Jīnlǚ-yùyī [jade burial suit]
The burial suit of the emperors and nobles of the Han Dynasty in China. According to the grade of the deceased, they are divided into gold strands, silver embroidery and copper strands. Two sets of gold-lined jade garments unearthed from the Han Dynasty Tombs in Mancheng in 1968 are well preserved and shaped like human bodies. They are each made of more than 2,000 jade pieces woven with gold wire. The size and shape of each jade piece have been carefully designed and designed. The fine processing shows the superb level of craftsmanship at that time.
A kind of jade clothing. Made of gold thread, it was used as burial clothes after the death of emperors and nobles of the Han Dynasty. Due to different grades, jade clothing can be divided into gold strands, silver strands, and copper strands. All three types of jade clothing have been found in archaeological work. Two sets of gold-lined jade clothes unearthed from the tomb of Liu Sheng, Prince Jing of Zhongshan, Han Dynasty, Mancheng, Hebei, were each made of more than 2,000 jade pieces woven with gold wire.
The gold-lined jade garment was the highest-standard funeral and burial garment in the Han Dynasty and appeared roughly in the Wenjing period of the Western Han Dynasty. According to "Xijing Magazine", emperors of the Han Dynasty were buried in "jade boxes with pearls", which were shaped like armor and connected with gold wires. This kind of jade box is what people call jade clothes with golden threads every day. At that time, people were very superstitious about the ability of jade to preserve the immortality of corpses, and regarded jade as a noble ritual vessel and a symbol of status.
Emperors and nobles of the Han Dynasty were buried wearing "jade clothes" (also known as "jade boxes") when they died. They are made of many jade pieces with small holes in the four corners and woven with gold, silver or copper wires. They are called "gold-lined jade clothes" (imperial level) and "silver-lined jade clothes" (princes and kings level) respectively. ), "Copper-lined Jade Clothes" (gonghou level).
Place of Origin: Liaoning
Specifications: Total length 188 cm
Category: Jade from the Han Dynasty
Introduction: Reborn Treasure Clothes
[Edit this paragraph] The origin of jade clothes with gold threads
Mountain elites
Jade clothes are also called "jade boxes" and "jade pledges". They were worn by emperors and senior officials of the Han Dynasty. The burial clothes worn by nobles when they died had the same shape as the human body. People in the Han Dynasty believed that jade was the "elite of the mountains". Placing gold and jade in the nine orifices of a person would prevent the person's essence from leaking out, and the bones would not rot, so they could be reborn in the next life. Therefore, the jade used for funerals is among the most popular types of Han jade. occupies an important position.
Jade with golden thread
The origin of jade clothing can be traced back to the "jade veil" and "jade clothing" in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Pi issued an edict banning jade clothing. , *** has been popular for four hundred years. The jade clothes of the emperor and some of his ministers were tied with gold threads, which was called "golden jade clothes." Other nobles used silver and copper threads to tie the jade clothes, which were called "silver jade clothes" and "copper jade clothes." So far, more than 20 pieces of jade clothing have been discovered nationwide. The two gold-lined jade clothing unearthed from the tombs of Prince Jing Liu Sheng and his wife Dou Wan in Zhongshan are the oldest and most exquisitely crafted.
Jade-embellished human figure
The picture shows Liu Sheng’s jade garment. It consists of six parts: hood, upper body, sleeves, gloves, trousers and shoes, all made of jade. It is made up of pieces and embroidered with gold thread. There are jade eye covers and nasal plugs on the head inside the jade clothes, and there are genital hoods and anal plugs on the lower abdomen. The edges are hemmed with red fabric, and the legs are hemmed with iron bars to reinforce them. The face is carved with eyes, nose, and mouth shapes, the chest and back are broad, and the buttocks and abdomen are bulging, completely resembling a human body shape.
A waste of money
The whole garment is made of 2,498 jade pieces and about 1,100 grams of gold wire. The workmanship is very fine. After the jade pieces are made into garments, they are arranged neatly, with tight seams, smooth surfaces, and coordinated colors. It is really amazing, reflecting the outstanding skills of the jade master and the luxurious life of the high official.
