Tomb M2001 of the Sanmenxia Yuguo Cemetery
This article is written by Ni Fangliu
In July 1955, the state decided to eradicate the water damage of the Yellow River and develop the Yellow River water conservancy.
At the same time as the establishment of the hydropower dam site survey team, the Ministry of Culture and the Chinese Academy of Sciences jointly formed the "Yellow River Reservoir Archaeological Task Force" to carry out large-scale field archaeological activities in Henan, Jin, Shaanxi, Gansu and other provinces, led by the famous archaeologist Xia Nai.
Sanmenxia Dam
Archaeological results are fruitful. Near the Sanmenxia Reservoir Dam, the first large water conservancy hub on the Yellow River, the archaeological team discovered the most important fengguo cemetery in the Western Zhou Dynasty.
The cemetery is only 1,000 meters away from the Yellow River in Shangcunling, the archaeological team tried the first shovel to find the tomb, and then explored the tomb, one after another, and finally found that this cemetery is 56,000 square meters, which is a large state cemetery.
Among them, the large tomb numbered M1052 is the tomb of the Prince of Yuguo.
The cemetery of the Kingdom of Yu, which has been hidden underground for more than 2,000 years, unveils the mystery of the Country of Yu.
Excavation site of the Yuguo Cemetery
More than 30 years later, the miracle of Uemura Ridge was reproduced, and in the 1950s, the north side of the cemetery was discovered, and the tombs of a group of nobles of the Yu kingdom appeared again.
The first excavation by the archaeological team is the tomb of The Emperor Of the Kingdom of Yu, whose archaeological number is M2001.
The tomb made a number of important archaeological discoveries, but it was almost stolen by tomb robbers.
In February 1990, the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and the Sanmenxia Municipal Cultural Relics Task Force jointly conducted a rescue excavation of the Shangcunling Yuguo Cemetery.
This time it is really "rescue"!
Pits
At that time, the cemetery was still wasteland and was designated as the homestead of local villagers. When the villagers dug the foundation, they found underground tombs and quietly excavated them.
By the time the police and antiquities departments knew, the cemetery had been dug up to pieces.
After receiving the instructions from the leadership, Hao Benzhi, director of the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics, led Jiang Tao, director of the Second Research Office, and three other archaeologists from Zhengzhou to Sanmenxia to prepare for the excavation of the Yuguo cemetery.
At the time of the official excavation, Jiang Tao served as the leader, and Ning Jingtong, the leader of the Sanmenxia City Cultural Relics Task Force, served as the deputy leader.
The site of the excavation of bronze artifacts from the Tomb of the State of Yu
The archaeological team selected a new small building in the northwest of the cemetery as office space, and arranged accommodation for food and lodging.
The family of the tomb robber in this building was built with stolen money obtained from the theft of cultural relics, and was confiscated according to law after the incident.
When the building was built, it was already known that there was a large tomb below, and the intention was obvious, and I wanted to dig it slowly in the future.
The archaeological team works in this building, which is convenient for excavation and can also protect the tomb below!
Where to start excavating, a robbery hole in the northwest of the small building attracted the attention of the archaeological team.
The cave is more than 10 meters deep, and archaeologists speculate that the tomb will not be small. More importantly, grave robbers may not have succeeded.
On the night of January 4, 1990, the local Du brothers and a villager stole the tomb and were caught by the local anti-smuggling police, which discovered the extraordinarily large theft of the Yuguo cemetery.
After the incident, the burglary hole was buried.
A month later, another group of tomb robbers sneaked in and re-dug the hole dug by the Du brothers, who wanted to be discovered by the night patrol, but failed to succeed.
Tomb robbers are anxious to rob tombs, and this tomb is certainly not ordinary.
At that time, the archaeological team thought, if the tomb robbers succeeded, would they come to the pit? Even if it is stolen, it means that there is something underneath, otherwise the tomb robbers will not risk it again.
It turned out that the archaeological team chose the right point, and then there were important archaeological discoveries that shocked the experts.
Jade excavation site
The first tomb to be excavated is known as Tomb One. In order to distinguish it from tomb No. 1 of the 1950s, it is numbered as M2001. This means that the first tomb was excavated during the second excavation of the Yuguo Cemetery.
On March 5, 1990, the excavation of Tomb No. 1 began, which was expected to end soon, but it took more than 40 days to complete.
This is the largest of the stolen tombs, the tomb mouth is 5.3 meters long from north to south, 3.55 meters wide from east to west, and the tomb is very deep.
