The rainstorm rushed out of the "Golden Village" and the national treasures of Zhou Tianzi's tomb scattered into a memorial of Chinese archaeology
2022-01-28
"Spring and Autumn Annals of the LV family" says: "there are stealing songs in the Zhou Ding, which are very long. They are all curved up and down, so as to see the extreme defeat." In the first exhibition hall of Luoyang Museum, there is such a stolen curved bronze tripod. Compared with a large number of bronze wares with complex shapes and gorgeous patterns, it may not look "bright enough". There are only a few lines on the surface, and there are cracks above a tripod leg. "The decline of the royal family in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and the lack of abundant treasury led to the Ding wall being too thin, which led to the crack." It's hard for the commentator to hide his sobs when he talks about the reason. However, the huge shape of the instrument still silently shows that it belongs to the king alone. This stolen curved bronze tripod, also known as "Jincun tripod", has an extraordinary origin. It is one of the only three cultural relics confirmed to have been unearthed in Jincun tomb in Luoyang. You may not be familiar with Jincun. It is located in Pingle Town, Mengjin District, Luoyang City, Henan Province. At first glance, it is just an ordinary village in the Central Plains. Because it is not far from the White Horse Temple, occasionally tourists pass by and may catch a glimpse. But for Chinese archaeologists, the word "Jincun" means a memory full of grief and grief. "A group of tombs of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which have been buried underground for thousands of years, unfortunately encountered a group of ambitious foreign cultural relics thieves during a turbulent period of chaos, which triggered an unprecedented 'cultural relics Holocaust'." Zhao Xiaojun, the leader of the archaeological investigation and survey of the Eastern Zhou imperial mausoleum in Jincun and President of Luoyang Institute of cultural relics and archaeology, lamented that "it is enough to keep every Chinese awake at night and sigh..." There is "gold" in Jincun village, and the rainstorm rushed out of the tomb of the emperor of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty To say the origin of Jincun's name, elderly villagers usually say two "unofficial versions". It is said that long ago, there was a time when the village could dig up gold ingots, gold jars, gold wine cups and other objects from time to time whenever they ploughed the land or demolished houses to build houses. "There is gold in the village!" As soon as this saying spread ten or ten to a hundred, the name of "Golden Village" gradually opened. It is also said that this village is "the village on Jinluan hall". It is adjacent to Mangshan Mountain in the north and Luohe River in the south. The terrain is flat and fertile for thousands of miles. It has always been a boundary for heroes to compete for deer in history. It is said that there is a "dragon vein" under the village. Every time it comes to thunderstorm weather, there will be a rumble under the ground, like gold and stone, clanging, "this is the 'dragon vein' beating!" There is also a strange phenomenon of "string of wells" in the village. From the perspective of geography and landform, the groundwater level in Jincun is not low, and drilling wells should have been a very easy thing. But for a long time, only three old wells in the village can provide stable water supply. If a few new wells are drilled, some clearly have sufficient water on the first day, but the next day there is no water left at all; While some of the original water, but can be filled overnight, or even overflow the wellhead. The villagers were puzzled. It was not until 1928 that the "secret" hidden underground in Jincun village was washed away by a rainstorm. At the turn of summer and autumn, Jincun encountered torrential rain for several days. Xu Shi couldn't help being washed by the rain. The farmland at the east end of the village suddenly sank, "boom", and a huge hole collapsed. "This is heaven's' sinkhole '!" The villagers were terrified at first and believed that it was a vision of doom and disaster. Some brave people couldn't help being curious, so they teamed up to explore the hole. This exploration doesn't matter. The scene in front of us shocked everyone: there are things like chimes in the mud. As we all know, "there is little idle soil at the top of Beimang mountain, which is full of old tombs of Luoyang people". Locals soon realized that the "Tiankeng" washed out by the rainstorm was actually the entrance to an ancient tomb. Estimated from the size of the entrance, the body of the tomb will certainly not be small. A villager immediately invited a knowledgeable person to "palm the palm and eye". After careful inspection, he judged that it should be the "Tomb of the emperor" and asserted: "I'm afraid it's connected into a piece!" There is also a scientific and reasonable explanation for the "dragon vein" and "string well" that have long made Jincun people feel extremely mysterious. Due to the concentration of ancient tombs in Jincun area, which affects the distribution of groundwater, and the large-scale and crisscross tombs form interconnected waterways, the phenomenon of sometimes no well water occurs. On a thunderstorm day, when the current is fast, it will impact a large number of bronzes such as chimes in the tomb, making them collide with each other and form an ensemble of 10000 instruments. At the same time, it will resonate with the thunder, vigorous and distant, and sound like a giant dragon. But compared with these, what can attract the attention of Jincun people is obviously the word "emperor's tomb" in Xingjia's mouth. "Emperor? That's the emperor! Hey, there must be a lot of valuable things in this tomb!" For a while, the villagers rushed to tell each other: go and have a look. The emperor was buried under our village, and bronze ware was buried everywhere. Any one can be exchanged for a donkey! I don't know who started it. The common people began to "dig treasure" in the "Tiankeng" and loot the cultural relics in the tomb. Soon, the original flat farmland was dug beyond recognition. Perhaps it just reflects the villagers' fear of future misfortune when they first saw the "Tiankeng". They must not have thought that the big pit accidentally rushed out by the rainstorm is just like the "Pandora's box", which opened an unspeakable nightmare in the archaeological history of our country. The national treasures were looted and scattered into a memorial of Chinese archaeology Wei Zhao's note in Mandarin · Zhou language: "Di (Zhai) Quan is the city of Zhou and the tomb of Zhou." "Shuijing Zhu" also records: "Zhai Quan is in the northeast of Luoyang, the cemetery of Zhou Dynasty." In 770 BC, King Ping of Zhou moved eastward and established his capital in Luoyang, known as the "Eastern Zhou Dynasty" in history. His 25 generations of kings were buried near Luoyang, which was