"Cao Cao is buried here"
Tang Jigen
CITIC Publishing Group
Thin burial of the imperial mausoleumDuring the excavation of Cao Cao Gaoling (that is, Tomb No. 2 of Xigao Cave in Anyang, Henan), Tang Jigen often entered the tomb chamber, witnessed the important links of the excavation, and observed various important relics in the tomb. With his knowledge of Tomb No. 2 of Xigao Cave, he never doubted that it was not Cao Cao's mausoleum.
Grave excavation site
Aside from all kinds of documentary evidence, the specifications of this tomb alone are full of kingly atmosphere. Tomb No. 2 of Xigao Cave is a multi-chamber brick tomb, and most of the tombs of the princes of the Eastern Han Dynasty that have been found are multi-chamber brick tombs. The Beilingtou Tomb in Dingxian County, Hebei (present-day Dingzhou, Hebei) consists of a tomb road, a Yong road, a front room, a left and right side chamber of the front room, a Yong road, a back room, and a double rear side chamber juxtaposed at the tail. The tomb was stolen in the early years, and the remaining burial objects include a set of silver jade clothes and copper jade clothes, and a small number of gold and silver jewelry and jade. According to the Book of Later Han, the excavators presumed that the tomb owner was the tomb of Liu Chang and his wife, King Mu of Zhongshan, who died in the third year (174) of the Hanling Emperor Xiping. Tomb No. 2 of Xigao Cave is very similar to this tomb shape, but the front room is more spacious, the back room is also more open, and the two side chambers of the back room are arranged left and right, showing higher specifications. This conveys a message: the age of the Xigao Cave Tomb is close to the tomb of Liu Chang and his wife, but the status of the tomb owner is higher than that of the prince Liu Chang.
To be precise, the "four-chamber and two-hall" Xigao Cave No. 2 Tomb is the largest tomb found in the Eastern Han and Cao Wei periods, with a total area of 740 square meters, a width of 9.8 meters, and extremely thick walls. The burial chamber adopts a front and back room layout, and the front and back chambers have a double-sided chamber structure. The north side chamber of the front room, the back room and the front room of the tomb have four-corner spires, which belong to the exclusive use of the first-class tombs of princes and kings. The building materials used in the tomb are also of the highest grade, such as the unconventional bricks used to build the tomb walls, which are the highest specifications of the floor tiles seen so far.
The contents of the funerary items also reflect the status of the owner of the tomb. The stone gui inside the tomb is 7.4 cm wide and 28.9 cm high. The ruins of the Southern Simamen Tomb of the Yanling Tomb of the Emperor of Hancheng and the Pingling Mausoleum of the Emperor of Han Zhao have both been excavated from Shigui, but they are usually only 10 centimeters or even shorter. The stone gui unearthed from Tomb No. 2 of Xigao Cave is more than 28 centimeters, and it must be an imperial item. Along with Shi Gui is Shi Bi, which is 28 centimeters in diameter. The use of gui and bi is a prominent feature of the imperial tomb. The 21-centimeter-diameter iron mirror is one of the largest Eastern Han iron mirrors found so far, and also reflects the status of the tomb's owner.
The archaeological team cleared the stone tablets in the burial chamber
The inscription stone tablet unearthed in Tomb No. 2 of Xigao Cave is the key evidence to argue that this tomb is Cao Cao's tomb, but because such artifacts have never appeared before, it has become the biggest point of controversy of the year. Until 2015, a Cao Wei tomb was discovered in Xizhu Village, Luoyang, Henan Province, and stone tablets with similar shapes and sizes were unearthed in the tomb, and even the expression of the text was completely consistent, which proved that the stone tablets unearthed in Tomb No. 2 of Xigao Cave were not alone, and because of their short popularity, they became favorable evidence. As Tang Jigen said, if modern people want to "fake", they must understand the existence of such stone tablets, their shape, size, and inscription. How many counterfeiters can there be in the world with such novel knowledge reserves?
Although the size of this tomb has reached the imperial level, it is still considered a "thin burial" according to Cao Cao's will.
During the Two Han Dynasty, social burial became the trend. The king-level tombs of the princes of the Eastern Han Dynasty were all accompanied by a large amount of gold and jade. One of the most valuable and status symbolic burial objects is that the tomb owners are wearing "jade clothes". These "jade clothes" are threaded with gold or silver wire, also known as "golden jade clothes" or "silver jade clothes". Although the No. 2 tomb of Xigao Cave is at the imperial level, the surrounding walls of the tomb are treated with plain walls, there are no murals, there are no complex tomb chambers and coffin facilities such as "Zigong Toilet Room" and "Yellow Intestine Inscription", and there is no use of "golden jade clothing" or "silver jade clothing". The unearthed jade pei, copper belt hook, iron armor, iron sword, jade beads, crystal beads, agate beads and other objects should be the daily use of the tomb owner during his lifetime.
