The Lost Golden Village: An Archaeological Story That Spans a Century
Our reporters Gui Juan and Yuan Yueming
"Lv's Spring and Autumn" has a cloud: "Zhou Ding has a stealing song, the shape is very long, and the upper and lower are all songs, so as to see the extreme defeat."
In the first exhibition hall of the Luoyang Museum, there is such a bronze tripod with a zigzag pattern.
Compared with many bronzes with complex shapes and ornate decorations, it may not look "dazzling" enough, with only a few lines on the surface, and there are cracks above the legs of a tripod.
"The royal family of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty declined and the treasury was not abundant, which led to the fact that the walls of the tripod were made too thin, and that's why the cracks appeared." Every time he talked about the reason, the commentator couldn't hide his sigh.
But the gigantic shape still silently shows the majesty that belongs to the king.
This copper ding with a zigzag pattern is also called "Jincun Ding", and it has an extraordinary origin.
It is one of the only three cultural relics that have been unearthed from the Jincun Tomb in Luoyang so far.
When it comes to Jincun, you may not be familiar with it.
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 they may have a quick glance.
But to the Chinese archaeological community, the word "Jincun" means a memory full of grief and grief.
"A group of Eastern Zhou royal mausoleums, buried deep underground for thousands of years, unfortunately encountered a group of ambitious foreign cultural relic thieves during a period of turmoil, which triggered an unprecedented 'cultural relic catastrophe'." The Jincun Eastern Zhou King, which was launched a few days ago Zhao Xiaojun, the leader of the archaeological survey and survey work of the tomb, and the director of the Luoyang Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute, sighed, "It is enough to make every Chinese sleepless at night and sigh with embarrassment..."
There is "gold" in Jincun, and the rainstorm rushed out of the Tomb of the Emperor of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty
There are usually two "unofficial versions" of the origin of the Jincun name from older villagers.
Some people say that there was a time a long time ago, when people in the village ploughed the land or demolished houses to build houses, they could dig up gold ingots, gold pots, gold wine glasses and other objects from time to time.
"There is 'gold' in the village!" The name of "Golden Village" was gradually called out as soon as the saying was passed on from ten to ten.
Some people say that this village is a "village on the Golden Palace", with Mang Mountain in the north and Luo River in the south, with flat terrain and fertile fields for thousands of miles.
Legend has it that there is a "Dragon Vessel" under the village. Every time the weather is full of thunderstorms, there will be a rumbling sound from the ground.
There is also a strange phenomenon of "stringing wells" in the village.
Geographically, the groundwater level in Jincun is not low, so drilling a well should have been an easy task.
However, only three old wells in the village have been able to provide stable water supply for a long time.
If a few new wells are drilled, some may have enough water on the first day, but the next day there will be no water left at once; while some had no water, but they can be filled overnight, or even overflow the well.
The villagers were puzzled.
It was not until 1928 that the long-hidden "secret" in the Jincun underground was washed away by a torrential rain.
At the turn of summer and autumn, Jincun suffered from torrential rain for several consecutive days.
Xu Shi couldn't help the rain wash, and the farmland in the east of the village suddenly sank, with a "bang", a huge pothole collapsed.
"This is a 'tiankeng' descended by God!" The villagers were terrified at first, believing that this was a vision that heralded bad luck and disaster.
There are also courageous people who can't help but be curious, so they go into the cave to explore.
It didn't matter, the sight in front of them stunned everyone: there was something like a bell in the mud.
As we all know, "There is little free land on the top of Beimang Mountain, but all the old tombs of Luoyang people".
The locals soon realized that the "tiankeng" washed out by the torrential rain was actually the entrance to an ancient tomb.
Estimated from the size of the hole, the body of the tomb is definitely not small.
Some villagers immediately invited someone who knew how to do it, "Zhang Zhangyan". After careful inspection, they judged that it should be the "Tomb of the Son of Heaven", and asserted: "This tomb, I'm afraid it will become a piece!"
For a long time, the "Dragon Vessel" and "Crossing Wells" that people in Jincun have felt extremely mysterious have a scientific and reasonable explanation.
Due to the concentration of ancient tombs in Jincun area, the distribution of groundwater is affected, and the tomb passages are large in scale, crisscrossed, forming interconnected waterways, so the phenomenon of well water sometimes occurs.
On thunderstorm days, when the water is fast, it will impact a large number of bronze objects such as bells in the tomb, causing them to collide with each other.
But more than these, what attracted the attention of Jincun people was obviously the word "Tomb of the Son of Heaven" in the mouths of experts.