divided into three mausoleum areas: Zhoushan, Wangcheng and Jincun. The "Tomb of the emperor" washed out by the rainstorm in 1928 is the imperial mausoleum of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty! But the treasure is now in troubled times and is destined to be ill fated. The appearance of the tomb in Jincun comes at the beginning of the 20th century when the situation is turbulent. The country has been poor and weak for a long time, and the people are in decline. They have no intention or ability to effectively supervise, protect, excavate and even academic research the tomb and its unearthed cultural relics. Moreover, in the surrounding areas of Luoyang, illegal tomb theft, smuggling and reselling of cultural relics were once rampant, even to the extent of openness. In the eyes of ordinary people, it is just a "small business" to make a living. Through the hands of cultural relics dealers, batches of exquisite cultural relics of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty began to flow from the Golden Village to antique markets all over the country. "There is the emperor's tomb in the Golden Village of Luoyang!" The news spread more and more widely. Now, grave robbers, antiques dealers and cultural relics brokers from all over the country flock like vultures smelling rotten meat in an attempt to seize the first opportunity for fear that they will get little benefit. The Western powers and their agents who began to search and steal a large number of cultural relics and works of art in China since the end of the 19th century are even more salivating for Jincun cultural relics. They either come forward directly, or direct indirectly, or threaten and lure local villagers, or collude with more professional grave robbers. In short, they try to take cultural relics as their own, bypass export supervision and transfer them all abroad. Among them, Canadians are the "best". In 1910, Huai Luguang came to Kaifeng, Henan Province as a "missionary". In addition to preaching, he also built churches, schools, hospitals and occasionally carried out some social relief work. But this usually looks honest, reliable and helpful foreign hole. In private, a major hobby is to collect all kinds of Chinese cultural relics. So that since 1925, Huai Luguang has a new identity - the cultural relics acquisition agent in China of the Royal Ontario Museum of Canada. It was through his hands that a considerable number of Jincun cultural relics were finally transported to Canada, which is difficult to find again. From 1928 to 1932, the originally peaceful golden village was subjected to a long period of crazy excavation. In addition to the tomb that was first washed out by the rainstorm, seven tombs of the emperor of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and three Che Ma pits were found one after another and looted. Thousands of precious cultural relics such as gold, silver, bronze and jade were transported out of Jincun village, and almost all of them were lost overseas. This is the largest scale, the highest level of cultural relics and the largest number of cultural relics in China since modern times. According to incomplete statistics, suspected Jincun cultural relics have been found in dozens of cities in more than a dozen countries, such as Canada, Japan and the United States. "The cultural relics unearthed from the imperial mausoleum of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in Jincun represent the highest level of aesthetics and technology in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. The large number, gorgeous decoration and unique shape are unique. They not only have high ornamental value, but also carry rich archaeological information." Yan Hui, director of Han Wei Research Office of Luoyang Institute of cultural relics and archaeology, said. The unearthed cultural relics and remains are important empirical materials for studying the politics, economy, culture, social appearance and even the level of science and technology in the corresponding historical period. Due to the loss of a large number of cultural relics in Jincun village and the serious damage of 8 royal tombs of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty by excavators, there has been a gap in many fields such as capital research and mausoleum system research in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in China's archaeological circles for a long time, which is difficult to improve systematically so far. "It can be said that the loss is as heavy as the loss of cultural relics in Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes." Zhao Xiaojun said, "this is not only the pain of archaeology, but also the loss of culture." The word "Jincun" has become an "unbearable weight" in the hearts of countless Chinese archaeologists. Ironically, after returning to Canada in 1934, Huai Luguang became the director of the Far East Department of the Royal Ontario Museum and the director of the Department of Chinese Studies at the University of Toronto. Until today, some people are still distressed by the "blind eye" rainstorm: "even if it is 20 years later, we can protect the cultural relics of Jincun tomb!" Looking forward to your return, how can you find no evidence How amazing are the cultural relics in Jincun? At present, we can only get a glimpse of its unique style from the data and photos included in the ancient tomb of Luoyang written by Huai Luguang, a Canadian, and the ancient tomb of Luoyang Jincun compiled by Meiyuan, a Japanese. According to the statistics of the Chinese society of cultural relics, since the Opium War in 1840, more than 10 million Chinese cultural relics have been lost overseas due to war, looting, improper trade and other reasons, including more than 1 million national first-class and second-class cultural relics. The statistics of UNESCO are also shocking: in more than 200 museums in more than 40 countries, there are more than 1.6 million Chinese cultural relics, while the number of Chinese cultural relics collected by the people is more, about 10 times that of the collection. The experience of Jincun is just the most distressing epitome of the illegal loss of many cultural relics in modern China. "Where are the cultural relics of Jincun now? How to confirm their identity after discovering the suspected cultural relics of Jincun? This is the key issue that needs to be clarified first." Xu Jian, vice president of the school of cultural heritage and information management of Shanghai University, told reporters that in those years, Luoyang Jincun was so famous for theft that some artifacts and even imitations that did not come from Jincun would also be labeled "Jincun" by cultural relics traffickers in order to sell at a higher price. "In other words, judging only from the style, the 'Jincun collection' of overseas museums is a miscellaneous business, which needs repeated deliberation and multiple arguments before it can be identified
Edit：Yuanqi Tang Responsible editor：Xiao Yu
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