A large tomb that has been sleeping for three thousand years reappears in the human world, and the burial companion is found in the luxurious tomb, but the skeleton of the tomb owner disappears. What exactly is this strange recurring text in the tomb? Whose tomb is this? And what are these two words that come back and forth? Let's find out next
In 1975, villagers in Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province, were preparing to level the highlands outside the village, but archaeologists rushed to the scene when they heard the news. Because they think there will be an ancient tomb here. Hearing this news, the villagers were excited and refused to let the archaeologists enter it, but only entered it under the initiative of the archaeology teammates.
However, the worries of the archaeologists are not superfluous, because about 150,000 pieces of written oracle bones have been excavated on this land, and the highland that the villagers want to level is the world's high-profile Yin Ruins. So the archaeologists decided to explore deeper before the villagers moved the soil, but no one thought that a secret of more than 3,000 years ago was about to be revealed to the world.
▲ Discover ancient tombs
In the spring of 1976, the archaeological team officially began excavations. But there is rammed earth under the rammed earth, but the soil quality and color of the land are very different from the rammed earth of the usual homestead. Experts believe that there must be an ancient tomb here, and the team members used the probe rod to extend all the way down to more than 5 meters, but still found nothing, which made the archaeological team members at the scene anxious. At this time, people began to talk about it, and some people said that this land was located on the south side of the Henghe River, which was the palace area of the Yin Ruins site, and the tomb area was mostly concentrated on the north side of the Henghe River, and there were probably no ancient tombs here.
When everyone was wondering if they were wrong, the groundwater gushed up, and the shovel was wrapped in wet rammed earth. It's getting harder to hit any further down. Just as everyone was struggling, a worker shouted, and the shovel went down, as if it had been sucked in. In an instant all eyes were on the workers.
The probe shovel continued to hit down for more than a meter before it reached the end, and at this time the probe shovel was raised. As the probe slowly lifted up, everyone held their breath. And when the dirt appeared in front of everyone's eyes, everyone was stunned. The dirt is mixed with red patent leather, which comes from the surface of the coffin. At this time, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Not only that, everyone also found a sparkling thing in the dirt, which was a jade pendant, and the unearthing of this jade pendant made everyone smile. But it wasn't long before everyone was worried, because the ancient tombs of the Shang Dynasty were basically patronized by Lieutenant Tujin, and whether the tomb with an area of less than 20 square meters was still well preserved?
After more than 20 days of hard work, this tomb of more than 20 square meters appeared in front of everyone's eyes. The tomb has not yet been stolen, but the tomb is like a warehouse full of funerary goods, and archaeologists can't even get their feet. After collation, a total of 468 bronzes were excavated from this tomb, and this one exceeded the total number of bronzes unearthed in yin ruins over the years, and there were 1928 bronzes, jades, stone tools and ivory tools in the entire tomb. But the most eye-catching thing is still a ding. The heaviest Ding was once unearthed, and the weight of this Ding was second only to Simu Pengding, and it was also the second largest Ding unearthed in China. But with such a huge ding, then the identity of the tomb owner is not ordinary, so who is the tomb owner? Where is the owner of the tomb?
▲The bones of the tomb owner disappeared without a trace
When excavated to 6.4 meters, there is a lot of water underneath, and the coffin of the owner of the tomb has not undergone any waterproof and moisture-proof measures, and has long since decayed after more than 3,000 years of soaking. But in the second-tier niche, the bones of the buried slaves are well preserved, which makes it impossible for archaeologists to determine the identity and gender of the tomb owner.
▲The identity of the tomb owner is confirmed
So the archaeologists decided to look for clues from the funerary products to see if they could confirm the information of the tomb owner. In the ancient tomb, archaeologists found an owl bottle. The owl is also known as the owl, and in the Shang Dynasty the owl was regarded as a symbol of the god of war. Archaeologists have also found a jade shuttle (shooting), which is an instrument used by the ancients to hook the strings on the thumb of the right hand when shooting arrows. The jade is already full of wear and tear, and the groove has also left a clear trace of string grinding, which means that the tomb owner should often use it before he dies.
In addition, more than a hundred weapons have been unearthed in the tomb, most of which have traces of use. There are also two square axe-shaped cymbals in the tomb, which are also the symbol of the supreme commander of the army, which is absolutely impossible for ordinary people to have. All these indications indicate that the tomb owner should be a general who has made great achievements in battle.
But the next discovery made archaeologists think they were wrong. More than 700 pieces of jade have been unearthed from the tomb, and these are daily necessities that can only be used by people of queen level.
Who is the owner of this tomb? Is he a brave and warlike general? Or a gentle queen?
With the gradual cleaning of the funerary items, almost every funeral product is engraved with two words - good woman.
Who is the woman? Why did his tomb contain these contradictory objects? And that goes back to 1936.
▲Oracle excavation
In 1936, with the excavation of the 13th Yin Ruins, the crowd found a human skeleton curled up, and when the soil around the skeleton was cleared, the crowd actually found a large piece of oracle bone that had never been moved, because of the erosion of time, the oracle bones were piled up layer by layer, and everyone did not know how to start. For safety reasons, the entire oracle bone layer was moved directly to Nanjing for cleaning. After 8 months of cleaning, these oracle bones finally appeared that the oracle bone pit attack had 17,096 pieces. There are more than 300 pieces of oracle bones with complete inscriptions, which is also the most excavated oracle bones from Yin Ruins.