"The emperor? That's not the emperor! Hey, there must be a lot of valuable things in this tomb!" For a while, the villagers rushed to tell each other: Come and see, there is an emperor buried under our village, and there are bronze wares buried all over the ground. It can be exchanged for a donkey!
I don't know who started, and the common people started to shovel and shovel, scrambling to "dig treasure" in the "tiankeng" and loot the cultural relics in the tomb.
Soon, the flat crops were dug beyond recognition.
Perhaps it just reflected the villagers' fear of future doom when they first saw the "Tiankeng". They must not have thought that this big pit that was accidentally rushed out by the rainstorm was like a "Pandora's Box", opening a difficult and difficult time in the history of archaeology in my country. A nightmare of words.
It was robbed and excavated, and the national treasure was scattered, becoming a grief of Chinese archaeology
"Mandarin·Zhou Yu" Wei Zhao noted: "Di (Zhai) Spring, the city of Zhou, where Zhou's tomb is located." "Shui Jing Zhu" also records: "Zhai Spring is in the northeast of Luoyang, the cemetery of Zhou."
In 770 BC, King Ping of Zhou moved eastward and established his capital in Luoyang, known as "Eastern Zhou" in history. His 25 generations of kings were all buried near Luoyang, divided into three mausoleum areas: Zhoushan, Wangcheng and Jincun.
In 1928, the "Tomb of the Emperor" rushed out by the torrential rain is the tomb of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty!
But the treasure is now in troubled times, and it is destined to have a bad fate.
When the Jincun Tomb appeared, it was at the beginning of the 20th century when the situation was turbulent and the current situation was turbulent. The country had been poor and weak for a long time. Excavation and even academic research work.
What's more, illegal tomb robbery and smuggling and reselling of cultural relics were rampant in the surrounding areas of Luoyang at that time, and even became public.
In the eyes of ordinary people, it is just a "little business" for living.
Through the hands of cultural relic dealers, batches of exquisite cultural relics of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty began to flow from Jincun to antique markets all over the country.
At this time, tomb robbers, antique profiteers, and cultural relic brokers from Shili Baxiang swarmed like vultures when they smelled carrion, trying to gain the upper hand, for fear that they would gain little benefit.
And those Western powers and their agents who have been looting and stealing a large number of cultural relics and works of art in China since the end of the 19th century are even more coveted by Jincun cultural relics.
They either directly came forward, or indirectly commanded, or coerced and lured the local villagers, or ganged up with more professional tomb robbers.
Among them, the "leaders" are the Canadians.
In 1910, Huai Luguang came to Kaifeng, Henan Province as a "missionary". In addition to preaching, he also built churches, opened schools, opened hospitals, and occasionally carried out some social relief work.
But this foreign face, who looks honest, reliable and helpful on weekdays, has a hobby of collecting various Chinese cultural relics in private.
As a result, since 1925, Huai Luguang has a new identity - the agent of the acquisition of cultural relics in the Chinese region of the Royal Ontario Museum of Canada.
It was through his hands that a considerable number of Jincun cultural relics were eventually transported to Canada, and it is difficult to find them again.
From 1928 to 1932, the originally peaceful Jincun was subjected to a protracted and frantic excavation.
In addition to the first tomb washed out by the torrential rain, seven other tombs of the Emperor of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and three chariot pits were successively discovered and looted.
Thousands of precious cultural relics such as gold and silver, bronze and jade were transported out of Jincun, and almost all of them were lost overseas.
This is the largest stolen excavation, the highest level of cultural relics, and the largest number of cultural relics in my country since modern times.
According to incomplete statistics, suspected Jincun cultural relics have been found in dozens of cities in more than ten countries including Canada, Japan, and the United States.
"The cultural relics unearthed from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty Mausoleum in Jincun represent the highest level of aesthetics and craftsmanship in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. They are unique in quantity, gorgeous in decoration and unique in shape. They not only have extremely high ornamental value, but also carry a wealth of archaeology academic information." said Yan Hui, director of the Han and Wei Research Office of the Luoyang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.
The unearthed cultural relics and remains are important empirical materials for studying the political, economic, cultural, social features 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 and the serious damage of the eight Eastern Zhou royal tombs by the robbers, for a long time, the Chinese archaeological circles have lacked links in many fields such as the study of capital cities and the system of mausoleums in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and it has been difficult to systematically improve them.
"It can be said that the heavy loss is no less than the loss of cultural relics at the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang." Zhao Xiaojun said, "This is not only the pain of archaeology, but also the tragedy of culture."
The word "Golden Village" has thus become an "unbearable weight" in the hearts of countless Chinese archaeologists.
