still keep its weapons in hand.

Not all tombs are equipped with these weapons, and there are a small number of tombs that are missing one or two or three. There is no trace of the tomb being stolen and excavated, and it should be that it was not equipped when it was buried. Some weapons can also be seen to have been bypassed by long vines before they were born, and the skull (pronounced Tongxiu, meaning brushing) has red paint.

Red paint was a valuable item during the Warring States period and was not eligible for use by ordinary soldiers. It can be seen from this that the status of these deceased people before they died was not ordinary.

After two thousand years of time, some of the bones have been destroyed, but from the excavated skeletons, most of the tomb owners were tall people before they died. Experts have analyzed that their height is more than 175 centimeters, which was definitely a tall and powerful person in the southwest region two thousand years ago.

The human bones in the M17 tomb in the southeast of the Yujiaba site are the best preserved, with the head facing northeast and facing west, and the skeleton is about 176 cm long. Professor Luan Fengshi of the Department of Archaeology of Shandong University speculated that the tomb owner was more than 180 centimeters tall. In addition to the standard combination of weapons, the burial is accompanied by two living utensils, copper hammers (pronounced tongmou, jar-shaped containers with ears) and clay pots, showing that the owner was an officer who often camped around during his lifetime.

Professor Luan Fengshi believes that according to the data, the average height of men in the Warring States period was less than 170 centimeters. Soldiers are the guarantee of the continuation of the Ba bloodline, but in the living conditions and war environment of the Warring States period, it is impossible to achieve the average height of all conscripted soldiers above 175 centimeters. Moreover, for soldiers, it is also impossible for all people to bury so many bronze weapons after death, judging by the economic strength of Pakistan at that time.

A more reasonable explanation is that most of these tombs were the burial places of The Ba officers at that time. More than 120 such tombs have been excavated in Yujiaba.

The samurai did not have a high rank during their lifetime

With so many samurai buried here, what rank were they in during their lifetime? Only the weapons they carried with them during their lives and the way they were buried were analyzed.

The bronze swords unearthed from Yujiaba are all about 50 centimeters long and do not exceed 60 centimeters. Sloping shoulders, flattened stem without lattice, small circular perforations on the stem, broad sword body, and blood grooves on both sides of the mid-ridge. This is the most common weapon excavated from the Yujiaba site, all of which are more common forms of Ba-style willow leaf swords.

Interestingly, the bronze swords are covered with red paint. At the time of excavation, most of the bronze swords had been oxidized, some had grown green mold, and some had been corroded to the point of not being touched, and they were brittle when touched.

This is completely different from the Ba-style willow leaf sword excavated from the Fuling Xiaotian Xiba tomb group. Oda creek's Bar-style willow leaf sword was still as sharp as ever when it was unearthed, and its hard and cold texture seemed to have just been forged, and there was no trace of corrosion at all.

Why is the gap so large? Professor Luan Fengshi explained that this is probably related to the construction measures of the tomb. The tombs of Odaxi generally use green mud paste to smear the four walls of burial utensils and the bottom of the tomb, and some also fill the tomb with soil and fill a large number of pebbles in layers, which not only makes the tomb structure strong, but also strengthens the function of anti-theft and anti-corrosion. Without the oxidation of air, the Ba-style willow leaf sword unearthed from Oda Creek is of better quality.

Fuling Odaxi also unearthed a rare jade sword - the sword head, sword hoop, sword grid and other parts are made of jade. Professor Luan said that this exquisite practice is only to highlight the noble status of the tomb owner before his death, indicating the noble status of the tomb owner. In turn, it can also be explained that the rank of the samurai in the Yujiaba site is not high, and it may be the status of middle and lower-ranking officers.

Why buried in one place

Why are so many Pakistani middle- and lower-ranking officers buried in one place?

There was a previous theory that there was a major battle near Yujiaba, which is why there are such large-scale military tombs. But Professor Luan Fengshi said: "This is absolutely impossible! The main reasons for this are:

First, as excavations progressed from south to north, fewer weapons were unearthed and more pottery was unearthed. If the tombs were built because of the battle, the number of funerary weapons should be between Bo Zhong. Judging from the changes in the time of the funerary products, from the middle of the Warring States period to the early Han Dynasty, there are nearly 300 years of time in between, which cannot be caused by a battle;

Second, there is no evidence that the bones were produced because of the war, and judging from the degree of calm and unhurried placement of the bones, the time of death should not be during the war;

Third, and most crucially, no wounds were found on all the bones.

So, what exactly is the truth of history?

Professor Luan Fengshi analyzed that a group of Pakistani people have lived here for nearly 300 years, so it is normal for a large number of tombs to gather here. As far as the current situation is concerned, the entire cemetery site is roughly divided into 4 communities where the tombs are relatively concentrated from south to north, and the overall layout of the tombs is staggered, indicating that this should be 4 family cemeteries.