After careful cleaning by experts, it was found that these oracle bones were all written by the Shang King's request to God. Merchants, on the other hand, are extremely superstitious, and whenever there is anything to be done, they must first ask God for advice. However, the above text shows that they are all from the time of King Wuding of the Shang Dynasty.
▲The identity of the tomb owner is confirmed
During the reign of Wu Ding, he often fought foreign wars, reversing the doom of the Shang Dynasty that was once about to perish, and it was also during this period that the territory was the most extensive. The thing he ruled was called "Wuding ZTE". But in addition to the frequent appearance of Wu Ding on the oracle bone, there is another name that appears repeatedly, that is, the woman is good, and the woman is still a woman. But why does a woman's name appear repeatedly on oracle bones from this period? Does he still have any secrets that no one knows?
There were many opinions on the explanations of the previous women's good, some said that it was an official name, some thought it was an identity, and some said that it was the spouse of the Shang King, but there was no definite answer. But with the excavation of the tomb this puzzle has a new answer. In an oracle bone, it was recorded that three thousand years ago, during the reign of King Wuding of the Shang Dynasty, Wu Ding was asking the heavens whether a woman could give birth smoothly, and the results showed that if everything went well in childbirth on Ding Day, if it gave birth on Geng Day, it would be auspicious, if it was not smooth if it was delivered on Jiayin Day, and the child was still a woman. According to the text on the oracle bone, it is speculated that the woman is a queen, and this is also unexpected by the archaeologists. Could it be that this tomb is a tomb of a queen? So why is there a large number of weapons in the wooden map?
What kind of secrets are behind him?
The square axe-shaped cymbal unearthed in the tomb soil gives a certain answer, and it is conceived that ancient times was a symbol of power and a symbol of the power of life and death. This also shows that women are good in the army of the Shang Dynasty. Have the right to live and kill. And what kind of secret does such a woman have?
According to the previous records on the oracle bones, after Nü hao became the wife of Wu Ding, the shang king, she was invaded by the enemy on the northern border of the Shang Dynasty, and the generals who went to conquest could not win for a long time, so Nü Hao took the initiative to ask for help and personally led the army to supervise the battle. King Wuding of Shang hesitated, so he asked Shang cang again, and only then agreed to let the queen go on the expedition. Unexpectedly, as soon as the woman arrived at the front line, she would win every battle,
Since then, she has been appointed as the commander of the Shang Dynasty, and it is recorded in the oracle bones that Women's Good defeated more than 20 countries of all sizes before and after, leaving a strong mark for the expansion of the Shang Dynasty. And once the Shang king handed over 13,000 people to women, and this was also the largest army sent by the Shang Dynasty. At this time, the northwest frontier of the Shang Dynasty was repeatedly invaded by foreign enemies. Nuhao won the battle and recaptured the Qiang, and this battle also laid the foundation for the decisive battle of the process of Chinese civilization. However, the woman is not only these identities, he even has another layer of identity.
▲The final identity of the tomb owner was exposed
In the tomb of the woman, such an artifact appeared, the jade bi, and the jade bi was a ceremonial vessel used for sacrifice to the heavens. This puzzled everyone, but in the oracle bones, the crowd found the answer. During the reign of King Wuding of the Shang Dynasty, a plague occurred in the capital of the Shang Dynasty, and in order to solve the plague, the King of Shang held a sacrifice ceremony. And it was not King Wuding of the Shang Dynasty who presided over this sacrifice ceremony but the woman. And this female general who galloped on the battlefield has another identity - sacrifice. There are a large number of jade objects of different shapes in the tomb of the woman, and experts deduce that these are the jade used in the sacrifice. In the oracle bones, it is recorded that there are many types of sacrifices in the Shang Dynasty, among which there are many sacrifices that women have participated in, such as sacrificing the father of Wu Ding, the shang king, and the spouse of the former shang king, who also sacrificed to the heavens. However, he did not expect such an all-rounder to die at the age of 33. Why did this talented woman die so young? What was the cause of his death?
▲ The cause of death of the tomb owner is a mystery
From the oracle bones, experts have found several possibilities for the death of women. It is recorded in the buciography that a woman gives birth well, but it is not good. So some people speculated that the woman died in childbirth. However, in other accounts in the oracle bones, more people believe that the woman died on the battlefield, or died because of a recurrence of injuries. But why was such a powerful queen not buried in the cemetery after death, but here alone?
Experts learned through Bu Ci that after the death of The Lady Good, the Shang King Wu Ding was particularly sad, and he would miss the Woman Good every day, so he decided to bury his beloved concubine next to his palace so that it was convenient to mourn at any time, not only that, but also specially built a special hall on the tomb of the Woman Good. It also allows Aifei to take a good look at the jiangshan that the two of them fought in the beginning.
More than three thousand years have passed, and the women's good has dissipated in the dust of history, but with the excavation of the ancient tomb, the woman has returned to the world's vision. Let us also be such a hero who does not let his eyebrows be shaved.