In 1968, it was unearthed from the Jingshan Tomb in Zhongshan, Mancheng, Hebei Province, and is now in the collection of the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics.
[Edit this paragraph] Excavation of Jade Clothes with Golden Threads
There are eighteen Western Han Dynasty tombs with jade garments unearthed in my country, but there are only eight tombs with golden threads. . The most representative one is the gold-lined jade garment of Liu Sheng, Prince Jing of Zhongshan, unearthed from Tomb No. 1 in Mancheng, Hebei Province. It uses more than 1,000 grams of gold wire and 2,498 jade pieces of various sizes connected to the jade garment. It took hundreds of craftsmen more than two years to complete.
The entire jade garment is exquisitely designed and meticulously crafted, making it a rare art treasure. When this gold-lined jade garment was unearthed in 1968, it caused a sensation in the archaeological community at home and abroad.
Since jade clothing with golden threads symbolizes the status of the emperor and nobility, and has very strict craftsmanship requirements, the rulers of the Han Dynasty also established the "Dongyuan" specializing in the production of jade clothing. The craftsmen here perform more than ten processes such as material selection, drilling and polishing on a large number of jade pieces. They design the jade pieces into different sizes and shapes according to different parts of the human body, and then connect them with gold wires. The cost of making a medium-sized jade garment was almost equivalent to the total wealth of one hundred medium-sized families at that time. Using gold-stitched jade clothes as burial clothes not only failed to fulfill the wish of the princes and nobles to keep the bones intact, but also led to the bad luck of tomb robbery and corpse destruction. Many Han emperors' tombs were often stolen multiple times because of this. During the Three Kingdoms period, Emperor Wen of Wei Cao Pi ordered a ban on the use of jade clothing, and jade clothing disappeared from Chinese history.
Since liberation, more than ten pieces of jade clothing have been found in Han tombs, including two pieces from Mancheng, Hebei Province, belonging to King Jing of Zhongshan in the Western Han Dynasty, Liu Sheng, and his wife Dou Wan, and one from Dingxian County, belonging to King Liu Xing of Zhongshan in the Western Han Dynasty. One piece, one belonging to Liu Gong, King Jing of Pengcheng in the Eastern Han Dynasty in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, one belonging to Cao, a member of Cao Cao's clan in Bozhou, Anhui Province in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, and 5 pieces, have been completely restored. Take the two pieces from the Han tombs in Mancheng as an example. Liu Sheng's jade garment was made of 2,498 jade pieces and the gold wire weighed 1,100 grams. Dou Wan's jade garment was made of 2,160 jade pieces and the gold wire weighed 700 grams. , the manpower and material resources required for its production are staggering. Mid-Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - 24 BC)
In 1986, it was unearthed from the Xishan Han Tomb in Mangshan Town, Yongcheng, Henan, and is now collected in the "Henan Ancient Jade Museum" of the Henan Museum.
180 cm long and 125 cm wide
The jade garment came from the tomb of King Liang in the late Western Han Dynasty. It is made of 2008 jade pieces and connected with gold wire. According to the body parts, they are hood, face cover, top, sleeves, gloves, trousers, leggings, etc. Jade clothing is the burial clothing of ancient nobles. It began in the late Warring States and flourished in the Han Dynasty. According to different status and rank, jade clothing The joints of clothes are divided into gold strands, silver strands, copper strands and silk strands.
