The epitaph of the Tang Dynasty woman Shangguan Wan'er is covered with a yin carved seal book, and the Zhishi is inscribed with a seal book, but what is unexpected is that the titles of Zhi Gai and Zhi Shi for this Tang Dynasty poet and female politician are very different, and Zhi Gai calls him "Tang Dynasty Former Zhaorong", but the beginning of her epitaph on Zhi Shi calls it "Tang Dynasty Former Jie Yu", what is the reason why Zhi Gai is completely different from the title on Zhi Shi? Is she the "Old Zhaorong" or "Former Concubine" of Datang?
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Li Ming, an associate researcher at the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute and the archaeological leader of Shangguan Wan'er's tomb, said: "The situation of different titles between Zhi gai and Zhi Shi is very rare in history, and we were also surprised by this situation when the epitaph was unearthed. Li Ming introduced that in the Tang Dynasty, Zhaorong was Zheng Erpin and Jie Yu was Zheng Sanpin, and there was a difference of two levels between official positions, and the official position on Zhi Gai was higher than the official rank on Zhi Shi.
According to historical records, experts believe that Shangguan Wan'er's identity should be zhengsanpin's concubine at the time of her death, but the emperor of the dynasty gave her the highest honor of mourning, so he posthumously named her Zhaorong of zhengerpin. Li Ming said: "Usually after the epitaph is written after the posthumous sealing occurs, it should be called 'Zhaorong' for the posthumous official position, so as to judge that it is not in line with the convention to write Jieyu at the beginning of the epitaph, and the full text of the epitaph uses 'Zhaorong' to refer to her, and only the first title uses 'Jierong', which is very strange." ”
Could it be that the title on the Zhishi is wrongly inscribed? Li Ming said: "Whether it is due to clerical errors or other deep-seated reasons, it is still inconclusive, but it is appropriate to call her 'Zhaorong'." Therefore, whether it is "Gu Zhaorong" or "Gu Jieyu", there is no mistake in which one title, but the reason for this appearance has yet to be further investigated.
The history books record that Shangguan Wan'er once wrote a letter requesting that she be demoted from Zhaorong's rank to a concubine, but Li Ming said: "But the epitaph shows that she surrendered herself not only once, but twice wrote to herself as a concubine." ”
Why did Shangguan Wan'er degrade herself twice? The history books record that Shangguan Wan'er first surrendered her identity, saying that she surrendered her identity to serve her mother's funeral. Li Ming said: "The record of the first self-surrender in the epitaph is consistent with the history books, and the officials of the Tang Dynasty had the tradition of serving the funeral of their closest relatives, generally serving the mourning period of 3 years, during which the officials will no longer serve in the imperial court, but concentrate on returning home to observe the funeral, and after the mourning period arrives, the imperial court will re-serve the officials." And Shangguan Wan'er's self-surrender was related to this rule of the Tang Dynasty, because she was in an important position at that time and could not leave her post to serve her mother," so the upper table court asked for a demotion, through this method to express her filial piety to her mother.
When studying the epitaph, archaeologists found that the epitaph also recorded the experience of Shangguan Wan'er once again asking for a demotion during the Tang Zhongzong period because of the advice, but this self-surrender experience was not recorded in the history books. Li Ming said: "We speculate that the experience of this self-demotion in the epitaph for the sake of advice may have been an act of praise to Shangguan Wan'er by the person who wrote the epitaph at that time. Because there has been no historical evidence to support this experience of self-request for demotion, whether the expression of this paragraph on the epitaph fills the blank in the history book or the original praise, it needs further study by experts, and perhaps in the near future, it will return to the original appearance of history.