The "golden coffin" on the mountain
A village doctor in Sichuan went to the mountains to collect medicine and found two mysterious "golden coffins" in a cave on a cliff.
The coffin is engraved with nuwa, nuwa fuxi cross tail, nine-tailed fox day pattern, and there are funerary items in the coffin, so that archaeologists can see the red face, all say that the "golden coffin" is a priceless treasure.
So, how did these two "golden coffins" come about? And how is it buried here? How many people's hopes and sorrows it carries. What kind of historical value and artistic charm do they have? Why does it become a mysterious and huge mystery? What funerary items unearthed in coffins will make experts blush?
Why is the "golden coffin" priceless?
The legendary "golden coffin"?
Li Dao, a villager in Rongyou Village, Hejiang County, Sichuan Province, is a primary school doctor and is a trusted doctor in the village.
The mountains around Rongyou Village are very steep and the vegetation is very dense, the villagers rarely run up the mountain, few people disturb, and many precious herbs grow on the mountain. Li Daosheng is a famous Chinese medicine doctor in the village, who is not only skilled in medicine, but also has a good study of some Chinese herbal medicines. For a long time in the past, Li Daosheng has been practicing medicine here and has achieved good results. Usually, in addition to treating villagers, Li Dao would go to the mountains to collect medicine and treat them when he had time.
One day in 1990, when Dr. Li Dao was free, he went up the mountain with a bamboo basket again. When Li Dao came to the top of the mountain, he found that there were many small shrubs and weeds on the hillside, and he thought: What if these were all harvested and sold? So he went on. Finally, he saw a large camphor tree. The mountain was steep, and he always collected medicine near the mountainside, but because the weather was a little better, Li Dao decided at the last moment to go a little farther to see if he could pick some precious herbs.
Soon, Li Dao climbed to the middle of the mountain and continued to climb up. He thought: This hill is so steep, how can I go up? If there is no ladder, can you only climb up from the bottom of the mountain?" Can I climb any further?" He thought. However, the mountain is high and slippery. It was getting harder and harder, and Li Dao was exhausted and sat breathlessly on the edge of the mountain stone bush, gasping for breath, his eyes casually scanning the surrounding environment.
Suddenly, Li Dao's gaze crossed the dense bushes and over the cliffs, and he saw a cave, and in a sizable opening, there were two coffins. Li Dao walked over to take a look, and it turned out that this was the place where a couple was buried together. Their coffin lid had been opened, but inside it was empty, with only two people lying on the ground. Li Dao felt very strange. Out of curiosity, he took a closer look, and almost half of the coffin was hanging in mid-air, crumbling.
Li Dao still remembered the news he heard from the elders in the village when he was a child.
It is said that there is a legend nearby that there are two "golden coffins" in the village, but the whereabouts are unknown and people cannot find them. Later, the villagers buried this golden coffin called the "golden coffin" in the village. One day, Li Daosheng found the golden coffin. Thinking of this, Li Dao's heart fluttered, and he didn't know if he had stumbled upon the legendary "golden coffin".
With this idea, Li Dao ignored the medicine, made marks all the way, and ran down the mountain quickly, and everyone on the road was talking about their discoveries.
Has the legendary "golden coffin" been found? Recently, this reporter found an ancient tomb in Gaocun Township, Linyi County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province. According to local farmers, the tomb was dug up from a village called Li Daojia and contained a huge coffin. The villagers who heard the news followed them up the mountain in droves, and when they saw the coffin, they all thought that Li Dao's judgment was correct, which must be the two "golden coffins" circulating in the village.
After the news spread, the city's cultural relics department is still more professional archaeologists, just heard that this is a special funeral method that is more popular in ancient times in the southwest ethnic minority areas, which is a wind burial or open burial method, called cliff burial, which can be divided into hanging coffin burial and cliff cave burial.
What the village doctor found on the mountain should be a cliff cave burial. Cliff cave burial is an ancient and mysterious form of funerary burial, which is mainly popular in ethnic minority areas in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan. When it was chosen to be buried in this way, the coffin was placed in a natural cave or a wooden wedge drilled into a cliff and then mounted on a wooden wedge.