[Edit this paragraph] The production of jade clothes with golden threads
From the appearance, the shape of the "jade clothes" is almost exactly the same as the human body. The head consists of a face cover and a mask, with the images of eyes, nose and mouth carved on the face cover. Most of the jade pieces that make up the face are small rectangular pieces. The eyes and mouth are carved on larger jade pieces, and the nose is made of five long tile-shaped jade pieces that are put together to create a lifelike image. The top is composed of a front piece, a back piece, and left and right sleeves, all of which are separated from each other; the front piece is made into a figure with a broad chest and a bulging abdomen, and the lower end of the back piece is made into the shape of the human buttocks. The trousers are composed of left and right trouser legs, which are also separate. The hands are shaped like fists, each holding a jade object in the shape of a Huang, and the feet are shaped like shoes. Some jade bis, as well as rice bowls, wearing items, etc. There are 18 pieces of jade on the chest and back, arranged in a certain way. On the head of the "jade garment", there are eye covers, nose plugs, ear plugs and mouth plugs, and on the lower abdomen there are small boxes for covering the genitals and anal plugs, all of which are made of jade. In addition, there are 48 agate beads under the neck and a jade belt hook at the waist. The whole set of "jade clothes" is large in shape, covered with gold and hung with jade, with a total length of 1.88 meters, 2498 jade pieces, and about 1100 grams of gold wire. The corners of the jade pieces are perforated, and they are woven with silk strands made of gold, so it is called "gold thread jade clothing".
In the Western Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago, according to the production level at that time, it was very difficult to make a set of "gold-lined jade clothes".
Jade materials are transported from distant places and processed into thousands of small jade pieces of a certain size and shape through a series of processes. Each piece of jade needs to be polished and drilled to determine the size and shape. It must undergo strict design and meticulous processing. Weaving jade pieces also requires a lot of special gold wires. It can be seen that the manpower and material resources spent to make a set of "golden jade clothes" are very amazing.
The extravagant and lustful royal family has a superstitious belief that "jade can cool the corpse". In order to immortalize the corpse, they used expensive jade clothes as burial clothes and used nine-orifice utensils to plug its nine orifices. It can be said that they went to great lengths. But the result was counterproductive. Because the gold thread clothes were expensive, they often attracted many tomb robbers, so that "all the tombs of the Han family were robbed, and even the jade boxes and gold threads were burned, and the bones were taken away." In fact, even if those tomb robbers did not come, when the archaeologists opened the mysterious cave, the tomb owner who aspired to be "invincible" had turned into a handful of dirt, and what was left was an exquisite jade suit. . These seem to tell people a myth that has been shattered for thousands of years.
[Edit this paragraph] Information about gold-threaded jade clothing
Is gold-threaded jade clothing only available in China?
Some media once reported that "1,000 golden mummies wearing jade clothes and gold threads were discovered in Egypt", but those golden mummies were just coated with a layer of gold on their bodies and did not contain jade, so they cannot be called Wear the real "Jade Clothes with Golden Threads". Jade carving skills are unique to my country, and the Han Dynasty was also a period when jade carving decoration was popular. Xiong Chuanxin, the former director of the Hunan Provincial Museum, said that judging from the fragments of jade clothing unearthed in Changsha, it was not just ground into jade pieces, but There are also patterns carved on it.
Who designed the golden jade garment?
There is no historical record of who specifically designed the gold jade garment. In 1968, two complete sets of "Golden Jade Clothes", the burial clothes of ancient emperors and nobles, were unearthed from the tombs of Liu Sheng and Dou Wan of the Western Han Dynasty. They have a history of more than 2,000 years. According to inspections, these two sets of "gold-lined jade clothes" are the earliest and most complete sets unearthed in archeology in my country.
Which is the most valuable piece of jade clothing with gold threads?
There are currently eighteen Western Han Dynasty tombs with jade garments unearthed in our country, while there are only eight tombs with jade garments in gold threads. The most representative one is the gold-studded jade garment of Liu Sheng, Prince Jing of Zhongshan, unearthed from Tomb No. 1 in Mancheng, Hebei Province. It uses more than 1,000 grams of gold wire to connect 2,498 jade pieces of various sizes. It took hundreds of craftsmen more than two years to complete. The entire jade garment is exquisitely designed and meticulously crafted, making it a rare art treasure. In 1968, when this gold jade garment was unearthed, it caused a sensation in the world.