Ironically, after returning to Canada in 1934, Huai Luguang transformed himself into the director of the Far East at the Royal Ontario Museum, and concurrently chaired the Department of Chinese Studies at the University of Toronto.
To this day, there are still people who are saddened by the "unintelligible" rainstorm: "Even if it is 20 years later, we can protect the cultural relics of the Jincun Tomb!"
Looking forward to returning, I searched for Naihe several times and found no evidence
How amazing are the Jincun cultural relics?
Now we can only get a glimpse of its peerless elegance from the data photos included in the two books, "The Ancient Tombs of Luoyang City" by the Canadian Huai Luguang and "Juying of the Ancient Tombs of Jincun in Luoyang" compiled by the Japanese Umehara Suezhi. .
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 wars, looting, illegal trade and other reasons, including more than 1 million national first- 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, and the number of Chinese cultural relics in private collections is even more, about 10 times the number of collections.
What happened to Jincun is just the epitome of the most distressing frame of the illegal loss of many cultural relics in modern my country.
"Where are the Jincun cultural relics hidden now? How to confirm the identity of the suspected Jincun cultural relics? This is the first key issue to be clarified." Xu Jian, deputy dean of the School of Cultural Heritage and Information Management of Shanghai University, told reporters that in those days, Luoyang Jincun It has become famous for its robbery and excavation, so that some artifacts and even imitations that are not from Jincun will be labeled as "Jincun" by cultural relic dealers, in order to sell at higher prices.
"In other words, judging from the style alone, the current 'Jincun Collection' in various overseas museums is a miscellaneous puzzle, which requires repeated scrutiny and multiple arguments to identify the real treasure of the Emperor of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty."
The "first meeting" between Xu Jian and Jincun dates back more than 20 years.
Once, Xu Jian, who was still a graduate student, saw the Warring States Jade Dancer's ornament collected by the Freer Art Museum in the United States. "I was amazed at the exquisiteness of this jade piece, which is said to have come from Jincun. It represents an admirable artistic achievement."
In the spring of 2008, Xu Jian, who was investigating the collection of Chinese cultural relics in Paris, France, had the opportunity to observe some Jincun-related collections, archives and auction catalogues up close. From then on, he began to systematically organize and collect Jincun relics overseas. Research.
"Start with a comprehensive collection of artifacts that are suspected to be Jincun's relics, and then think about and confirm what exactly is 'Jincun'." Xu Jian said.
In the process of "Finding the Golden Village", Xu Jian's most impressive experience occurred in early 2018.
"During a short visit to the Royal Ontario Museum of Canada, due to the special care of the museum, I obtained the rare privilege of being able to enter and exit the warehouse alone and freely, and observed and recorded those exquisite Jincun artifacts at close range for a week in a row." Xu Jian recalled that they were separated by nearly a hundred years and spanned tens of millions of miles. "While reading Huai Luguang's "Ancient Tomb Research in Luoyang City", while pressing the map to find 'things', it seems that he can feel the same thing two thousand years ago. The breath and heartbeat of the people who own it."
Over the past few years, Xu Jian and the team of the China Overseas Cultural Relics Research Center at Shanghai University have visited many museums in the United States, Canada, France, Japan and other places, and have also identified a number of suspected Jincun cultural relics. The materials are really lacking, and the identification and identification of Jincun cultural relics lacks archaeological standards and insufficient basis." Xu Jian said.
冥冥之中，机缘已至。正苦恼于缺乏“金村标准”的徐坚及其团队，遇到了常年关注金村东周王陵及其出土文物的洛阳市文物考古研究院团队。二者一拍即合，开始围绕金村进行更为深入、全面的合作。
“通过对金村的回访式研究，找到尚未被认出的金村文物，同时剔除非金村的文物。”徐坚介绍，“在甄别的基础上，我们还通过三维扫描等技术手段，对金村器物逐件建立档案，计划建成世界上第一个金村器物群综合数据库。”
“这些详尽的影像数据资料，未来将可用于洛阳金村的公共展示和复原研究，从某种意义上来说，实现金村文物的‘数字回归’。”赵晓军说。
“这也是在国际考古学界收回金村研究的话语权，实现洛阳金村的‘学术回归’。”徐坚说。
厚积薄发，金村考古启动期待更多惊喜
故事要从一张藏了半个世纪的考古勘测图讲起。
20世纪30年代初，金村大墓被彻底挖空，呼啸而来的盗掘者们又呼啸而去，留下一地鸡毛。
随着时间流逝，轰动一时的金村天子墓也被重新长出的庄稼覆盖，不见踪迹。
1962年，中国科学院考古研究所(1977年改属中国社会科学院)洛阳汉魏城队在豫开展考古发掘工作时，钻探出一座长19米、宽14米、深12米的大墓，墓道长达60米，周围还有大小墓葬、车马坑等。
考古工作者们在震惊之余也大胆猜测：“这会不会就是传说中的金村东周天子墓？”
根据文献记载，东周的都城实际上是“一都二城”，分为“王城”和“成周城”。春秋时期，都城即王城，春秋末期争夺王位的“王子朝之乱”爆发，周敬王为避乱而“出居狄泉”，在狄泉附近营建新的都城成周城。
更重要的是，东周成周城被后世的东汉、曹魏、西晋、北魏等王朝所沿袭，即汉魏洛阳故城。
哪怕仅从位置关系上判断，大墓所在处，也有可能就是文献中记载的东周王陵区。
为了掌握更多情况，考古人员决定对整个周边区域进行钻探调查。
"Actually, a detailed drilling map had already been formed at that time, but considering the protection of tombs and cultural relics and preventing further robbery, that map has become a 'secret that all of us cannot tell'. Until today, drilling The information has not been published publicly," said Liu Tao, an associate researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and captain of the Luoyang Hanweicheng team.
