Poster of "The Legend of Lu Zhen"
In 2013, there was a TV series that went viral, and it was "The Legend of Lu Zhen" starring actor Zhao Liying.
Although Lu Zhen in the TV series is inspirational, we don't say Lu Zhen today, let alone say, what is her true face in history?
What we just want to say is that there is another character in this play, Xu Xianxiu.
Xu Xianxiu in "The Legend of Lu Zhen"
In The Legend of Lu Zhen, Xu Xianxiu is the husband of Northern Qi's steed and eldest princess Gao Xiang, who holds a heavy army and is jealous of Empress Lou.
So, what kind of figure is Xu Xianxiu in history?
Xu Xianxiu in the mural of Xu Xianxiu's tomb
According to historical records: At the end of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Xu Xianxiu participated in Erzhu Rong's Qihu army, and after the defeat of Erzhu Rong's army, he turned to emperor Shenwu ~ Gao Huan.
After the establishment of Northern Qi, Xu Xianxiu rose through the ranks and eventually became the Taibao Shangshu Ling (the highest rank among military attaches, equivalent to the highest military commander in the country) of the Northern Qi regime, and died in 571 at the age of seventy in Fudizhong in Jinyang.
From this, we can responsibly say: Xu Xianxiu holding a heavy army is true, and marrying the eldest princess is false.
Let's use the murals in his tomb to kick off his ambitious life for you.
Before talking about the murals, we still tell you the story of Xu Xianxiu's tomb before and after the excavation, as usual, in order to express our admiration for the archaeologists of the team.
One day at the end of 2000, the Taiyuan Archaeological Research Institute received a report from the Wangjiafeng Village Committee that the "Tomb of the King" in the East Pear Garden of their village had been stolen.
So, why does the village committee say that the "tomb of the king" was stolen?
The reason is that Wang Jiafeng is located in the geographical location of Taiyuan's Dongshan area, and Taiyuan's Dongshan is the main burial area for the tombs of the Jin kings in previous dynasties.
Therefore, in the subconscious of the villagers, as long as there is a sealed mound, it must be the tomb of the King of Jin.
If the tomb of the king is stolen, it will be returned, and naturally the police will be called.
Therefore, the police of the Public Security Bureau and the archaeologists of the Archaeological Institute, led by the relevant personnel of the village committee, came to the stolen site.
Robbery hole
Because, it is not clear how serious the theft is. Therefore, our archaeologists can only slide down the robbery hole without any security, with only a hemp rope tied around the waist.
When the archaeologists slid to the bottom of the cave, turned on the flashlight, and probed into the burial chamber with their heads, they were immediately shocked by the scene in front of them.
Mural of Xu Xianxiu's tomb
Colorful, vivid as new, and life-size portraits appeared in front of his eyes.
It was only a 30-centimeter robbery cave that could not allow archaeologists to observe one step closer, so archaeologists could only return to the ground with regret.
On December 9, 2000, the eighth day after the report, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the Shanxi Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics decided to jointly organize a team from the Archaeological Research Institute of Shanxi Province and Taiyuan City to carry out rescue excavations.
One day in the early spring of 2001, excavations of the tomb officially began.
No one expected that the entire excavation would last for nearly two years (22 months).
In the past two years, our archaeologists have experienced various archaeological technical battles.
First, we must remove the roots of grass and trees that grow in the frescoes; second, we must solve the damage of reptile caves to the frescoes; and finally, we must prevent the erosion of surface water.
In fact, the above archaeological technical battles are all based on an important reason, that is, the ground battle on the mural is too weak.
Speaking of which, you must ask: What is a ground battle?
Let's start with the three basic structures that make up the mural:
First, it is the support structure of the mural, that is, where to paint, whether it is attached to the wall or the rock wall.
Second, it is what we call the structure of the ground battle layer. This ground battle layer is the base layer, which is composed of a stucco layer, a mud layer. However, the ingredients inside the mud layer will vary depending on the support structure of the walls and rock walls.
Its ingredients are generally made of chengban soil, sand, cotton, hemp knife, crushed wheat straw, glue, alum, egg green and so on.
Simply put, the ground battle layer is similar to our current plasterboard, and the mural is painted with "plasterboard" as the drawing paper.
Third, it is the structure of the pigment layer, which is also the picture layer we are talking about.
Yuan Dynasty murals from the Metropolitan Museum's collection
Now that we know the important role played by the ground battle layer in the murals, we naturally understand why, in the early twentieth century, the Western powers could use sharp knives to divide and abduct a large number of murals in our country.
Xu Xianxiu's tomb is thin and brittle ground battle
In cleaning up the tomb passage, the archaeologists found a very difficult problem, and the ground level of the tomb passage can almost be described as "no".
For some reason, the craftsmen at that time only symbolically painted a thin layer of white ash water on the walls on both sides of the tomb.
These white ash water, the formation of white ash skin is thin and brittle, a little careless will fall off, extremely difficult to spell and restore.
Pay tribute to the archaeologists who restored Xu Xianxiu's tomb
It was the hot season, and the archaeologists were not afraid of the heat, braving the fiery sun.
Using the binder from his own experiments, combined with the finest syringes, one square centimeter, one square centimeter, these thousand-year-old murals are reinforced and bonded.
The level of nuance seems to be the finest surgical operation for these murals.