Since liberation, more than ten jade garments have been found in Han tombs, including two from Liu Sheng, King Jing of Zhongshan in the Western Han Dynasty, and his wife Dou Wan, one from Liu Xing, King Xiao of Zhongshan in the Western Han Dynasty in Ding County, and one from Jiangsu Province One piece belongs to Liu Gong, King Jing of Pengcheng in the Eastern Han Dynasty in Xuzhou, one piece belongs to Cao, a member of Cao Cao's clan in Bozhou, Anhui Province in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, and 5 pieces have been completely restored. Take the two pieces from Han tombs in Mancheng as an example. Liu Sheng's jade garment was made of 2,498 jade pieces and the gold wire weighed 1,100 grams. Dou Wan's jade garment was made of 2,160 jade pieces and the gold wire weighed 700 grams. , the manpower and material resources required for its production are staggering.
The Jade Clothes with Gold Threads from the Tomb of the King of Chu in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province is the earliest, best-made and most valuable national treasure unearthed today. It was from the Western Han Dynasty. It is 174 cm long and 68 cm wide. It was from the Tomb of the King of Chu at Lion Mountain in Xuzhou from 1994 to 1995. Unearthed and now in Xuzhou Museum.
The total number of jade pieces in the Jinlu jade garment in the Chu King's Tomb is 4248. It is the earliest jade garment with the largest number of jade pieces, the best jade quality and the most exquisite craftsmanship.
The jade garment is very similar to ancient armor, and it is perfectly put together. 4248 pieces of jade were used and 1576 grams of gold strands were used. This gold-threaded jade garment is currently among the best in the country: it is the oldest, dating back more than 2,000 years; it has the largest number of jade pieces, with 4,248 pieces; and it has the best jade quality. The jade garment is entirely composed of Xinjiang Hotan white jade and sapphire, which is warm and crystal clear; The craftsmanship is the most exquisite and the preservation is the best. The owner of the tomb is Liu Yingke, the second generation king of Chu.
The excavation work of the Golden Jade Clothes
In May 1968, in Lingshan, 1.5 kilometers southwest of Mancheng County, Hebei Province, a certain unit of the People's Liberation Army was carrying out the excavation work here under the order of its superiors. An absolutely confidential national defense project
No one expected that this construction would unintentionally reveal an eternal mystery.
On May 23, when the soldiers were drilling holes and firing artillery in an east-facing area 30 meters away from the top of the mountain, something unexpected happened. After the explosion, not many rocks fell down as usual.
A soldier walking in front suddenly lost support on his feet, and his body sank suddenly along with the gravel.
When he fully reacted, a dark hole appeared in front of his eyes... Wang Bingrang, the head of the construction team, said at the same time: "At that time, I left a person to take a look, and I didn't know after looking at it. What is it? The hole is very big."
A few days later, a report marked "Top Secret" and some of the artifacts unearthed from the cave appeared on the desks of the main leaders of Hebei Province. The report said that an ancient tomb was discovered in the city.
Zheng Shaozong, a researcher at the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics, was one of the first two experts to arrive at the site of the Mancheng ancient tombs.
Zheng Shaozong: "We were dubious at the time, thinking that there was no such a big tomb. Even though we dug so many tombs, they were not that big. It felt very mysterious, as if we had entered another world."
From the cultural relics unearthed one after another, people found that many bronze vessels were engraved with the inscription "Zhongshan Neifu".
Historian Zhou Changshan: "Zhongshan refers to the Zhongshan Kingdom. There were two Zhongshan Kingdoms in history, one was the Xianyu Zhongshan Kingdom in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and the other was the Zhongshan Kingdom in the Western Han Dynasty."
Zheng Shaozong: "The characters of the Zhongshan Kingdom during the Warring States Period were inscriptions on bronze, and the characters on the copper basins were close to Han Li. In addition, the bronzes unearthed from the tombs were also similar to those of the Zhongshan Kingdom during the Warring States Period. The unearthed cultural relics are completely different and belong to the Western Han Dynasty style, so we determined that this tomb belongs to Zhongshan during the Western Han Dynasty, not the Warring States Period.”
