As we all know, Wu Zetian is the only female emperor in the history of our country. In ancient times, when the feudal hierarchy was strict, under the influence of feudal decadent ideas, women's social status was low. As a result, government officials never allow women. In this social environment, Wu Zetian successfully became a female emperor. I have to say it's a very legendary thing. In order to gain great power, Wu Zetian could even be ruthless to his sons and grandsons. Such a polarized emperor, who was evaluated by later generations, built a magnificent mausoleum for himself after his death.
Today we are going to talk about the 61 headless stone figures in front of Wu Zetian's tomb, and many archaeologists are racking their brains and still do not understand the meaning of these 61 headless stone people. However, this difficult problem, which no one has understood since ancient times, was solved by two old farmers.
Everyone understands that the emperor's tombstone usually records the great deeds of the emperor's life, but Wu Zetian's tombstone is a wordless stone stele. It turned out that when Wu Zetian was ill for life, he returned Jiangshan to the Li family, and issued an order to remove the imperial title and bury it in the imperial tomb in the name of the empress. It can be seen that in his later years, Wu Zetian had already looked down on everything, and even did not attach importance to the power he had gained from his own conspiracy before he was born. In the eyes of future generations, Wu Zetian's life was actually very pitiful. She didn't get the happiness she wanted in her life. She was also questioned and dissatisfied by her descendants, only because she was a daughter who claimed the title of emperor.
Her mausoleum was not built alone, but was buried with her husband, Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi, in Qianling, Shaanxi. Wu Zetian's mausoleum was very strange, and many people were confused. As we all know, since ancient times, many ancient tombs have buried many valuable treasures, so they will be patronized by tomb robbers. Curiously, however, the tomb robbers had not been to the tomb where Wu Zetian was located. There is a saying in the archaeological community that "Tang Dynasty tombs are ten tombs and nine empty". Therefore, in the eyes of tomb robbers, the tombs of the Tang Dynasty were very popular, but the tombs of Wu Zetian could be saved from theft. Someone once tried to steal Wu Zetian's tomb, but when everything was ready, various visions would appear in the sky. The people in this line of work believed in this kind of thing very much, so no one in Wu Zetian's tomb had any ideas.
The wordless stele in front of the tomb is generally believed by posterity that the purpose of Wu Zetian's establishment of the wordless stele is to "leave the merits and demerits to posterity for comments". Therefore, it can be seen that she does have the style of an emperor. In addition to a striking wordless stele, there is another thing in front of Wu Zetian's mausoleum, which also attracts people's attention, that is, 61 headless stone people. Speaking of these 61 headless stone people, many experts and scholars were puzzled, no one knew their origins, and no one knew why they stood in front of Wu Zetian's mausoleum. Many experts have been drawn to find out, and then left with doubts after field trips.
These headless stone figures have different states, their clothes are not like the clothes of the Han people, but their carvings are lifelike, and even tall, short, fat, and thin are no different from ordinary people. Curiously, however, these seemingly intricately carved stone men did not have heads. After calculations, a total of 61 such stone people were found. But the bodies of these headless stone people were not damaged in any way, and they could even be said to be unscathed. This makes people more confused, knowing that the body is good, so where is their head? Why is the head and body separated? What have they experienced in the years of history?
After reading many history books without finding the source, experts still search for the truth through various methods, but they still have no results. It wasn't until 1974, when two old farmers found a stone man's head while ploughing the fields, that they solved their doubts for many years. The two farmers dug up the neighborhood and found that many of them were human heads. They informed the local government of the situation. When the experts arrived, they found that the stone man and the head of the stone man in front of Wu Zetian's tomb could actually match, which also confirmed that the 61 stone figures were once intact.
In the discussion of experts, some people believed that the head of the stone man was caused by the earthquake, but it was quickly rejected. Later, some experts boldly speculated that they were foreign vassals who submitted to the Tang Dynasty based on the costumes of the stone people. After the invasion of the Central Plains, the descendants of the vassals broke off the heads of the stone people and deleted these records from the annals of history, which led to a long period of incomprehension among experts.