Excavation of the Lü family cemetery in Lantian, Shaanxi
In the headline "Playing Phoenix Under the Plane Tree" earlier, we talked about the theft and excavation of the tomb of the Lantian family in Shaanxi by the descendants of the Lü family (see
The villagers in the village did a happy event, and the villagers who came to drink happy wine quietly left, and it turned out that they had gone to the north of the village to rob the tomb
article). After the tomb robbery case was solved, the outside world was very surprised.
At the same time, the Shaanxi Cultural Relics Department took action and reported to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage for excavation.
Grave robbery hole (not related to this article)
In June 2008, the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology and the Xi'an Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics Protection and Archaeology formed a joint team to officially excavate the Lü family cemetery.
According to archaeological reports, after 18 months of excavation, 29 tombs of the Lü family were excavated and cleaned up, more than 655 sets of cultural relics were excavated, and 24 brick and stone epitaphs were excavated.
The cemetery was used for 43 years, from the seventh year of Emperor Xining of the Song Dynasty (1074 AD) to the seventh year of Huizong Zhenghe (1117 AD), and five generations of the Lü clan were buried successively. The tombs are arranged according to the traditional Chinese burial method of "holding children in arms and brothers hand in hand": from south to north on the central axis, the eldest son and grandson are arranged vertically, and the horizontal is arranged according to the generations.
Wulitou Village Lü's Cemetery
The tombs are all sitting north and facing south, and the shape is an earthen cave tomb with a shaft tomb, which is divided into a single chamber, a front and back double chamber, a juxtaposed double chamber, a single front chamber and a double rear chamber, and a main chamber with a side chamber, with a nearly flat or slightly arched top.
Do these tombs have anti-tomb robber designs? Yes! Not only that, but also very kitschy.
At the excavation site of the Lü family tomb, the tomb is extremely deep
In the past, whether it was folk or royal, tombs were built with the problem of future tomb robbers patronizing. As a famous Wang, the Lü family cemetery naturally has this consideration, using the most simple and most commonly used means in the past - "deep burial", most of the tombs are dug under the "stone" layer.
The burial depth of the Lü family tomb is far more than the folk tombs of the same era, the shallowest distance from the current ground is 7.5 meters, the deepest is 15.5 meters, and the general tomb robbers cannot dig at all.
Excavation site of ancient tombs (not related to this article)
Most of the tombs are dug under the calcium stone nodule layer in the geological structure, and the Luoyang shovel, the tomb robber's sharp tool, has become a piece of scrap iron, and it is impossible to drill down. Archaeologists also figured out the specific situation of the burial chamber after excavation.
Deep burial, the direct threat to tomb robbers is landslides and lack of oxygen, resulting in the phenomenon of "burying alive" tomb robbers and "holding back" tomb robbers. Many so-called tomb robbers have died of tomb poisoning, but in fact, they died because of lack of oxygen. The royal tombs, especially the tombs of the Qin and Han dynasties and the former nobles, are buried very deeply, and there is this anti-theft motive.
During the excavation, the archaeologists were almost buried alive by the Tomb of the Lü Family, and the scene showed the horror of deep burial against theft.
At the excavation site of the Lü family tomb, the tomb is extremely deep
This scene took place during the excavation of Tomb No. 3 (M3).
Tomb No. 3 is a tomb that was excavated according to the convention but was not used, and archaeologists speculate that it is Lü Dafang, one of the "Four Sages of the Lü Family".
Lü Dafang was degraded three times in his life. In the fourth year of Shaosheng (1097 AD), Lü Dafang was again demoted to Shu Prefecture as a deputy envoy to Xunzhou (present-day Huizhou, Guangdong), and died of illness at the age of 71 when he went to Xinfeng County, Qianzhou (present-day Xinfeng County, Jiangxi). It is speculated that because of this change, coupled with the long distance, Lü Dafang's body may not have been buried, so Tomb No. 3 is empty, only as a crown tomb.
Excavation site of ancient tombs, coffins exposed (not related to this article)
The tomb of the Lü family directly adopts the excavation method of the big unveiling.
In the northwest position at the top of Tomb No. 3, tomb No. 7 (M7) was found where the owner of the tomb was Lü Qianrong, the granddaughter of Lü Dafang. Tomb No. 7 was intact, and when the burial materials, coffins, and skeletons were nearly finished and they were waiting to be photographed, they found that it was not good. The construction site safety officer saw a crack in the northeast corner of the tomb passage of Tomb No. 3, and the soil slag fell down, and quickly notified all the personnel at the scene to withdraw. As a result, the front foot was separated, and the back foot was in trouble, and the south wall of the open earth collapsed at the same time, filling all the tombs of No. 7.
At the scene of the tomb robbery and landslide in Shandong, it was rumored that two people were buried alive
If it is not discovered in time, the archaeology of the Lü family cemetery will cause a disaster, and the archaeologists underground will be buried alive.
"Doubting" is that the Tomb of the Lü Family is quite ingenious, very special and anti-theft means, which enriches the content of Chinese folk anti-theft tombs.
In the excavation of the Lü family tomb, archaeologists found that there were 3 tomb anomalies - 1-2 empty tombs were placed vertically in the upper part of the main chamber, which was only seen in the Song tombs excavated so far.