Later, archaeologists named this tomb “Manchu.” Tomb No. 1 of Chenghan Tomb".
As the investigation and cleanup work gradually deepened, the overall shape of Tomb No. 1 gradually became clear.
The tomb chamber consists of six parts: the tomb passage, the corridor, the south ear chamber, the north ear chamber, the middle chamber and the back chamber. If you look down at the entire tomb, it looks like the word "ancient".
Before the Qin and Han Dynasties, the shape of tombs generally imitated the above-ground buildings. This design is to symbolically move everything in life underground, which is called death as life. In the Han Dynasty, the tomb chambers adopted the architectural style of a palace or a house depending on the identity of the tomb owner.
The layout of Tomb No. 1 is like a palace of the princes and kings of the Han Dynasty.
After the death of emperors of the Han Dynasty, they often built their tombs into huge mounds using the method of ramming soldiers. This form of burial was a pit tomb.
The tomb chamber in Tomb No. 1 of the Mancheng Han Tomb is a huge cave dug into the mountain. Archaeologists call this kind of tomb a cliff tomb. Among the 11 emperors of the Western Han Dynasty, only the "Baling" of Emperor Wen of Han Dynasty was a cliff tomb.
The Ba Tomb of Emperor Wen of Han Dynasty has not yet been excavated. The Mancheng Han Tombs allowed people to see the structure of the tomb chambers in the cliff tombs for the first time.
In the Western Han Dynasty, only the status of princes and kings was second only to the emperor. In the Zhongshan Kingdom, of course, he was the king of Zhongshan.
The Zhongshan Kingdom existed as a vassal state for more than 150 years, with ten kings ruling the country. Although it is initially determined that this is the tomb of a Zhongshan king in the Western Han Dynasty, which one of the ten kings is it?
On June 15, 1968, Premier Zhou Enlai informed Guo Moruo, then president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, about the discovery of Han tombs in the city, and asked him to be responsible for the excavation of Han tombs in the city.
On June 27, 1968, a joint archaeological excavation team composed of the Institute of Archeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and the People's Liberation Army Engineer Corps officially began the excavation and cleaning of Han tombs.
It would take 100 people a year to dig such a huge tomb into the rock, even using modern construction methods. Based on the national strength of the Zhongshan Kingdom at that time, at least 10,000 people were required to dig such a tomb, and it would take decades to complete.
At this time, archaeologists began to clean up the unearthed cultural relics in the middle room in detail. In the middle of the middle room, they cleared out more than a dozen copper lamps of different shapes, one of which attracted the attention of experts.
Zheng Shaozong of the same period: "The base of the lamp is the image of a Huns. According to the inscription on the copper lamp, we know that this copper lamp is a 'Danghu lamp'."
"When "Hu" was an official title of the Xiongnu at that time.
According to archaeological experts’ speculation, this household lamp was made during a period when the conflict between the Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu was extremely acute. Using the Huns as the base of the lamp is obviously a sign of contempt for the Huns.
The King of Zhongshan in the tomb probably lived during the period when wars with the Huns were frequent. He was even one of the leaders of the many northern princes and kings in the Han Empire who resisted the invasion of the Huns. So who is he? Woolen cloth?
Archaeologists finally discovered an artifact that could prove the identity of the Zhongshan King, a bronze wine vessel with the words "Zhongshan Neifu Bronze Francium One, Thirty-Four Years" engraved on the neck.
Historian Zhou Changshan: "Before Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Chinese emperors did not have reign names, and their reigns were only counted in numbers. Thirty-four, that is, the number of years in office..."
Among the ten kings of Zhongshan Kingdom, only the first king Liu Sheng reigned the longest, forty-two years, and the rest were less than 30 years. Therefore, it is determined that the owner of this tomb is the king of Zhongshan Kingdom. A generation of king Liu Sheng.