Xu Xianxiu's tomb road
After 18 months of patient, meticulous and cautious restoration work, more than 200 square meters of murals in the cemetery were finally cleaned up.
Floor plan of Xu Xianxiu's tomb
The sloped tomb is composed of three parts: the tomb passage, the cave and the patio, of which the tomb is about 22 meters long, about 3 meters wide, and the deepest point is about 6 meters.
The frescoes on the cemetery are divided into two parts: the upper and lower parts. However, because the upper fresco has been damaged by grass roots and insect burrows for many years, it has become unrecognizable.
Fortunately, the lower frescoes have been basically preserved after careful restoration by the cooperation of archaeologists.
Dozens of young and middle-aged soldiers, ready to go.
Murals in the tomb chamber of Xu Xianxiu's tomb
Some of them held the liú flag, some blew the horn, some carried swords and bows, some held the reins and led the horses, or gathered or scattered, and had different looks.
So, where are these soldiers going? Is it to meet their master?
As the excavations proceeded in an orderly manner. Archaeologists finally began excavations of the main burial chamber in late September 2001.
Xu Xianxiu's tomb dome
When archaeologists entered the burial chamber against all odds, in addition to seeing the exquisite frescoes that surrounded them, there were also four robbery holes that were opened above their heads.
These four caves are particularly dazzling on the dome of the dome painted with stars and stars.
This also shows from the survey that the tomb was stolen at least four times.
Xu Xianxiu's tomb mural
Then the archaeologists were pleasantly surprised to find that the frescoes on the four walls of the burial chamber were very well preserved. Because it has not been flooded, collapsed, or invaded by natural disasters, there is no sense of dilapidation in the general tomb murals.
Unfortunately, in this 9-square-meter burial chamber, the tomb robbers who stole the burial goods deliberately destroyed it, and almost all of them became fragments.
Fortunately, archaeologists found an object with four stone legs in the burial chamber, resembling a square stone table.
Epitaph
When the archaeologists walked in to observe, they found that it was an epitaph that revealed the identity of the owner of the tomb.
It is precisely because of its discovery that the secret of the identity of the owner of the tomb is revealed.
Although this ancient tomb is not a certain King of Jin speculated by the villagers, the owner of the tomb is also the King of Wu'an ~ Xu Xianxiu, who has made great achievements in northern Qi.
Inexplicably, archaeologists found a very small number of skeletons in the burial chamber, and surprisingly, these skeletons did not come from the same body.
Logically, there should be no reason for tomb robbers to steal the body of the owner of the tomb.
But how to explain the few poor bones in this burial chamber?
After archaeologists have studied, except for one cervical vertebrae that belongs to the elderly.
There are also two, one is the skull of a teenager and the other is the two baby's baby teeth, that is, the extant skeleton may belong to two or even three individuals.
We need to know that this is a husband and wife burial tomb, an ancient old man can not be buried with a yellow-haired child?
However, it is surprising that not only in the tomb chamber, the remains of the hostess were not found, but also on the epitaph, no introduction to Mrs. Xu Xianxiu was found.
Wave after wave did not stop, and when the archaeologists turned their heads to find the two tomb doors lying on the floor of the Yongdao, the pattern they saw was even more strange.
They found that the tomb door was engraved with traditional Chinese mythical beasts , the Green Dragon and the White Tiger.
But the problem was that on top of the green dragon and white tiger, the image of a sacred bird was painted in scarlet.
Bewildered by these mysteries, our archaeologists first thought, are these questions directly related to the history of Northern Qi at that time?
Xu Xianxiu, like Lou Rui, lived in Jinyang City during the Northern Qi Era.
At that time, Jinyang City was not only an important frontier against the ethnic minorities in the north.
At the same time, it is also a region where ethnic minorities are relatively concentrated, and it is also an area where various ethnic groups communicate with each other, learn from each other, and integrate cultures.
According to historical records, there were many foreign religions gathered here at that time, and Buddhism and Zoroastrianism (Zoroastrianism) were the two most popular of many religions.
The Zoroastrian funerary practice is to leave the body in the wild, let the dog eat it, and then collect the remaining bones and bury them in containers.
In their view, decomposing corpses cannot defile the beautiful earth, so the fewer bones left, the better.
In our opinion, this is similar to the heavenly burial in Tibetan areas.
The Hu people on the murals of Xu Xianxiu's tomb
Therefore, some archaeologists have boldly speculated that since there are Hu people in the murals of Xu Xianxiu's tomb.
So, is there such a possibility that Xu Xianxiu, under their persuasion, also believed in Zoroastrianism.
Therefore, after returning to heaven, Zoroastrian funerary methods were adopted.
Therefore, it makes sense that the bones are incomplete or that other people's bones are mistakenly picked up.
As for the painting on the tomb door, some scholars say that Xu Xianxiu may have believed in Taoism at first, but later changed his faith and repainted the pattern of a sacred bird on the already carved tomb door.
Speculation or speculation, we have said that the archaeological conclusion must be based on evidence.
Perhaps, in the near future, we can finally find out the truth of the facts through the continuous research and exploration of archaeologists.
Thank you for reading. In the next issue, we will provide you with an in-depth analysis of the wonderful content on the murals of Xu Xianxiu's tomb.
Well, we'll see you next Thursday!