Many people have asked a question: "There are so many relics in China, why do you always wait until construction has been discovered before resuscitative excavation?" "The Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin (here can be replaced by a large number of imperial tombs and royal tombs) are said to be so good, why didn't they open up for the common people to see for a long time? ”
Before answering this question, let us look back at a less glorious past.
On October 4, 1955, a request was sent to the State Council, and it was handed over to Premier Zhou Enlai several times, and the content of the request was as follows:
Judging from the results, Premier Zhou gave a reply to agree to the excavation, but behind this was a struggle between Chinese archaeology and history at that time.
The proposal was initiated by the first and third signatories, Guo Moruo and Wu Han, of whom Wu Han (then vice mayor of Beijing) was the biggest political supporter of the proposal.
Guo Moruo's name, most people living in the republic probably know how, let's not mention it here, and talk about this less famous Wu Han, who is Wu Han?
Wu Han, 55 years old
To put it simply, in 1931, Wu Han entered the History Department of Tsinghua University, which was a letter of introduction from Hu Shikai, who stayed on to teach after graduating in 1934, and was also quite supported by Hu Shi, Gu Jiegang and Fu Sinian and other republicans.
So, what about the part of history that he specifically studied? The answer is – Ming Shi.
Although Wu Han's words are all about "excavation will be conducive to academic research" and "increasing the cultural content of the people", as a researcher of Ming history, it is not difficult to understand his idea of wanting to get a glimpse of Changling.
This mentality is difficult to describe simply as "selfish" or "greedy", did he really make this proposal from the perspective of disciplinary research?
It's hard to deny.
But there is no doubt that this mentality has contributed to his beginning of coveting the Ming Emperor's mausoleum, and it is about to lead to an archaeological disaster unprecedented since the emergence of modern Chinese archaeology.
Left: Zheng Zhenduo; Right: Xia Nai
Zheng Zhenduo, then director of the Cultural Relics Bureau, and Xia Nai, deputy director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, were shocked to learn of this proposal and rushed to Wu Han to ask him to retract the proposal.
Zheng Zhenduo warned Wu Han that at that time, the state simply did not have the conditions to properly excavate a mausoleum of this scale, and the preservation and restoration of cultural relics would become a huge problem.
However, Wu Han actually thought that the republic had been established for five or six years with an almost Great Leap Forward, and had also trained one (really only one) college student in the direction of archaeology, and manpower and material resources were not a problem.
No matter how powerful Zheng Zhenduo and Xia Nai's rebuttal was, and how absurd Wu Han's views were, in the face of Wu Han's political power, this proposal finally landed on the ground.
On the last day of 1955, preliminary fieldwork for Changling began.
However, after some investigation, it was impossible to find the tomb entrance of Changling.
Because Zhao Qichang was the first to enter the underground palace, he was also known as the "first person to excavate the Dingling Tomb". Zhao Qichang said in his later years: "At that time, I was in favor of digging the Dingling Tomb, but it is because of everything I have experienced, and now I do not approve of digging any imperial tomb!" ”
Therefore, at the suggestion of Zhao Qichang, who was the head of the excavation team at the time, the excavation team decided to first find a smaller imperial tomb as a "test excavation".
After some tossing and turning, the excavation team finalized the Dingling Tomb, which is the joint burial tomb of Emperor Mingshen Zhu Yijun (era name Wanli) with Empress Xiaoduanxian and Empress Xiaojing.
The subsequent exploration and excavation process also experienced countless twists and turns, including even in order to speed up the excavation progress, a special asphalt road leading to Dingling was built, and the slow but meticulous manual excavation was replaced by mechanized excavation.
Archaeologists found the entrance to the Dingling Tomb
On September 21, 1957, the main entrance of the Xuangong Palace of Dingling was opened by the excavation team, and the coffins and rich funerary items in the Dingling Tomb were displayed for the first time in front of the world.
At least so far, despite the twists and turns and disputes, it is at least a serious archaeological excavation, and what happened later, to quote a sentence in the "Wind and Snow Dingling", "Thus, the history of Chinese archaeology has opened a sad and bleak page."
The beginning of the tragedy began with how to protect the countless cultural relics in the Dingling Tomb, the most difficult of which was the wooden figurine.
According to European and American standards, if you want to keep the wooden figurines in a good state, the most appropriate way is to seal them after freezing and dehydration at ultra-low temperatures (minus 200 ° C).
Bai Wanyu was appointed as the on-site commander
At that time, the republic did not have this technology to preserve, and Mr. Bai Wanyu, who was responsible for protecting cultural relics in the archaeological team, had to use the original soil method to melt the white wax in the pot, trying to wrap the wooden figurines with a layer of wax to prevent oxidation and deformation.
Of course, this soil method is not enough to preserve the wooden figurines in good condition, and a large number of wooden figurines are deformed and discolored after waxing, and the expressions are distorted.
Funerary wooden figurines in the Dingling Tomb
Those familiar with history should know that in 1957, just as the excavation progress of the Dingling Tomb was advancing, the leadership of the excavation team was also taken over by the newly established Preparatory Group of the Dingling Museum, and the new leader actually demanded that the excavation team immediately stop the clean-up work and withdraw from the Xuangong for political reflection.
Although Xia Nai, as the presiding officer of the excavations, repeatedly asked the excavation committee to withdraw the order, the committee that had lost its leadership was already difficult to protect itself.
Although the excavation team, from the host Xia Nai to the average mechanic, worked overtime to try to complete the work before the storm came, however, a ruthless political storm swept through the dim Xuan Palace of Dingling.