Liu Sheng, the concubine of Emperor Jing of Han Dynasty Liu Qi, and the half-brother of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty Liu Che. In 154 BC, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty Liu Qifeng named Liu Sheng the first generation of Prince Jing of Zhongshan.
Zhou Changshan: "According to historical records, Liu Sheng "enjoyed wine and loved his wife". He had "more than 120 children" This is the best evidence of Liu Sheng's "Enjoyment of Wine". It is estimated that these wine tanks can store up to several thousand kilograms of wine. It seems that Liu Sheng not only enjoys wine, but also probably has a large amount of wine.
Not only that, the most unearthed items in the entire tomb were wine vessels
In addition to a large number of bronze wine vessels, some broken jade vessels and jade ornaments were also found in the middle chamber from time to time, which attracted people's attention. Great interest.
Jade has a history of nearly 10,000 years in China. By the Han Dynasty, people not only regarded jade as a symbol of wealth and power, but also believed that using jade to protect the body would prevent the body from decaying.
After the death of the kings and nobles of the Han Dynasty, they not only carried pearls in their mouths and jade bis under their pillows, but also covered their heads and toes with funeral robes made of jade pieces and gold wires. This is what people call gold thread. Jade clothing is also called "Jade Clothing with Golden Threads" in history books.
Jade clothing with golden threads probably took shape at the end of the Warring States Period. In the history books of the Han Dynasty, jade clothing appeared most frequently.
In 1959, more than 4,000 jade pieces with perforations were unearthed from the Beizhuang Han Tomb in Ding County, Hebei Province; scattered pieces of jade clothing were also found in the early Western Han Dynasty tombs unearthed in Xuzhou. Unfortunately, the jade clothing unearthed were not complete.
The owner of the Han tombs in Mancheng is a prince, and he is also the highest-status tomb owner discovered in the Han Dynasty. So will there be gold-lined jade clothes in this Han tomb? p>
After excavating the middle chamber, people never found the coffin of the tomb owner. Everyone’s attention was focused on the back chamber.
The back chamber is a stone room built with stone slabs. There is also a side room in the south. The cultural relics inside were covered with thick vegetation ash.
After cleaning up the vegetation ash, people found that the funerary objects here were even richer.
, several scattered jade pieces were found on the north side of the back room. Several archaeological team members speeded up the cleaning work, thinking that more scattered jade pieces might be found.
No one expected. , underneath it, something similar to armor appeared.
Zheng Shaozong: "The first thing to be exposed is the head. Because the head is relatively high. There is a jade pillow underneath. The head has been pressed flat."
When the things piled on it are After all the decayed wood ash and metal ornaments were cleaned, an armor-like thing with gold wire connected with jade pieces appeared in front of people. Is this the "Jade Clothes with Golden Threads"?
In May 1968, on Lingshan Mountain in Mancheng County, Hebei Province, when a certain unit of the People's Liberation Army was secretly carrying out national defense construction, they accidentally discovered an ancient tomb of the Western Han Dynasty. Based on the cultural relics unearthed from the tomb, archaeologists inferred that the owner of the tomb was Liu Sheng, Prince Jing of Zhongshan in the Western Han Dynasty.
People found something similar to armor made of gold threads and jade pieces in the tomb. Could this be the jade garment with golden threads recorded in the history books?
The members of the archaeological excavation team huddled together and began to carefully examine the unearthed "cultural relic".
Zheng Shaozong: "After the head was exposed, the legs were also cleaned up, and all the limbs were cleaned out. As soon as the jade piece was exposed, it looked relatively complete. Everyone all exclaimed in unison, saying it was amazing. The jade burial clothes were indeed found.”
When cleaning up the funerary objects around the jade clothes, they found more than 60 golden beans on the east side of the jade clothes, which puzzled the archaeologists.
On July 22, under the personal arrangement of Premier Zhou, Guo Moruo drove from Beijing to Lingshan. As soon as he got off the car, Guo Moruo went directly to the tomb without taking a rest.
Wang Bingrang: "After placing more than sixty golden beans around the jade clothes, Mr. Guo judged that Liu Sheng probably lived for more than sixty years."