Jade and agate unearthed from Cao Cao's tomb
Most importantly, the Xigao Cave Tomb did not have a seal. The Han Dynasty man-made tombs were most enthusiastic about building exaggerated "civil engineering" on the ground. The common method is to pile a huge grave bag on the ground after the coffin is in the earth. Before the archaeological team entered the cemetery, it was a wheat field for the villagers of Xigao Cave Village. Constrained by moral constraints and the lack of large machinery, cultivators in the northern and southern plains of northern and southern Yubei would not easily bulldoze ancient tombs. Tomb No. 2 of Xigao Cave was not sealed, which was unusual during the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Body shape and everydayThere are three human bones in Cao Cao's tomb, and Cao Cao is the only male in the tomb. The only skeletal remains are recognizable as the skull, mandible, ribs, pelvic bone fragments and femurs, and the bones are mostly scattered when excavated. Among them, the skull was excavated in the eastern part of the anterior chamber, near the lower layer of the disturbance at the position of the anterior tunnel; Ribs and pelvis scattered in the anterior and southern ventricles; Other residual bones, such as the femur, are distributed in the posterior chamber disturbance. When it was unearthed, the skull had been split into several pieces, and only fragments remained of the face.
Cao Cao skull in the tomb
For archaeology, skulls and facial bones can restore faces, and limb bones can calculate height. If it were not for the incomplete facial bones, it could even be inferred that Cao Cao's general appearance could be inferred. Fortunately, Cao Cao's bones still have a skull and mandible. From the two teeth on the mandible, it is known that Cao Cao had severe caries during his lifetime, because one of the teeth had a cavity. Based on the length of the femur, Cao Cao may be only 1.56 meters tall. Even taking into account various factors, Cao Cao's height of less than 1.6 meters is a certainty. "Burial of Cao Cao Here" believes that the Eastern Jin Dynasty historian Sun Sheng evaluated Cao Cao in the "Spring and Autumn of the Wei Family" with eight characters: "short appearance, godly and heroic", accurate and concise.
In addition to appearance, people are of course also concerned about what Cao Cao looks like in daily life. The burial objects in the tomb, including the organic matter items listed in the "Wushu" but dissolved in the soil, restore the aspects of Cao Cao's life to a certain extent.
Cao Cao's funeral clothes included clothes, shirts, jackets, skirts, hakama, robes, loose drapes, arm pleats, hats, socks, and hand towels. What is worn by the upper body, what is worn by the lower body, what is worn by the head, what is held in the hand, and what is pedaled under the foot, everything is available. From the cloth point of view, there are silk, qi, silk, lian, yang, aya, brocade and velvet, etc., the colors include silk, xuan, crimson, purple, white, dan, yellow, white, rich in color.
In the "Testament", Cao Cao once explained that his descendants "collected the clothes of the time and were buried on the Xigang of Ye". Judging from the excavated artifacts, Cao Cao liked to wear white and purple underneath, and occasionally red and crimson clothes. At the ceremony, he may still wear a yellow silk robe and a brocade leader. Cao Cao seems to prefer clothing that separates clothes from skirts, and his tombs are accompanied by several hooks and buckles. The hook is made of copper, and the buckle is available in two types: copper buckle and iron buckle.
Cao Cao used a mirror to dress up. The list of items in the tomb includes "mirror platform one", and there is a wrong gold and iron mirror in the burial items, which matches the list, and there are "velvet hand towel one" and "two pounds of beard powder". "Hu Fan" was the powder that people used for makeup at that time, and such items were associated with Cao Cao's dressing.
Cao Cao also wears incense when applying makeup. There are two evidences: first, the hexagonal stone tablet with "sachet double" was unearthed in the tomb, presumably with spices in the burial products, which may be naturally decomposed with the buried time for a long time; The second is a ceramic incense unearthed in Cao Cao's Gaoling.
Incense excavated from Cao Cao's tomb
Cao Cao's hairstyle is difficult to know for sure, but he apparently used hairpins to fix his hair. Cao Cao wore a ring, and the ring unearthed in the tomb was made of copper, probably worn by Cao Cao on weekdays. When Cao Cao slept, he used a "canal pillow". There are two pieces of evidence: first, there is "Qu pillow one" in the list of items, and second, the items seized by the Anfeng Township Public Security Bureau from tomb robbers include "comfort stones often used by King Wu of Wei".
