#头条创作挑战赛#
The archaeological investigation and excavation work carried out by the joint archaeological team composed of Henan Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Luoyang Institute of Archaeology and Ulaanbaatar National University of Mongolia in the territory of Ulansumu, a noble cemetery in the Xiongnu period, was selected as one of the top ten archaeological discoveries in the world in 2019 by the American archaeological magazine Archaeology, which is also the first time that a foreign archaeological project participated by Chinese archaeologists has been selected. This article is the first to disclose the details of the archaeological excavations carried out by Chinese archaeologists in Mongolia.
From August to September 2017, from June to August 2018, and from June to August 2019, Henan Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Luoyang Institute of Archaeology and Ulaanbaatar National University of Mongolia formed a joint archaeological team to carry out archaeological investigation and excavation work in the Xiongnu period aristocratic cemetery - Gaole Maodu No. 2 cemetery in Wulan Sumu, Houhangai Province, central Mongolia, and mainly excavated 12 burial tombs of M189 in 2017. In 2018 and 2019, the main tombs M189 and M10 were excavated, and a large number of precious cultural relics were unearthed, and important harvests were made. The excavation results of these two tombs provide important information for further research on the interaction between the Central Plains civilization and the northern steppe civilization, and even the interaction and exchange of civilizations on the Eurasian continent, and are of great significance for promoting cultural cooperation and cultural exchanges between China and Mongolia. The cemetery was selected as one of the world's top 10 archaeological discoveries in 2019 by the American archaeological magazine Archaeology, which is also the first time that a foreign archaeological project involving Chinese archaeologists has been selected.
After our detailed investigation in 2018, a total of 571 different types of stone tombs were discovered, including 104 A-shaped aristocratic tombs, 326 round stone burial tombs, and 141 independent circular stone tombs. The square stone tombs with sloped burial paths are generally larger in scale and are the main type of tombs, and the east or west side of each tomb is an arc distribution of circular stone burial tombs with different numbers. From 2002 to 2012, the Department of Archaeology of the University of Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia excavated the No. 1 tomb in the cemetery, cleaned up 28 large square stone tombs and round stone burial tombs in the main tomb, and unearthed a number of gold and silver chariot and horse ornaments, large jade, glass bowls, as well as precious cultural relics of different textures such as copper, iron and pottery. Tomb No. 1 is the largest Xiongnu aristocratic tomb that has been excavated so far, and it is speculated that the tomb owner may be Xiongnu Shan Yu. The excavated cultural relics have the characteristics of Central Plains culture, grassland culture and Western culture, which provide valuable information for the study of cultural exchanges between the Han Dynasty and the Han Dynasty and the historical influence of the Silk Road.
During the three years of archaeology on the Mongolian plateau, I ate and lived and worked together with the members of the Sino-Mongolian joint archaeological team on the grassland. Here I would like to share with you some stories from the archaeological work during the 2017-2019 triennium.
✪ Panorama of the cemetery No. 2 in Gaolemaodu
1 First acquaintance with the No. 2 cemetery of Gaolemaodu
The beautiful Hunui River meanders its way north on the endless grassland, like a ribbon that turns a thousand times, winding around the green earth, reflecting the clear blue sky and white clouds. The Hunui River means King River in Mongolian, and where the Deer River joins the Hunui River, there are two famous ruins, the Jargalantyn Am Deer Stone Site and the Urtbulagyn Kreksul Site.
About 20 kilometers east along the Luhe River, you will enter the forest-steppe area, where the cemetery of Gaolemaodu No. 2 is located. Gaolemaodu means glade in the forest in Mongolian, Mongolia has many similar place names, another Xiongnu aristocratic cemetery is also called Gaolemaodu, called No. 1 cemetery, although the name is the same, but the distance between the two is hundreds of kilometers. The cemetery is surrounded by mountains, the terrain is high in the north and south, it is a small valley with relatively open terrain, and it is also the traditional winter shelter camp of the herdsmen, the Deer River passes through from west to east from the north of the valley, dividing the valley into two areas in the north and south, and the cemetery is located in the area on the south side of the Luhe River.