Xu is that the memory of the loss of cultural relics is too painful. Facing Jincun, the archaeologists just watched from a distance, guarded silently, and could not bear to disturb them.
"However, due to the lack of field archaeological work, we do not have enough knowledge about the Jincun Eastern Zhou Dynasty Mausoleum, which also objectively seriously restricts the advancement of related archaeological research and cultural relics protection work." Yan Hui said.
A few decades later, in 2007, in order to understand the overall appearance of the cultural relics in Jincun Dongzhou Wangling District, the Luoyang Cultural Relics Drilling Management Office launched a small-scale archaeological survey and exploration.
"However, due to various constraints, the time for in-depth and comprehensive field investigation and excavation work around the Jincun Tomb is not yet ripe, so we have not carried out work." Zhao Xiaojun said.
After years of deliberation and careful preparation, in late January 2022, the Luoyang Jincun East Zhou Dynasty Mausoleum Project was launched again.
After more than 90 years, archaeologists can finally use scientific and precise archaeological methods to clarify the basic situation of the cultural relics in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty Wangling District of Jincun in Luoyang, so as to re-understand the lost Jincun.
It is understood that the archaeological survey and survey work of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty King Mausoleum in Jincun, Luoyang was carried out by the Luoyang Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, the Luoyang Han and Wei City Team of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Shanghai University, Luoyang City Han and Wei Ancient City Ruins Management Office, Luoyang City The cultural relics exploration center and other units cooperated to carry out the preliminary plan. The preliminary plan was divided into three stages: archaeological investigation and exploration, archaeological trial excavation, archaeological research and the formulation of protection planning, which took five years to complete.
"In principle, fine exploration combined with modern geophysical technology will replace archaeological excavation, focusing on a comprehensive understanding of Jincun's royal tombs, cemeteries, affiliated tombs, chariot and horse pits, etc., but does not involve the excavation of the tombs of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty." Yan Hui said.
In this way, breakthroughs are expected to be made in the research on major issues such as the transformation and inheritance of ancient mausoleums in my country, the structural layout of the Eastern Zhou Chengzhou city, and the nature of the capital.
"The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period was an important period of social system transformation in the history of our country, and it was also a critical period for the transformation of the ancient mausoleum system in our country." Zhao Xiaojun said that so far, although many tombs of the Eastern Zhou princes have been discovered in China, the highest-level Eastern Zhou emperor's tomb However, there has been no complete discovery. "This work will help make up for the above-mentioned gaps."
At the same time, the long-awaited "Golden Village Standard" by Xu Jian and his team will also have empirical materials from field archaeology to follow.
"By carrying out archaeology in Jincun, it can help to determine the scale of the cultural relics unearthed in Jincun. This is also a practical measure to understand the protection status of Jincun's cultural relics and prevent related relics from being stolen again." Zhao Xiaojun said.
History has become the past, but looking back at Jincun, the past is not as good as smoke.
Every time I remember it, the echo is still loud.
Regarding the future, archaeologists will not stop at field work. There are more "missions" they want to accomplish: the establishment of the Jincun archaeological digital platform and information database, the protection, display, development and utilization of the Jincun Eastern Zhou Mausoleum Site, etc. Related work has been put on the agenda.
As the Spring Festival is approaching, snowflakes are falling all over Jincun.
Standing on the ridge, there are peaceful wheat fields covered with snow, "How many surprises will Jincun bring? Tian Ye knows the answer." Zhao Xiaojun said, his eyes bright.