Even now, sending coffins off a cliff is not an easy task, and in ancient times it only required more effort, so usually only nobles would choose this kind of burial method.
Whether or not village doctors have found the fabled "golden coffin", archaeologists plan to visit the site to find out. If the coffin belonged to the ancient nobility, that would be great. There must be a priceless treasure in the coffin.
CliffBurial
Word quickly spread in the area, where a village doctor went to get the medicine and was suspected of discovering the folklore's "golden coffin" .
Archaeologists are not the only ones who have come to the site to inspect, but there are many malicious people, but due to the high terrain and steep rock walls, it is difficult to climb easily.
Archaeologists, on the other hand, have prepared all-encompassing things in advance, such as ladders. However, when archaeologists arrived at the cemetery, they found that the entire group of tombs had been destroyed beyond recognition, and there were many corpses buried inside. What can I do about this? Is it only to let these people lie in the coffin forever? However, when the archaeologists arrived, they did not immediately try to approach the coffin, but instead patrolled the stone walls with great interest.
It turned out that when the experts arrived, there were many similar caves in the mountains, and there were probably more coffins on the cliff than Li Dao had found. But the experts did not make the two coffins the main object of study, but examined and measured the other one separately. It turned out that they were the same person——— a farmer named Wang Desheng. They believe that in the depths of these cliffs, there are likely to be many coffins.
Archaeologists speculate that this could be a burial group or family cemetery. According to the Historical Atlas of China, tombs are easy to find in this area, especially in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, which were often one of the most active areas of the ancient northern nomadic peoples. Therefore, it is certain that there was indeed human life here. However, whether these coffins exist or not will have to wait until later, and what needs to be paid attention to now is the two "golden coffins" found by Li Dao.
Archaeologists climbed the cliffs with ladders, and they were amazed by what they saw in the caves.
It wasn't enough to look down at the coffin from a distance, and when they walked to the coffin, they noticed that it was large and unique, with intricate patterns carved into it. Inside the coffin were various animals and plants, as well as small objects such as a small bottle, a bottle cap, a pair of scissors, and so on. These things are made according to different requirements. Far from simple reliefs, these designs look lifelike, as if they were illustrations of a story.
Archaeologists, however, were disappointed because the two coffins in front of them were carved in stone, a far cry from the so-called "golden sarcophagus.".
It's hard to say, aren't these two coffins the two "golden coffins" of local legend?
To further answer this question, archaeologists used a variety of tools to remove the two extremely heavy sarcophagus and transport them back to the laboratory for further study.
After careful examination, archaeologists found that these coffins had no joints, and were obviously carved from complete boulders in one breath, from quarrying to overall contour carving to complex patterns, the whole process required time and energy that ordinary people could not afford.
Most importantly, this model is equally impressive, even compared to the mechanized processes of modern society.
Since the two sarcophagi are suspended high above the cliff, weathering makes it difficult to see with the naked eye. Archaeologists have brought in some experts from the Sichuan Museum to expand the sarcophagus, hoping to determine the age of the sarcophagus according to its style.
Through the efforts of the rubbing experts, the pattern of the pioneers has become very clear. There are many images of people and animals in takumoto, as well as some plants, flowers, landscapes, and other contents. As you can see from the photos, some of them also have text or symbols on them. Experts carefully observed each rubbing. Experts found that much of the information reflected in the design came from central China, including "Dong Yong's father", "serving his father", which is a story about Dong Yong working in the fields but did not have time to take care of his elderly father, and a popular filial piety story in the Central Plains.
In addition, the rubbing pattern and lower body on the back of the sarcophagus are a snake's tail, coiled with a man and a woman, which are nuwa and Fuxi.
It's hard to say that the owners of these two sarcophagi were not ethnic minorities?
Blushing heartbeat funerary goods
A village doctor in Sichuan went up the mountain to collect medicine and found two coffins on the cliff, which were also engraved with the story of nuwa Fuxitu in the ancient Central Plains and Dong Yong's father, Dong Yong was obviously from the Central Plains.
