Chinanews.com, May 7th. Recently, "Song Tomb of Gongyi, Henan Province has become a cropland" related information has attracted attention.
On the 6th, Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology issued a reply via an official Weibo stating that the institute had noticed the situation of Gongyi Songling Tombs reflected on the Internet.
After verification, the current work is the local environmental remediation in accordance with the plan approved by the Henan Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau.
Screenshot of the official Weibo of Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
According to reports, the main content of this work is to restore the original topographical changes caused by agricultural production in the 1950s and 1960s.
The original landform of the Song Tomb is high in the south and low in the north. In the last century, agricultural production leveled land piled up a lot of soil in the northern area, which caused more than half of the stone statues in the northern area near the tombs to be buried.
In this environmental improvement project, a part of the original pile of soil will be removed, and the buried stone statue will be exposed.
According to the approved plan, archaeological exploration must be carried out before construction to determine the original height of the Songling Shinto ground.
In the subsequent specific construction design, it was required to keep a certain thickness of protective layer above the ground in the Song Dynasty when the soil was cleaned up, and it could not be directly cleared to the ground in the Song Dynasty.
Before the implementation of the environmental remediation project, the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology has conducted a comprehensive survey of the construction area and determined the specific cleaning depth of each area.
The current construction is carried out in accordance with the approved plan, and does not belong to archaeological excavation.
During the environmental improvement of the Songling Tomb, the archaeological unit has been actively involved and provided scientific advice and support for each stage of the work.