What does this mean by the burial chamber arrangement? It is the composite anti-robber tomb design of the "tomb under the tomb" method, which can be described as "Ming Xiu Zhan Dao, Darkness Chen Cang".
This anti-robbery design, first discovered on Tomb No. 2 (M2), confused archaeologists and confused.
Perspective view of the structure of Tomb No. 2 of the Lü Family Cemetery (data map)
At that time, the empty tomb also had a tomb passage, which was superimposed on the real cave tomb passage. Archaeologists at first thought that this was a coincidence of modern tombs, but when they dug to a depth of 7 meters, the same situation occurred, and archaeologists realized that this was intentional when the tomb was built, not a coincidence.
Later, this phenomenon of "tomb under the tomb" was also found in two other tombs, and the anti-robbery tomb design of the Lü family tomb was confirmed.
Deep Caves (not related to this article)
"Setting doubts" is to confuse the truth with falsehood, and this wonderful anti-tomb robbery method is quite successful, and it really confuses the tomb robbers. During archaeological excavations, it was found that the false tomb at the top of Tomb No. 2 found traces of excavation, but the tomb robbers did not dig further.
So, who will be the owner of Tomb No. 2? Presumably it is Lu Da Lin!
Lü Da Lin successively studied under Zhang Zai, Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi and other famous masters of classics in the Northern Song Dynasty, and was a master of ancient Chinese literature and literature, "the first person in archaeology", and some scholars called him "the founder of Chinese archaeology". Although this statement is exaggerated, Lü Dalin's status in the ancient Chinese literary and bo circles is indeed not ordinary, and he is the originator of Jinshi.
Lü DaLin's illustration of "Archaeological Map"
Of the tombs in the ranks of "big", only Tomb No. 2 and Tomb No. 3 have not unearthed epitaphs, while the owners of other tombs have been excavated, each proving its owner. The third tomb next to it is believed to be Lü Dafang's, and the owner of the remaining tomb no. 2 should be Lü Dalin.
The most direct evidence is that the second tomb unearthed the eldest brother Lü Dagui of the "big" character, and gave a pair of stone duns to his cousin Lü Dalin, and the wall of Dun's abdomen was carved with Lü Dalin's official and brand name.
Moreover, from the analysis of the need to anti-tomb robbery, it should also be Lu DaLin, as a collector, he should be well versed in the way of tomb robbery.
Exquisite blue-glazed porcelain was unearthed from the Lü family tomb
In his later years, Lü Dalin was mainly engaged in the collection and research of bronze ware, and wrote "Archaeological Diagrams" and "Archaeological Illustrations", which are the foundation works of Chinese goldstone archaeology. There should be a lot of gold and stone objects, and it is possible to bury the tomb after death, so it is necessary to consider how to interfere with and superstitious tomb robbers.
However, "the road is one foot high, the devil is one foot high", no matter how difficult the tomb is, it is not difficult for the tomb robbers, and Lü Dalin's tomb No. 2 has also been stolen!
During excavations, a robbery hole was found in the passage of Tomb No. 4 (M4), and no robbery hole was excavated on Tomb No. 1 (M1) and Tomb No. 2. The archaeologists were very happy at the time, glad that they had not been excavated, and estimated that there would be major discoveries.
The Lü family cemetery was excavated with the burial products
But after cleaning up the burial chamber, the tomb robbers could not be happier anymore - tomb No. 1 and tomb no. 2 were patronized by ancient tomb robbers.
Strange, the tomb robbers have the art of escaping the land? No way.
If you look closely, it turns out that you came from Tomb No. 4. After stealing the no. 4 tomb, the tomb robbers turned southwest to dig the robber hole and entered the second tomb; then, they dug the robbery hole to the west from the second tomb, and then entered the first tomb to steal the valuable burial goods - it is really the art of escaping the land, straight out of the old nest!
Have to admire the cleverness of the tomb robbers!
The Lü family cemetery unearthed funerary items
What kind of grave robber is such a thief? The analysis believes that the tomb was stolen in the early days, perhaps shortly after the destruction of the Northern Song Dynasty, during the Jin people's entry into the Central Plains, when it was the autumn of chaos, it was the period of high theft of tomb robberies.
The tomb of the Lü family is guarded, who dares to steal? It is suspected that this tomb robbery is like the tomb robbery case in December 2006, and it is also the descendants of the Lü family who "dig the ancestral grave".
There are two reasons for this analysis.
The Lü family cemetery unearthed funerary items
First, the tomb robber must be very clear about the underground situation of the tomb, and must know that there are valuable burial items. Who can do that? Only the descendants of the Lü clan, the tomb keepers, are most likely to be self-thief.
Second, during archaeology, it was found that the tomb owner's bones had not been moved, and some porcelain was left. This reveals that the tomb robbers "spare their hands", can only be "family thieves", if it is an outsider to steal the tomb, they do not care about these.
Of course, the possibility of family thieves joining forces with foreign thieves to rob tombs is not ruled out.
Lü family cemetery unearthed Warring States fish tiger pattern with cover small copper ding (recovered after theft)
Milk nail pattern copper grate excavated from the Lü family cemetery (recovered after theft)
Lü family cemetery unearthed Han folded ear belt cover copper ding (recovered after theft)