On August 22, the excavation team was pulled into a room, and the new leader criticized the leader Zhao Qichang for "using various excuses to evade political study, not holding a life review meeting, not reporting ideas, and not criticizing and self-criticizing."
What follows is an overwhelming barrage of review meetings, ideological debriefings, and self-criticism and other meaningless political activities.
The funerary items on the side of the bed of the White Jade Coffin, the wooden brackets have decayed, and various cultural relics are scattered on the ground.
When the excavation team members were deeply involved in the political whirlpool, they missed the golden time to preserve the excavated cultural relics, and all the silk fabrics unearthed in the Dingling Tomb were moldy and decayed, and the silk satin that had just been unearthed at a bright time became decayed like rotten bark after a few days.
Xia Nai reluctantly returned to Beijing with these rotten silk fabric fragments, trying to stop this absurd storm.
Thankfully, these fragments of silk fabrics, which had turned to dust, did attract the attention of the upper echelons, and also exchanged a period of time for the excavation team to remediate the artifacts, and after nearly half a year of stagnation, they were able to resume the clean-up work.
Perhaps for the excavation team, although this is not exciting, but it is a good thing to have an explanation.
And from the current point of view, this period is so sad and powerless, because in a few years, an even more crazy wave will completely destroy the fruits of their day and night work.
Archaeologists are extracting artifacts from the coffin of the Wanli Emperor
In September 1958, the funerary items in Dingling were transported out of the underground palace and exhibited to the public, and Guo Moruo, Wu Han, Zheng Zhenduo, Xia Nai, and several other people who had previously debated whether to excavate or not came to participate in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Guo Moruo and Wu Han looked at the jewels shipped out of the Dingling Tomb and were completely immersed in a triumphant joy and excitement.
However, on the same day, zhao Qichang, the leader of the excavation team, received an unacceptable message: he was about to be sent to Liangxiang for labor reform.
The reason is extremely absurd: some people say that Zhao Qichang released poison gas in the Dingling Underground Palace and exercised his privileges.
Zhao Qichang was puzzled, and only after calm thinking did he recall that when cleaning the coffin of the Wanli Emperor, he sprayed a mixture of formalin and alcohol.
Just when a certain leader came to visit with his wife and children, the leader's family members were choked by the stimulating taste and had to return with disappointment.
At that time, Zhao Leader couldn't have imagined that such a thing, which was nothing, would bring him such a disaster.
Fragment of the Dragon Robe of the Wanli Emperor
The follow-up cultural protection work of the Dingling excavation is also stumbling all the way, and the silk fabrics unearthed in the follow-up are suggested to be framed, that is, a piece of paper is framed behind the silk fabrics.
There is nothing wrong with this way of processing itself, but the problem is that the whole process is not guided by a professional.
After the work of mounting was completed, Mr. Shen Congwen, who specialized in the study of ancient Chinese costumes, came to watch the materials and wanted to do some research.
After watching a trip, Mr. Shen Congwen left a question that made posterity cry and laugh: "How can some of the finished products of mounting reveal the reverse side of the fabric?" ”
The farce of the layman directing the insider is far from it.
On September 30, 1959, the director of the dingling museum office issued a directive that the copied coffin had been prepared and the original coffin was useless, and that these obstructive coffins should be cleared out for inspection by the leadership.
The leading migrant worker Wang inspired him to abide by the advice of the old man Bai Wanyu, "What is excavated, even a needle and a tile, is a priceless treasure, and it must not be wasted." ", arguing according to reason, trying to save the coffin of the Wanli Emperor.
However, the director directly approached the guard company and threw the entire coffin into the ravine outside Boseong.
The coffins of the Wanli Emperor and the two empresses in the Dingling Underground Palace
A week later, When Mr. Xia Nai heard about this, he immediately asked the museum to retrieve the coffin and keep it properly, but the shadow of the coffin was no longer seen in the valley, and I was afraid that it had already been chopped for the farmer who went up the mountain to make a bed board or cabinet.
The various operations mentioned earlier, casually proposing one piece of it now is enough to cause overwhelming scolding, but compared with these turmoil in the back, these farces in the front are like small fights.
In 1966, the unprecedented catastrophe began, and the young people who were blinded by the blood rushed to Dingling.
The gate of the protective underground palace was smashed open by this group of young people with wooden stakes, and everything in the underground palace was wantonly destroyed in the name of "smashing the old society", the sculpture was beaten beyond recognition, and the ten thousand year lamp in front of the throne of the nave was burned by a fire.
Wang Qi, who had previously tried to save the Wanli coffin, stood up again, but this time, the wave of madness directly engulfed him, and in the chaos, he was dragged and hit the wall stone, and gradually stopped breathing.
The skeleton of the Wanli Emperor
After the underground palace was brutally destroyed beyond recognition, the wave of violence engulfed all parts of Dingling, the stone tablets were splashed with paint, and the cultural relics in the warehouse were violently smashed and burned.
Even the bones of Wanli, the Empress, and the Empress Dowager were thrown out by the young man, smashed with stones, and then burned to ashes.
Fortunately, Li Yajuan, the warehouse administrator at the time, took advantage of the chaos and desperately saved some cultural relics including the Wanli Emperor's Yishan Crown and the Empress's Phoenix Crown, as well as some precious materials.
In 1990, the dingling excavation report was published thanks to the efforts of several generations, also thanks to this batch of surviving materials.
A phoenix crown excavated from Dingling
The pain of Dingling is difficult to express in a few thousand words in just one article, not to mention, if we just accuse and criticize, we can't change anything.