Historical records record that Liu Sheng lived for more than sixty years. Sheng served as King of Zhongshan for 42 years and died of illness in 113 BC. According to Guo Moruo's inference, Liu Sheng was probably born around 170 BC.
After analysis, Guo Moruo and experts finally determined that the unearthed cultural relic should be the most complete jade garment with gold threads discovered so far.
However, at this moment, someone told Guo Moruo that there were only rotten coffins in the back room, but no bones of the tomb owner were found.
Lu Zhaoyin: There is nothing underneath the jade garment, and the original rock formation has been excavated, and no coffins or bones have been found.
On August 13, the original archaeological team began excavation to the north of Tomb No. 1. Sure enough, the second mausoleum appeared, which was the "Mancheng Han Tomb No. 2".
The structure of the tomb chamber in Tomb No. 2 is roughly the same as that in Tomb No. 1. It can be clearly seen that it was excavated based on the experience of Tomb No. 1. Liu Sheng's bones are likely to be in this tomb.
However, many of the items unearthed were belonging to women at that time. In addition, there were very few weapons buried here. All indications indicate that a woman should be buried here.
This assembled copper lantern is different from the "Danghu" lantern in Liu Sheng's tomb. The palace lantern in Tomb No. 2 is in the image of a "palace maid".
The design of this palace lantern is very exquisite. It can adjust the size of the light and the direction of the illumination according to the needs. The soot of the candle can enter the body through the right arm of the "palace maid", so that the soot stops in the body of the lamp. to keep the room clean.
Gu Tongwen, director of the Hebei Provincial Museum, said at the same time: "After Kissinger saw it, he said with great humor that the Chinese are really amazing. You had environmental awareness two thousand years ago."
The outside of this palace lantern is engraved with the three characters "Yangxinjia", and there are six characters for Yangxinjia. So who does "Yang Xin" refer to?
Historian Zhou Changshan of the same period said: "According to historical records, Yangxin refers to the prince Liu Jie..."
What is particularly important is that the bottom of the lamp holder is engraved with "Changxin Shangyu" The inscription "Changxin" refers to Changxin Palace. During the period of Emperor Wen of Han Dynasty, the owner of Changxin Palace was Dou, the empress of Emperor Wen of Han Dynasty, and she was the grandmother of Liu Sheng, Prince Jing of Zhongshan. Later, archaeologists named this copper lantern the Changxin Palace Lantern.
On September 16, 1968, a copper seal was found in a tin box in the back room of Tomb No. 2.
Zheng Shaozong in the same period: "After cleaning the room, we found that this seal is square with a hole in the middle, which is called a string seal. On the front is the word Dou Wan and on the back is the word Jun Xu. This Dou Wan After analysis by Mr. Guo, Yin later believed that Dou Wan was the owner of this tomb."
According to this, experts further speculated that Dou Wan should be Liu Sheng's wife, the queen of Zhongshan Kingdom. And the Changxin palace lantern was the dowry given to Dou Wan by the Queen Mother Dou.
Just as the archaeologists were rejoicing at the identification of the tomb owner, another even more surprising thing quickly spread among the team - another thing was discovered in Tomb No. 2 Jade clothes with golden threads.
This jade garment unearthed is slightly smaller than the jade garment unearthed from Liu Sheng’s tomb. The jade pieces on the chest of the jade garment are not woven with gold wire, but are woven with silk fabric. Due to its age, , the fabric has long since rotted, and has been overlaid by the jade bis and the decayed wood ash of the coffin, and some of the jade pieces have been scattered.
When archaeologists were cleaning the jade garments from Han Tomb No. 2 in Mancheng, they discovered that inside the jade garments were the cervical spine, four ribs, and three teeth of the owner of the tomb. It seems that the owner of Tomb No. 2 was Buried in jade clothes. This aggravates people's questions: Why are there no bones of Liu Sheng in Han Tomb No. 1?