The nuwa fuxi cross-tail diagram symbolizes reproduction and embodies the fertility worship of the ancient Han people. According to archaeological records, two female corpses (one of which is a female wife) were excavated at the Xigong site in Luoyang, Henan Province, and there was also a male and female burial tomb with a stone urn and an axe in the coffin. There is a nine-tailed fox on each sarcophagus with a circle on its head.
The difference is that one of the nine-tailed foxes has a circle above its head protruding outwards, and the other sagging inwards, apparently in the shape of the sun and moon, indicating the gender of the owners of the two sarcophagus, and it is clear that the cliff burial Li Dao was found to be a husband and wife burial tomb.
Archaeologists then opened the sarcophagus, hoping to see some funerary items, but not even the bones of the owner of the tomb were found, and there was only a clay figurine in the coffin.
Archaeologists at the scene blushed at the sight of the figurine, and it turned out to be two very small people kissing. Their identity is "husband and wife", not "mother and son". They were discovered when they were discovered. At this time, the clay figurine was still just a baby. But a man and a woman had already appeared on the figurines. The two little ones were a young man and a young woman, embracing and kissing so sweetly that it was hard to imagine that it was a funeral treat for a coffin.
Archaeologists are slightly ashamed of these findings.
They participated in many archaeological excavations, but such bold funerary objects are rare. This may be related to their time, or it may be for some psychological reason, in short, it is necessary. In this tomb, the most eye-catching thing is probably a huge bronze mask. What exactly does it stand for? Moreover, when combined with the meaning of the sarcophagus design, the owner of the tomb seems to have a unique cult of fertility and unabashed desires.
This is different from the traditional exquisite carving style of the Han People in the Central Plains, but has a strong ethnic minority style, which is very rare in the history of Chinese archaeology, and archaeologists are very sure that this kind of enthusiastic pottery figurines are absolutely priceless.
But then again, is there a connection between the two sarcophagi and the "golden coffin" circulated by local villagers?
Archaeologists believe that these coffins are popular "portrait sarcophagus" in the ancient southwest region, and they are also considered a form of burial tool for thick burial due to the complexity and time-consuming nature of the manufacturing process.
In the Han Dynasty, due to the rapid development of social and economic development, the accumulation of wealth was unprecedented, and the emperors and generals, princes and nobles, and nobles all lived a rich life, and even wanted to hide their wealth underground after death, continue to enjoy such a life, and gradually began to prevail in the wind of thick burial.
This atmosphere gradually spread to the Bashu region, and the Han chinese and ethnic minorities living here also followed suit. Since the Han Dynasty, "rock drilling for the chamber" has been a common phenomenon. With the improvement of people's living standards, higher requirements are put forward for building decoration materials. Thus came the art form of stone carving. The Sichuan region is mountainous, the stone resources available for mining are very rich, and there are many cliff caves that can be used to place sarcophagus, and portrait sarcophagus has become popular in this area.
The "golden coffin" of the Han Dynasty is a "portrait sarcophagus" carved from huge stones, due to the production process, the manpower, material resources and other factors involved, as precious as the "golden sarcophagus", burying the "golden sarcophagus" is undoubtedly a luxurious and rich thing.
This may be the reason why the mysterious "golden coffin" has been passed down from generation to generation in the local area. In ancient mainland china, there was a burial custom called "portrait stone tomb". Like the art of stone carvings today, it is a treasure in the treasure house of human culture and has high historical and scientific value. Locals do not carry out cliff burials, and certainly do not understand the sarcophagus, but only circulate the word "golden coffin", but it is not clear whether it is really a portrait sarcophagus.
Unfortunately, for some reason, the owners of the tombs who were supposed to rest in peace are missing, and their identities are uncertain and difficult to judge.
However, it is undeniable that the discovery of portrait sarcophagus and ceramic figurines is still a major discovery in the Chinese archaeological community, giving future generations a glimpse of the thoughts and lives of the bashu people in the Han Dynasty.