There are many rocks on the north and south hills of the cemetery, and the upper part of the tomb should have come from here, and the investigation found that there are quarry remains on the southern mountain. The southern ring of the mountains and the open area south of the Luhe River are forested, and according to the Mongolians, the forest was formed relatively late, only two or three hundred years ago, and it should have been a place of abundant water and grass in those years.
The area is far from civilisation, a 40-minute drive to the nearest town, and there are only a few dozen homes. It takes more than 2 hours to drive to Cherleg, the capital of Houhangai Province, which is a real no-man's land. House? No! Water? No! Electricity? No! Signal? Look at your luck! Internet? Don't even think about it! What if you don't have a house? Like herders, build yurt land. What if there is no water? There is water in the Luhe River in the north, you can drive to pull it far away, it doesn't matter if the water is muddy, it doesn't matter if people and animals share it, it's not a big problem to boil and drink. What should I do if I run out of power? As long as it is not even cloudy, it is no problem to charge the computer and camera. What should I do if there is no signal? Satellite phones are prepared, and the phone bill is expensive, at least it can respond to an emergency. Later, it was found that there was a local PHS-like burning telephone, which could be used to get through the phone at a slightly higher location, which solved a big problem. What if I don't have an internet connection? I can't help it!
One day through four seasons
Located at the 48th parallel, the cemetery is very frost-free, with only 6, 7, and 8 months a year when you can work outdoors, and the temperature difference between day and night is very large. When the weather is fine, the sun is exposed to the sun at noon, and the temperature is close to 30 degrees, and everyone works bare-chested, and they sweat after a few strokes. As soon as the sun goes down, the temperature drops immediately, thick clothes and pants have to be worn, and before going to bed at night, you have to light the wood stove to keep warm, otherwise the temperature will sometimes drop to close to 0 degrees in the early morning, which will wake people up. The good thing is that there are more trees in this place, and the most important thing is firewood, and dead pine wood can be found everywhere, and when you drag it back and split it, it is ready-made firewood. The most important thing before dark is to carry a basket of heating firewood back, and after a long time, the team members have all become masters of making fires, and the craftsmanship that they lost when they were children can be picked up again.
This kind of weather feels more suitable for lesbians, why? Long clothes and shorts are changed in turns, and you can live through the four seasons in one day. Regardless of autumn, winter, spring and summer, the length and thickness of the clothes can come in handy at any time, and they can be mixed and matched at will, and when the rain comes, it is normal for down jackets to be paired with shorts.
The worst part is when you wake up every morning and get ready to wash. In June and July, when the hottest time, the water in the bucket is cold and biting in the morning, and you need to grit your teeth to wash your face and brush your teeth, and insist on it. A friend asked, don't you boil some hot water? First, the hot water is only enough to drink, and there is not much wealth, when there are many people on the construction site, there are dozens of people, where is enough; The second is that we use the common washing buckets on the grassland, hanging on wooden poles, which are shared by everyone, and our friends in Mongolia are accustomed to it.
As for bathing, the only way to do this is to bask in some water while it is hot at noon, and to scrub it simply and quickly after finishing work in the afternoon. In 2019, in order to improve the living conditions of the station, Professor Erdenbaatar built a small sauna in the north of the station, and also equipped with a small pool, although the facilities are a little rudimentary, but it is much better than taking a cool shower.
✪ Station the starry sky
Lamb is included in the meal
We can only work when we are full, what do we eat every day at the construction site in Mongolia? Mongolians are fond of meat and milk, especially in pastoral areas far from the cities, so lamb is an absolute staple. Mutton is easy to obtain, the price is cheap, if you need it, let the nearby herdsmen send it to kill, a sheep weighing more than 100 catties, only four or five hundred yuan. Kill and eat now, or pure natural green organic mutton, friends who love mutton may start to drool, but three meals of mutton a day, there are no vegetable days, I'm afraid most friends can't last a few days.