The custom of gathering for burial has a long history, and in the concept of the Pakistani people and martial arts, it is entirely possible to bury soldiers who have made outstanding military achievements in peacetime according to their families. Judging from the Yujiaba site, the soldiers in each community were not arranged in a certain order, and the burial direction of the tombs was completely irregular, which shows that people's reverence for the soldiers at that time was not different because of the level of the military rank.

But in 300 years there are only more than a hundred tombs, which is also unreasonable. Professor Luan Fengshi explained that the excavation work has not yet been completed, and there should be more tombs unearthed. Moreover, in the vicissitudes of the two thousand years, many tombs have been destroyed for natural or man-made reasons, and it is normal that they cannot be found.

Tiger stripes on The Weapons of the Ba

In the Warring States period, when cold weapons were used to compete for the world, weapons determined the rise and fall of the country. From the cold light on the weapons of the Ba, can we learn some of the truth of annihilation?

The mysterious tiger-shaped and humanoid patterns on Yujiaba weapons coexist. One of the reasons why the Ba people are considered mysterious by the world is that no symbols that can be clearly identified as words have been found. Is the mysterious figure on the weapon unearthed in Yujiaba a Ba chinese script?

Judging from the excavated cultural relics, the Ba people's ge are all rectangular straight aid shape (Note: the part connecting the wooden handle is called the aid), and the blade is generally seriously corroded.

The tiger is cast in the main part, the tiger is on the side of the head, the eyes are rounded, the teeth are neatly arranged, the canine teeth are exaggerated and extended, the ears are erect, and the upper parts of the eyebrows are tilted backwards into wings. The tail is rolled up, the front and back claws are sharp, and the tiger's body is decorated with an eye-shaped glyph pattern with spots in between. The most peculiar thing is that a person is cast under the tiger's mouth, kneeling on the side, facing the tiger's body, with his hair fluttering forward and his waist pebble.

Under the tiger's abdomen, a marker is also cast horizontally, from top to bottom, which is a feather, four parallel double arcs, triangles and other mysterious shapes. Under the tiger's front paws, there are also "three" and "∩" patterns.

Professor Luan Fengshi explained that the Book of Barbarians records: "Bashi worships his ancestors, beats drums and sacrifices, and after the white tiger." "It can be seen from the literature that the popularity of tiger-shaped stripes is one of the important characteristics of Ba culture. It is very normal for the Ba people to be martial and to carve tiger stripes on weapons.

Several other mysterious motifs are not yet certain to be written, but are more similar to the religious symbols used in the worship of the wizarding class. Another explanation is that "three" resembles water, and "∩" resembles a mountain, which may be the story of the Ba people telling the story of their ancestors who climbed the mountain and waded through the water and came here.

The humanoid pattern on the weapon, in addition to the emblem, also has the meaning of bravery and invincibility. Experts believe that as for the specific meaning, it is still to be studied before an accurate conclusion can be drawn.

The types of weapons unearthed in Yujiaba are mainly go, spear, sword, and qi, and other weapons are very rare, and even the most lethal weapon at that time, the arrow, has only found one arrow so far. At that time, if there was no bow and arrow, it meant that there was no long-range killing ability. It is unimaginable to have only one arrow in such a large number of officers' tombs.

Professor Luan Fengshi speculated that the reason for this phenomenon may indicate that the people living here at that time were not in the midst of war, and their own strength was not strong, and they did not have the ability to attack others. Professor Luan also said that only the specific evidence unearthed can fully explain this phenomenon, which is only speculation at present.

Another possibility of not finding a large number of arrows is related to the geographical environment at that time. Among the known materials, the ancient Yujiaba was a densely forested area. Fighting in such areas, the use of bows and arrows is far less effective than short weapons, so the weapons found here have a common feature, shorter in size.

The remnants of the wooden handle of the weapon excavated from Yujiaba show that the spear and got length here are within 1.3 meters. In the Central Plains and Han River areas at that time, the length of similar weapons unearthed was generally more than 2 meters. Professor Luan believes that the eastern Sichuan region has more mountains and less flat land, and the way of war is mainly infantry warfare, rather than vehicle warfare in plain areas. Therefore, the short-handled go and spear were more effective and were the main weapons of close-quarters hand-to-hand combat at that time.

A mysterious woman in a samurai tomb

More than two thousand years ago, the military was the masculine world of men. What is strange is that in the tombs of the officers in Yujiaba, there are very few female tombs mixed in, which makes people feel strange.

The distribution of these female tombs is irregular, with 4 to 5 in each of the 4 cemeteries, the tomb owners are under 160 cm tall, and there are only a small number of living funerary supplies in the funerary items, such as copper hammers and clay pots. Individuals have a large amount of jade jewelry. In tomb M15, the owner of the tomb has more than 20 pieces of jade, such as dark blue six-sided jade beads and dark blue cylindrical hollow jade pipes. The low number of funerary supplies indicates that women are less likely to be women.