After the experts tried to open Liu Sheng’s jade garment, they found some date mud-like things and some teeth inside. They concluded that Liu Sheng’s bones were inside the jade garment, but they had rotted into Ash.
It turns out that Liu Sheng was buried in a rich manner with rich burial objects. The remains of animals and a large amount of burial wine increased the organic matter in the tomb, making the body easy to decay. In addition, the humid environment in the tomb also accelerated this process.
In the process of studying jade clothing, archaeologists discovered that the structure of jade clothing is very similar to the armor worn by soldiers in ancient wars.
Experts found that the most difficult part in the production of jade clothing is the glove part of the jade clothing, which is also the most delicate part of the jade clothing.
The gold wire used in jade clothing is generally 4-5 centimeters long. The smallest gold wire has a diameter of only 0.08 millimeters, which is only equivalent to the thickness of a hair, and is distributed throughout the gloves.
According to the current level of craftsmanship, it would have taken a skilled jade worker more than ten years to make such a jade garment during the Western Han Dynasty.
Xia Changsheng was originally the deputy director of Dingzhou Museum. In 1991, he accepted the task of replicating the golden jade garment. After several years, the first modern jade garment with gold threads was finally successfully copied.
Since this jade garment in Xia Changsheng’s home is a replica, only small copper wires can be used instead of gold wires. However, in the history books of the Han Dynasty, there are no rules on what kind of metal wires are used for the jade garment. There are strict rules.
People in the Han Dynasty believed that jade could keep corpses from decaying, but the results in Tombs 1 and 2 of Mancheng Han Tombs showed exactly the opposite. Moreover, jade clothes are extremely valuable, which makes them more likely to attract many tomb robbers.
According to the "Three Kingdoms: The Chronicles of Emperor Wen of Wei", "all the tombs of the Han family were excavated, and the jade boxes and gold threads were burned, and all the bones were taken."
At the same time, the number of jade clothes decreased. Also because its production requires a lot of manpower and financial resources. Therefore, Emperor Wen of Wei ordered a ban on the use of jade clothes with gold threads. Corroborating this, people today have never found jade clothes with gold threads in tombs after the Wei and Jin Dynasties.
Among the tens of thousands of cultural relics unearthed from Han tombs all over the city, the jade clothing with gold threads is undoubtedly the most eye-catching. In addition, a large number of weapons appeared in Liu Sheng's tomb. These weapons can remind us of the sophisticated weapons and equipment of the Zhongshan Kingdom's army at that time.
The gold and silver needles unearthed are some of the nine acupuncture needles. They are also the earliest ancient metal medical needles seen in our country, which shows that the level of acupuncture in the Han Dynasty was quite high.
A large number of medical instruments were unearthed at the same time as the medical needles.
On September 19, 1968, the excavation work of the two Han tombs was completed.
The excavation of Han tombs in Mancheng broke the silence of the archaeological community for many years.
On the mausoleum mountain, in addition to the No. 1 and No. 2 tombs of Liu Sheng and his wife, there are 18 small exposed tombs. These small tombs are the tombs of Liu Sheng's wives, concubines or descendants.
Some experts infer that not far from these attached tombs, there may be a larger tomb hidden in the rock. Because the landform features of some parts of the mausoleum are very similar to Tomb No. 1 and Tomb No. 2.
In other words, there may be a mysterious Tomb No. 3 on the mausoleum mountain.
There are several other burial objects along with the jade clothes: jade cicada, jade pig and 9 door stoppers.
Jade cicada comes from the Han Dynasty. The ancients believed that cicadas transformed themselves by crawling out of the ground. They did not eat anything but only dew, so they could sing loudly. Because cicadas can crawl out of the ground, they are believed to be reborn, so they are usually kept in the mouth.
The jade pig is held in the hand. Pigs are the representative of farming culture and also represent the money of farming culture. Jade is expensive, so the ancients often used it in burials.
The door stopper is divided into 9 jade pieces, which cover the eyes, nose (2 pieces), nostrils (2 pieces), ears, mouth, genitals and anus respectively.