"The stolen tombs include ancient tombs from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and the amount of stolen bronze artifacts sold in a single transaction amounted to more than 2,000 yuan......," the case-handling officer said during the meeting with the prosecutors. With the deepening of the series of cases of illegal excavation of ancient tombs in northern Shaanxi Province handled by the procuratorial organs of Shaanxi Province, the Qingjian Zhaigou Site, a settlement site of the capital of the Shang Dynasty in Qingjian County, Yulin City, Shaanxi Province, has gradually unveiled the mystery, attracted the attention of all parties, and has been deeply excavated and protected.
The real thing of the double-wheel car found in the Qingjian Zhaigou site has pushed the appearance of the mainland double-wheel car up by about 1,000 years; There are as many as 11 A-shaped tombs outside the Yin Shang cultural circle around the site, and the scale of the project is comparable to that of the Yinxu Tomb; A large number of precious cultural relics such as bronze and jade have also been unearthed...... However, such a group of ancient burial sites with great historical research value was destroyed by multiple criminal gangs for a long time from 2014 to 2022.
The integration of four inspections and the performance of duties as one
Build a "hardcore" case-handling team
Since 2014, Zhu Moumou, Wang Moumou and others have ganged up in batches in many towns and villages in Qingjian County to illegally explore tombs, carry out illegal excavations, steal bronze ban, bronze tripods, bronze bells and other precious cultural relics and resell them, the amount of stolen goods amounted to more than 2,200 yuan, and the stolen tombs include ancient tombs in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the Han Dynasty, the Song Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty. The people involved in the case were gangs who had been engaged in tomb robbery activities in Yan'an, Yulin and other places for a long time, seriously damaging the cultural heritage of ancient tombs.
The series of cases of theft and excavation of ancient tombs have obvious characteristics of organization and chain, and it is difficult to handle the cases. Investigators said, "The crime of stealing and excavating ancient tombs lasted for eight years, and it was committed by multiple gangs, and the crime scene was intertwined and seriously damaged, which brought great difficulties to the collection of evidence." ”
Under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Procuratorate, a series of cases of illegal excavation of ancient tombs in northern Shaanxi were handled by the Shaanxi cross-administrative division procuratorate. In order to handle cases with high quality and efficiency, procuratorial organs across administrative divisions gave full play to the advantages of integrated performance of duties, and mobilized five political, professional, and well-educated procuratorial cadres and police from the "two levels and five courts" to form a case-handling team for a series of cases of theft and excavation of ancient tombs in northern Shaanxi, comprehensively reviewing the three major responsibilities of criminal, civil, and administrative affairs, and ensuring the integrated performance of procuratorial duties. The case-handling team adheres to the requirements of building the "four systems" of deep integration of politics and business, and has established an action party branch to implement all elements of "case handling + procuratorial suggestions + case cultivation + theoretical research + information publicity". The branch directly under the provincial procuratorate regularly listens to case reports, coordinates and guides the work, and ensures that all aspects of the case run smoothly and that the performance of procuratorial duties is more standardized and effective.
Intervene in investigations, prosecutorial and police cooperation
Crack down on criminal offenses
"I don't know who dug the tomb on the mountain in the east of the village, and I haven't robbed the tomb with Wang." The cunning criminal Liang Moumou believes that there is no ironclad evidence for his crime and refuses to confess the crime. In this regard, the procuratorial organs across administrative divisions gave full play to the platform role of the Office of Investigation Supervision and Coordination, made overall plans to guide the investigation and collection of evidence, and supervised and standardized the performance of duties, and put forward more than 30 supplementary investigation opinions to the investigating organs from the perspectives of case facts, evidence, and qualitative aspects.
In order to ensure that the case is stable, the prosecution is good, and the judgment is accurate, the case-handling team has gone to Yan'an, Yulin and other places to investigate the scene of the tomb robbery many times, visited the Yan'an and Yulin cultural relics protection departments, consulted the Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau and the Provincial Institute of Archaeology on relevant professional issues, and invited relevant experts from the Provincial Public Security Department to further supplement the investigation and recover cultural relics.
"I voluntarily pleaded guilty and accepted punishment, and the procuratorate's accusations against me were true", witnessed by the duty lawyer, Liang XX, Wang XX, Hui XX, and others signed a plea affidavit. Since 2023, the cross-administrative division procuratorate has prosecuted 26 people in 5 cases on suspicion of stealing and excavating ancient tombs, and Wu Moumou, Wang Moumou and others were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 11 years to one year and fines ranging from 30,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan for the crime of stealing and excavating ancient tombs. None of the defendants appealed, and the judgment has entered into force.
Actively perform duties and manage the source of litigation
Cohesion of cultural relics protection
In order to further strengthen the protection of field cultural relics, while punishing cultural relics crimes in accordance with the law, the procuratorial organs across administrative divisions promptly fixed relevant evidence, entrusted the cultural preservation unit to assess the restoration costs of the ancient tombs involved in the case, and filed attached civil public interest lawsuits against the 11 defendants, and the court adopted the litigation request of the procuratorate and ruled that the 11 defendants should bear more than 60,000 yuan in compensation for the restoration costs of the tombs. At the same time, according to the unified deployment of the provincial procuratorate, the cross-administrative division procuratorate, the Yan'an City Procuratorate, and the Yuyang District Procuratorate of Yulin City respectively formulated and issued procuratorial suggestions on social governance to relevant departments to promote the effective protection of field cultural relics in the province, and achieved good results. Under the promotion of the procuratorate, the Yulin Municipal Government launched the construction of the city's cultural relics safety supervision platform to further prevent and resolve the safety risks of cultural relics management, and effectively promote the scientific, intelligent and information-based safety protection of cultural relics.
Through the collaborative performance of many parties, the Provincial Institute of Archaeology has carried out systematic investigation and archaeological excavation work on a number of ancient tomb sites, including the Zhaigou site, and found a large number of relics with diverse functions and dense distribution on the 11 mountains of the Zhaigou site, and the opening area of some tombs even exceeds the Tomb of King Gangwang in the northwest of Anyang, far exceeding the previous cognition of the academic community. According to experts, the archaeological discoveries at the Zhaigou site and in the vicinity reveal the highly developed bronze civilization in northern Shaanxi in the late Shang Dynasty, which provides valuable information for exploring the political and geographical structure of the Shang Dynasty in northern Shaanxi and understanding the cultural exchanges and interactions between the Central Plains and the border areas during the Yinxu period.
Source: Shaanxi Provincial People's Procuratorate First Procuratorial Department
Source: Shaanxi Provincial People's Procuratorate Branch
Source: People's Procuratorate of the southern foot of the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi Province
Source: Yan'an Municipal People's Procuratorate