It was once believed that the women here were martyrs. Professor Luan Fengshi immediately refuted this statement: "There are no traces of violent coercion, killing or poisoning on the bones of female tomb owners, the bones of tomb owners are in the coffin, not outside the coffin, and there are a certain number of jewelry with burials, and the martyr's claim is untenable." ”

The most incomprehensible thing is that among the more than one hundred tombs that have been excavated, there are actually four or five tombs of men and women buried together. The location of these joint burial tombs is irregular and the orientation is also arbitrary. Inside the tomb, men and women are in the same coffin, and there is a partition in the middle to separate the two people, and their burial items are placed separately. The burial items of the tomb owner are not of high rank, the male is a simple weapon, and the female only has one or two funerary ornaments.

Professor Luan Fengshi analyzed that it can be seen that the status of women in the family cemetery before they died was recognized. Although there is no clear evidence of the conjugal relationship between the man and the woman, it can be shown that their relationship was close during their lifetime. The concept of male superiority over female inferiority was not the mainstream of society before the Han Dynasty, but was only widely popular after the rise of Confucianism in the Han Dynasty. In the Sengoku period, although women could no longer compete with men physically, they were also recognized by society after making special contributions. For example, the beauty meter that was widely used in the Warring States period is Xi Shi, one of the four beauties.

The Ba people were mainly engaged in fishing, hunting and animal husbandry during the Warring States period, and women are likely to be recognized by the tribe for their contributions in some aspect. As for the specific contribution, posterity does not know. From this analysis, it is understandable that women in the Yujiaba cemetery can be included in the family cemetery.

Samurai Tomb Source New Says

Generally speaking, if there are a large number of tombs gathered, there must be remnants of the settlement where the tomb owner lived not far away. The strange thing about the Yujiaba tomb site is that no remnants of the living settlement supporting it have been found.

Lijiaba in Gaoyang Town, Yunyang County, was an important salt-producing area during the Warring States period, and it was more than 15 kilometers away from The land straight-line distance from Kaixian Qukou Town and more than 20 kilometers away from the water. Lijiaba unearthed more than 200 Bajiaba warrior tombs in 1998. The more consistent view is that the Ba people who are from Lijiaba are the guardians of Lijiaba's salt well.

What did the Ba warriors unearthed in Yujiaba do?

Professor Luan Fengshi said: "This is one of the problems that plague us at the Yujiaba site. The Ruins of the Lijiaba People in Yunyang show that next to the tomb site is the ruins of their living settlements, which shows that the Ba people also have the custom of building cemeteries near the living sites. Strangely enough, we went through the large and small ravines near Yujiaba, but there was no harvest. ”

At the moment when the excavation work was not progressing, an unexpected situation came into the eyes of the experts. There is a boat ferry near the bank of the Yujiaba site, and the villagers have to rely on small ferries to cross the Pengxi River, which is hundreds of meters wide. After a heavy rainy night, The villager in charge of the boat, Mr. Li, complained loudly by the river, saying that he had forgotten the rope last night, and the riverbank was washed down by the rain, and the boat was washed downstream and crashed.

Experts were reminded whether the local Ba settlement was built by the river, only to gradually disappear with the passage of time because of the perennial rain. Of course, there is not enough evidence to prove this claim, but at least new ideas have been opened up.

In all dynasties and generations, the graves of officers buried together because of war abounded. In the tombs of the Spring and Autumn Period that have been discovered, the burial tombs of more than 2,000 soldiers have been excavated. This shows that in ancient times, people's worship of force was very strong. In contrast, the Yujiaba tomb site is only a smaller site.

The distance from Yujiaba to Lijiaba in Gaoyang Town, Yunyang, is more than 20 kilometers. In the case of the Warring States period, when the local area was still a barbaric land, it was normal for Yujiaba and Lijiaba to have economic exchanges with the banks of the Waipengxi River. As far as the current excavations are concerned, the Lijiaba site lasted from the late Spring and Autumn Period to the Western Han Dynasty, and the time was earlier than the middle Warring States period to the early Western Han Dynasty of Yujiaba.

Judging from the scale of the Yujiaba site that has been excavated, it is still smaller than the Lijiaba site. Experts speculate that with the increase in population and the increase in demand for property, Lijiaba cannot afford to bear more population, so the Yujiaba site is branched out of Lijiaba. The artifacts unearthed by the two are quite similar in shape and structure.

Professor Luan Fengshi said that we can only speculate that Yujiaba in Kaixian County is a cultural branch from Lijiaba in Yunyang. In the nearly 300 years from the late Warring States period to the early Western Han Dynasty, there was a tribe of Ba people living and breeding in Yujiaba and living an almost indisputable life. But in the end, for reasons we don't know yet, they disappeared into the Three Gorges region. The excavation of the artifacts of the Yujiaba tomb group is of great value to the study of the living customs and funerary customs of the Ba people, as well as the origin of the Bashu culture, the Bachu culture, and the Central Plains culture.