The robber's cave was in the south of the tomb, and the blow was both accurate and deep.
The early excavation of the earthwork basically followed this robbery cave.
Robbery hole
When excavated to 5 meters underground, the robbery cave did not end; continue to excavate, until 8 meters deep, the robbery hole is still not in the end.
After 10 meters of digging, the hole still extended downwards – and the top of the chamber was pierced.
At that time, everyone's face was gloomy, the robbery hole was dug into the rafters, and the tomb could not be stolen? The team leader, Jiang Tao, was silent.
Although archaeology is not the same as tomb robbery, it is not for the purpose of digging treasures, but if the treasure is not dug up in the end, I am extremely disappointed.
Just when everyone felt that there was no drama, the voice of the team member who was cleaning up the robbery hole below came from the bottom of the pit, "Old Ginger, the robbery hole is in the end!" ”
The sound was so cute that all the people on the ground gathered around the tomb and straightened their necks to look down.
It turned out that the robbery hole had bottomed out at 11 meters underground - the tomb robbers did not succeed.
Excavation site of the tomb
The chamber is larger, the top cover has all collapsed, and the room is full of filled soil.
It took archaeologists more than 10 days to clear the top of the collapsed chamber.
After the mud was cleared, everyone at the scene was excited: it was filled with funerary items, and the outlines of a large number of bronzes, weapons and wooden coffins were completely exposed.
What makes the archaeologists sweat is that the burial artifacts are only 30 centimeters away from the bottom of the robbery cave, which can be said to be the most hanging archaeological discovery, and it was almost stolen!
Jade-handled copper-cored iron sword
The earliest era so far, the "jade handle copper core iron sword" that rewrote the history of China's iron smelting, is directly below the robber cave. In other words, the tomb robber only needs to dig down one more shovel, and the "jade handle copper core iron sword" is exposed, and it may be stolen - this sword was later called "the first sword in China" and was rated as a "national treasure".
After more than 40 days, the excavation of the M2001 tomb was completed.
A large number of precious burial utensils have been excavated from the tomb, with a number of more than 3,200 pieces, divided into nine categories, such as bronze ceremonial vessels, musical instruments, weapons, carriages and horses, jade ceremonial vessels, decorative jade, gold ornaments, ivory vessels, and coffin ornaments.
7 pieces of the column
Among them, there are more than 1700 bronzes alone. At the same time, 13 pieces of gold artifacts and 121 pieces (groups) of jade were unearthed. The jade face ornament in jade is considered to be an early form of "golden jade clothing" popular during the Two Han Dynasties.
Seven of the bronzes lock the identity of the tomb owner as the monarch, and the inscription points out its name , "Yu Ji".
Later, 50 meters east of M2001, a large tomb appeared, numbered M2009.
The tomb is larger and has not been stolen.
Unearthed chimes
More cultural relics were excavated in the tomb, reaching more than 3600 pieces, including 1500 bronzes and more than 900 jades. There are also 4 sets of musical instruments: a set of yong chimes, a set of button chimes, and two sets of stone chimes.
Because the excavated funerary objects are too rich, some cultural relics experts jokingly call the owner of the M20909 tomb a "collector" before his death.
In fact, the owner of the tomb in M2009 was the first monarch of the kingdom after it moved east to Sanmenxia. He was also known as the eldest father of duke Yu, and before his death, he was the secretary of state in charge of the affairs of King Li of Zhou, and his position was extremely prominent. The unearthed "Dispatch Book" records that after Yu Zhong's death, Nan Zhong, a heavy minister of King Xuan of Zhou and mentioned in the Book of Poetry, came from the capital of the state to attend his funeral, which shows his high status.
M2001 tomb unearthed jade face decoration
M2001 and M2009, the two tombs have been selected as the top ten new discoveries in national archaeology in 1990 and 1991. A cemetery, two consecutive "top ten discoveries", is very rare.
It is worth saying that in the late stage of the M2001 archaeological excavation, the news of a large number of treasures unearthed in the tomb was not far away. The tomb robbers could not sit still after hearing this, and they went so desperate that they came to rob the cemetery one night with guns.
At that time, there were 4 public security guards in the cemetery, and when they found two "ghosts", they went to chase after them, and they were almost hit by bullets.
The next day, the local police sent two special police officers to protect the excavation site with full armed forces, after which the cemetery did not "ghost".
Copper square pot unearthed