There is only one way to make mutton, boil it in a large pot, and then add salt, there are no common seasonings in China, and Mongolians are used to eating bone-in meat with a knife, so the meat is only seven or eight mature. The meat is hard in this way, and because of the lack of spices, the flavor of the lamb is also very strong. Breakfast is a dairy product, but fresh milk is not easy to preserve, so milk powder is used instead on the construction site. Of course, it is a Mongolian specialty of goat milk powder, which is mainly used to make milk porridge for breakfast: milk powder is boiled with water and white rice and then sugar, and the standard breakfast never changes. The only thing that has changed is that there was a lot of mutton fat in the milk porridge at the beginning, but later it was no longer added at our strong request, which was really unblessed.
For lunch, there are fried rice, fried shredded cakes, fried macaroni, fried screw powder, of course, all of which are fried mutton, and a small amount of black and thin potatoes, carrots, onions or cabbage will be added randomly, these four dishes are also the only vegetables in the pastoral area, and the two pastas of macaroni and screw powder are also prepared to take care of the Chinese team members.
Dinner is millet porridge, but no milk powder is added, and diced mutton is added. Genuine meat porridge is sometimes made into boiled noodles, and of course mutton is added to it, and only mutton.
On weekends, they will make steamed dumplings or haggis buns, which can be regarded as improving their lives, and the ration is five per person. Of course, it's still stuffed with mutton. A bite full of sheep fat, we are basically three or two is enough, but for the Mongolian team members, it is absolutely delicious, every time it is swept away, as for the haggis buns, exuding a strong taste, the Chinese team members are not blessed.
I can't stand eating like this every day, and then I have to eat the treasure "Lao Gan Ma" on the stage. It is said to be an "old godmother", but when we get here, it is definitely an "old mother", and we prepare dozens of cans every time before coming to the construction site, all relying on this to spend the excavation season. The Mongolian team members who have always claimed not to eat spicy food have always come to us to rub some "old godmothers" to eat, and it seems that "old godmothers" are just around the corner to open the international market!
As a must-have delicacy for home travel, instant noodles are naturally indispensable on construction sites in Mongolia. As a must-have and only delicacy in the late-night canteen on the construction site, a pot of steaming instant noodles makes the homesickness in the deep night of the grassland no longer so strong. Of course, you can also use instant noodles to open a small stove to temporarily get rid of the sweet and greasy goat milk (powder) porridge and the rich flavor of mutton millet porridge. The fly in the ointment is that the consumption in the later stage is too large, and the food has been exhausted before the end of the construction site, and the late-night canteen has to stop business in advance and change to roasted peanuts.
Mongolian vodka
Probably because of the cold and long winters, Mongolians like to drink vodka like Russians, and it may be a bit too much to say that you are addicted to alcohol, but it is okay to see vodka in the eyes, especially in pastoral areas, vodka is definitely a good gift. The vodka degree is not high, mostly 39 °, most of them are 750ml, that is, one and a half pounds, there are many brands, but the price is not much different, most of them are between 30-50 yuan. The vodka taste is pure, but it is only pure and not mellow, only the taste of pure alcohol. Mongolians usually drink after dinner, but in the afternoon, in the morning, or any time they want to drink. You don't need to drink with snacks when you drink, yes, you read that right, it's dry, sometimes I get some coke Sprite and the like, and I never advise you to drink when you drink, just drink in a circle, and drink in turns in one cup. If you don't want to drink, you can quit at any time, and no one will stop you, but after a long time, you find that only the Chinese team members have withdrawn, and no Mongolian team members have ever withdrawn halfway. The duration of drinking depends on how much alcohol there is, the Mongols have a strong ability to sustain warfare, if there is enough alcohol, it is not impossible to drink for a day or two, everyone likes to drink, of course, there is no need to persuade alcohol.
