According to the Longmen Grottoes Research Institute on April 10, in order to cooperate with the reinforcement, maintenance and protection project of the South Cave of the Dongshan Drum Terrace of the Longmen Grottoes, archaeologists cleaned up the filling in the front wall (west wall) of the South Cave of the Drum Terrace, unearthed more exquisite relics, and found more than 80 stone carvings and building components.
The front wall (west wall) of the south cave of the Dongshan Drum Platform of Longmen Grottoes is made of stones and blue bricks, and is about 1.3 meters wide. In the internal filling of the wall, it was found that there were relics filled, and more than 100 pieces of bricks and pottery relics were unearthed after cleaning layer by layer, including more than 80 pieces of numbered stone statue fragments, 1 pair of door anvil stones, and several pieces of ceramic vertebral beast fragments. With the cave door as the boundary, 56 relics were unearthed in the wall on the south side of the door, and 28 relics were unearthed in the wall on the north side. After cleaning, these relics were placed layer by layer and built inside the wall.
The unearthed relics are mainly stone carvings, including Buddha heads, Bodhisattva statue fragments, head fragments, pattern fragments, rosette fragments, statue foot fragments and 1 pair of door anvils (door piers) and so on.
One of the round carved Buddha heads, unearthed in the southwest corner of the front wall near the south wall of the ground surface 40 centimeters below, the upper part is a hard material stone pile, the head is preserved intact, 38 centimeters high, 22 centimeters wide, Thick 19 cm, the top of the head has a high meat bun, the surface of the meat bun and the hair bun ornaments zigzag swirl pattern, the hair lines on both sides of the head and the back of the head are carved wavy, the face is plump and round, the long eyebrows are fine, the eyelids are slightly open, the nose is straight, the tip of the nose is slightly remnant, the lips are full, the curve is soft, the demeanor is quiet and peaceful, the lower jaw is rounded, there is a concave arc under the chin, the whole head is beautifully carved, with a distinct Longmen Tang Dynasty statue style, judging the era to be the late 7th century to the early 8th century.
Several fragments of large statues have been unearthed, all of which are round statues. One of the Buddha fragments is 76 centimeters high, 55 centimeters wide and 28 centimeters thick. One bust of the Bodhisattva is 55 cm high, 39 cm wide and 22 cm thick, and one is 45 cm high, 54 cm wide and 34 cm thick of the Bodhisattva's feet and rosette, all of which are body parts below the head. In addition, there are some remnants of the collapsed knotted sitting statue on the wall of the south cave of the drum platform, and some of them still have traces of painting. The pier stone is 54 cm long, 29 cm wide and 31.5 cm high, with a slotted hole in the middle.
According to reports, according to the collapse of the cave in the early stage, the blue bricks built on the front wall and the front part of the cave roof, the excavations in the front wall, the archaeological excavation of the cave site in the drum area in 2008 and the ancient earthquake history recorded in the historical documents, the front wall should be filled in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, and its purpose is mainly to fill in the wall when repairing and strengthening the front wall of the cave in ancient times, saving bricks and stones and other materials.
Archaeologists speculate that the source of the statue may be the debris of a cave that has collapsed. In addition, this area was the annex of Xiangshan Temple in the Tang and Song dynasties, and it may be that there are some round carvings scattered in it. This can be seen from the archaeological excavation of the cave site in the drum area and unearthed 1,900 relics from different periods. The unearthed complete Buddha head, the fill is deeper, the upper part has the accumulation of mountain stones, etc., not unearthed in the wall, it is inferred that it has collapsed and buried here from the late Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty.
"The archaeological cleaning with the protection project is a concentrated excavation of stone carvings in the archaeological work of Longmen Grottoes, and it is also the first time that statues have been found in the walls of the maintenance project of Longmen Grottoes in ancient times. These statues are numerous, large in size, and exquisitely made. Lu Wei, director of the History and Humanities Research Center of the Longmen Grottoes Research Institute, said that the archaeological discovery is of great value for the study of the Tang Dynasty statue art and economic and social conditions of the Longmen Grottoes, as well as the historical evolution, maintenance and reinforcement history and ancient earthquake history of the drum platform area, and is of great significance for deepening the research on the protection of the Longmen Grottoes.
Article source: Reprinted from People's Daily Henan Channel, People's Daily WeChat public account
Image source: Reprinted from Longmen Grottoes Research Institute
Editor: Zi Xin
Review: Huai Nan
Producer: Zhao Min, Zhong Xiao
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