Confiscation of cultural relics "comforting stones often used by King Wu of Wei"
Wei Wu whippedCao Cao's nickname is "Wu", and the cultural relics unearthed in Gaoling are particularly impressive, as well as many iron weapons, including knives, swords, tribulus terrestris, arrowheads, daggers, armor, armour, etc.
A total of 4 fragments of the sword body were unearthed in the tomb, which may belong to 3 different swords. There are three kinds of iron knives: large, medium and small, including 4 large knives, 2 medium knives and 11 small knives, all of which have been broken. In addition, a number of sword handles were found, and the backs of many knives and swords still had traces of decaying wood left by the scabbard or scabbard. After testing, the knife and sword are made of steel.
When the iron armor was unearthed, it was scattered in the disturbed and silt of the various burial chambers. There are monolithic pieces of armor, more of which are fragments of armor that are rusted together and cemented into large blocks and preserve the original structure. The nails are mostly fish scale-like braids. According to statistics, more than 3,000 pieces of armor were unearthed. Iron artifacts related to armor, as well as iron chest goggles, and iron armor pieces for shoulder pads. Another protective weapon unearthed in the tomb is the iron arm, the helmet, which was unearthed in several pieces and still has vermilion paint on the outside.
Tomb No. 2 of Xigao Cave unearthed a stone tablet "often used by King Wu of Wei"
The rusty armor, the iron knife and the iron sword in the tomb bear witness to how many moments of life and death Cao Cao had in his life. The interpretation of these weapons should correspond to the stone tablets such as "The Tiger Euphorbia Often Used by King Wei Wu", "The Tiger Great Sword Often Used by King Wei Wu", and "The Short Spear of the Tiger Often Used by King Wei Wu" from the same tomb. Presumably, among the many fragments of iron products, there must be halberds, knives, spears and shields that Cao Cao "often used" during his lifetime.
The "often used" weapon is exactly the portrayal of Cao Cao's horse's life. Through this armor, we seem to see the figure of Cao Cao leading 3,000 Jian'er to raise troops in Chen Liu (present-day Kaifeng, Henan), felling Dong Zhuo, Kuang Fu Tianzi, and edicting the princes, and commanding Lü Bu, Yuan Shao, Ping Wuhuan, and Zheng Ma Chao, bringing northern China together.
As a historical celebrity and famous villain, Cao Cao has never lacked attention. In fact, Chen Shou, the author of the "Three Kingdoms", had a good evaluation of Cao Cao's entire life, calling him "an extraordinary person and a supernatural master". Wang Shen, who had lived through the Wei and Jin dynasties, compared Cao Cao with Sun Wu and Wu Qi in the Book of Wei. During the Western Jin Dynasty, Cao Cao was caught and criticized for only one thing, that is, after the incident of Emperor Xian of Han's edict, he sent Huaxin to capture the empress. Wu Ren's "The Legend of Cao Cao" took advantage of this incident to vigorously exaggerate Cao Cao's cruelty.
Cao Cao became a "traitor" from a hero, with the Eastern Jin, Southern and Southern Song dynasties being key stages. Cao manipulated the Central Plains, eliminated the powerful and powerful, unified the north, and used the Central Plains to see the south of the Jiang. During the Eastern Jin Dynasty and Southern Dynasties, the north of China fell into the hands of foreign races, and the rulers of the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties in the south of the Jiangsu Dynasty found the feeling of Eastern Wu in those years. From a geopolitical standpoint, Cao Cao was tantamount to a military rival in the north. Scolding Cao Cao is equivalent to scolding the northern aliens at that time. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the Jin people abducted the Hui and Qin Emperors, occupied the Central Plains, and the Zhao and Song monarchs who lived in the south of the Jiangsu Dynasty faced exactly the same situation as the Eastern Wu of the Three Kingdoms and Liu Bei. Out of exactly the same psychology, driven by "patriotic sentiment", the Southern Song people moved their sympathy to Shu and Wu in the south, and it was logical that Cao Cao, who hated the north, and Zhu Xi, Lu You and other people with lofty ideals regarded Cao Cao as a hatred.
In Tang Jigen's view, political decisions and moral choices under a specific political situation made Cao Cao inadvertently a victim of history, and thus there was "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Cao Cao's slanderous book". Cao Cao was slandered, and the authenticity of Cao Cao's tomb also experienced a fierce confrontation, and history seems to have to do so. Fortunately, the excavation of the No. 2 tomb of Xigao Cave also gave us a real Cao Cao.