Of course, wine is indispensable when celebrating, and a very beautiful blue glass bowl was unearthed in Tomb No. 1 of the No. 2 cemetery of Gaole Maodu, and the comrades of the Mongolian side said that on the day of the unearthing, they drank wine from this glass bowl all night. In August 2019, we found two gilded silver dragons in M189, and one night a few days later, Professor Erdenbaatl and the Mongolian team members brought the two silver dragons to our yurt and brought a bottle of wine, which the Chinese team members thought was a simple celebration. Who knows, Professor Erdenbaatel wiped the two little silver dragons and put them in the cup, and then an incredible scene happened, the professor poured the wine into the cup, and all the Chinese team members present were stunned, and they actually wanted to drink the little silver dragon in wine! The professor is the absolute boss of the construction site, and we can only do as we please, so we have to bite the bullet and close our eyes, and drink the silver dragon wine brought to us, one cup rotates in turn, two laps down, a bottle of wine has been drunk, and the two little silver dragons are taken out and put back in the box. It's an experience of a lifetime.
yurt
For those of us who are field archaeologists, the best place to live in the steppe is, of course, a yurt. Tents are not suitable for long-term living, fixed houses are time-consuming, laborious and costly, and the common prefabricated houses in China are even more unrealistic in uninhabited areas. The yurt is lightweight, warm, windproof and rainproof, quick to disassemble and easy to move, and is a great invention of the nomadic people.
Our camp is made up of more than a dozen yurts, two for the Chinese team, two for the kitchen, and the rest for the Mongolian team. One of our two yurts is for people and one for tools and office. The Chinese team members are generally rotated once a month, and 5 team members are guaranteed to participate in the archaeological work at the same time. A yurt with a stove and table in the middle, and then five narrow camp beds in a circle, plus personal luggage, is a little cramped, but it is still better than the yurt for students and workers, who have to sleep in bunks.
Yurts have the advantages of easy disassembly and assembly, warmth and windproof, but the disadvantages are also obvious, the biggest problem is lighting, ventilation and rainproof. Because there is a stove chimney, the yurt only has no felt in the top center, usually covered with plastic sheeting, this is the only skylight, if it rains, you also need to take a small piece of canvas with a rope to cover again, the door is closed, the room is basically closed and there is no light. It's okay on a sunny day, but if you want to get light and breathe on a rainy day, you can only open the door.
The rain in the Mongolian steppe came very quickly, and when I saw a cloud with rain drifting in the distance, I had to call it a day first, and the pouring rain arrived in an instant. The felt around the yurt cannot be laid on the ground, and a little distance will be left to prevent the felt from rotting, so if the water guide trough and waterproof plastic sheeting around the yurt are not done well, and the rain is a little heavy, it will immediately pour into the yurt, and the top will leak because it is not completely sealed. It often rains heavily outside and light rain inside, and although the ground is covered with wooden planks, it is also rainwater turbulence, which inevitably wets luggage and firewood. When I heard that it was raining in the middle of the night, I had to get up quickly and put my luggage and firewood on the table and stool first.
✪ Resident yurts
Write at the end
From 2017 to 2019, we successfully completed the archaeological investigation and excavation work in the No. 2 cemetery of Golmaudu in Mongolia, which achieved results beyond expectations and laid a very good foundation for cooperation, and in 2020-2022, due to the epidemic, the joint archaeological work between the two sides came to an end temporarily.
Starting in 2023, the joint archaeological project between the two sides has returned to normal, and we also plan to carry out the archaeological project of Gaolemaodu No. 2 cemetery as a long-term archaeological project, strengthen exchanges between the two sides, cultivate talents from both sides, and improve the level of both sides, hoping that greater progress and harvest can be made in Xiongnu archaeology and even Mongolian archaeology in the future, and we also hope that more domestic archaeologists can understand, pay more attention and participate more in Xiongnu archaeological research.
✪ M189 gilt silver dragon