The grandson of Zhao Tuo, the king of South Vietnam, did not have much ability in governing the country, but he was exemplary in the anti-theft tomb

The grandson of Zhao Tuo, the king of South Vietnam, did not have much ability in governing the country, but he was exemplary in the anti-theft tomb

Zhao Xiao (赵眜) was the grandson of Zhao Tuo ,the King of Nanyue , known as Emperor Wen , who reigned from 137 to 122 BC. In 1983, the tomb of King Wen of Nanyue was discovered in Guangzhou, and the excavation of this tomb was hailed as one of the five new archaeological discoveries in modern China.

Here's how the miracle happened: In June 1983, dozens of migrant workers were chiseling and plowing earth on a hill called Xianggang on the northern outskirts of Guangzhou, accompanied by the roar of bulldozers. The hill bag, which has an altitude of 49.71 meters, has been chiseled off by 17 meters. As they were working hard, the migrant workers suddenly found that the weathered and somewhat fragmented granite rock blocks were missing, followed by one neatly arranged sandstone slab after another. Each piece is 5 square meters and weighs 3600 kg. After using a crane to lift the stone slab, it was found that there was a mysterious passage below, a total of more than 750 pieces of red sand rock blocks, covered with 28 large stone slabs, it is estimated that the construction and excavation of 3,000 cubic meters of earth, more than 450 tons, showing the huge amount of engineering.

The archaeological team of the Guangzhou Municipal Cultural Management Commission received the news and quickly sent archaeologists to the scene. After investigation, this is a stone chamber tomb. The archaeologists felt that the stakes were high and quickly reported to the Cultural Affairs Commission. 20 minutes later, Mai Yinghao, deputy director of the Guangzhou Municipal Cultural Management Association and a famous archaeologist, came to Xianggang Mountain. He pulled out a large flashlight with five batteries and peeked down through the gap. As the flashlight pillar continued to move, Mai Yinghao first saw the tomb wall made of stone blocks, the huge stone tomb door, and a messy pile of utensils in the burial chamber. Among the messy artifacts, a large copper ding and several pieces of pottery stand out. Mai Yinghao stopped the light pillar of the flashlight on these artifacts, looked up and down, and judged from the shape, characteristics and other aspects, this should be a stone chamber tomb in the Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago.

In order to further clarify the situation, at ten o'clock that night, Mai Yinghao led several people to the Xianggang construction site and asked the archaeologist Huang Miaozhang to drag a rope from the fissure into the tomb to find out. With the help of the light of the flashlight, Huang Miaozhang crossed an aisle and stepped into an ear chamber of the hall, and the scene in front of him stunned him: only to see huge copper pots, copper cylinders, copper buckets, copper bronzes and countless jade ornaments, scattered on a layer of indistinguishable pieces of utensils. These artifacts are radiant and dazzling. Ten minutes later, according to Mai Yinghao's instructions, Huang Miaozhang carried a large jade bibi, a copper chime, and a clay pot to the crack of the tomb, and first asked the archaeologists above to carefully carry the cultural relics up with a cloth bag, and then drilled out of the tomb with the help of ropes.

Subsequently, special personnel were sent to Beijing to report in detail to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and finally, the Xianggang Han Tomb Excavation Team was jointly formed by the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Guangzhou Municipal Cultural Relics Management Committee and the Guangdong Provincial Museum. This is the largest, well-preserved and most abundant Han Dynasty painted mural stone chamber tomb ever found in Lingnan.

The emperor of any dynasty would have found a way to prevent his tomb from being stolen. If Zhao Xiao did not have much ability in governing the country, then he could be said to be exemplary in anti-theft, because his tomb had been intact for more than 2,100 years, which could not but be said to be a miracle in the tomb of an emperor.

What magical method did Zhao Xiao use to escape the search of tomb robbers? Does the structure of his tomb itself have an anti-theft function?

When studying Zhao Xiao's underground palace, it will be found that even if the tomb robbers find Zhao Xiao's tomb, it is not easy to steal the contents of the tomb. Because the shape of the tomb is a bit like a "A" character, the head is north and the foot is south. The word "tian" is the burial chamber, and the vertical one that sticks out is the burial passage leading to the burial chamber. The tomb passage is rectangular, filled with loess and large stones, probably after the tomb is sealed and then filled in, to prevent latecomers from approaching the tomb door.

The outermost part of the entire tomb is a slope-shaped burial passage. At the end of the narrow tomb passage are two stone doors with bronze cast "shop heads" – two heads of animals with door knockers. The beast's head is hideous and quite majestic.

Cross a stone threshold and come to a square stone house, which is the front room, which has doors on all four sides. The first thing you see when you enter the front room is the pattern of the whole room. This pattern, which resembles a curly cloud, painted in red and black paint, is covered with four walls and a stone "ceiling" on top.

To the south of the front chamber is the first door of the burial chamber, and to the north are the two stone doors that are closed to death. The "doors" on the east and west sides are technically just two openings. The east and west "gates" each lead to a narrow stone chamber. The east side is the east ear chamber; the west side is called the west ear chamber, which is also made of stone. A piece of the stone slab covering the roof of the east side has fallen, like a "skylight". In the dim light, you can see a column of bronze bells on the wall on the floor of the room, as well as a stone percussion instrument chime. There are also other large bronze vessels in the room, as well as some small pieces of jade, bronze weapons and a martyr. After the second stone gate, it is the place where the owner of the tomb, Zhao Xuan, is buried, and the threshold under the second stone door is made of two stone strips; the threshold is built on the soil on the ground and can be removed. After opening the second stone door, you will enter the underground palace of the tomb owner Zhao Xuan.

The underground palace itself is rectangular, all stone, but not decorated with the beautiful motifs of the front room. There is also a doorway on the east and west sides, which obviously leads to the adjacent burial chamber. At the back of the burial chamber, a small compartment is separated by stone pillars, which are piled with large and small bronzes, iron and pottery, and are crowded like a storage room. Looking up, there are stone slabs on the top, and under the slabs are two rows of cornice stones pressed against the stone wall.

There is also a burial chamber on either side and at the rear end of the dungeon where the tomb owner is located. In the eastern chamber, there are four martyrs, many intricately carved jade ornaments and some bronzes and pottery for burial, in addition to the discovery of four seals. There are seven burials on the west side of the stone chamber where the owner of the tomb is located, and the burial goods of the martyrs are pitifully small, except for one or two simple broken jade objects, each of them has one or two bronze mirrors.

The Tomb of the King of Nanyue is the largest Han tomb found in Lingnan, the richest and most diverse cultural relics unearthed, and the highest specifications of the identity of the tomb owner, and the earliest painted mural stone chamber tomb found in China so far. This tomb can be called an underground treasure house, with a total of more than 1,000 pieces (sets) of various cultural relics unearthed, and the connotation is very rich, especially copper, iron, pottery and jade. The "Emperor Wen Xingxi" golden seal is the first discovery of the "Emperor"'s seal in Chinese archaeological excavations, which is the most precious.

The discovery of the tomb of the King of Nanyue, its social, historical, cultural and scientific value not only shocked the land of Lingnan, but also shocked the whole country and became famous all over the world, from the archaeological community, all sectors of society to the press, all of which were surprised. Some people commented that this is "one of the most brilliant discoveries in the history of Chinese archaeology that has made countless people painstakingly explore the secrets of more than 2,000 years."

(End of this article)