Friends who have visited the Shanxi Museum may have seen such a group of exquisite murals, these murals were unearthed in the tomb of Wang Lourui in Dong'an County, Northern Qi, although after thousands of years, these murals are as new in color, and the painting level of these murals is extremely high, which is of great historical and artistic value. How precious are these murals? Please see the "Catalogue of the First Batch of Cultural Relics Prohibited from Going Abroad (Border) exhibition" issued by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage in 2002, of which the lou rui tomb mural is one of the 64 cultural relics prohibited from going abroad (border) for exhibition.
Many people may not know that Lou Rui's tomb has been excavated several times in the past 1400 years, and there are 13 robbery holes on this ancient tomb. However, tomb robbers stole most of the artifacts in the tomb, but they left the most precious artifacts, the frescoes.
In 1971, the members of the production team of Wangguo Village in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, inadvertently dug up an ancient tomb while cultivating land. Looking at the excavated tomb bricks, these farmers agreed that there might be "treasures" in the tomb, so everyone worked together to enlarge the tomb, and then several courageous farmers flashlighted down to the tomb.
The peasants who entered the tomb found that there was basically nothing of value in the tomb except for a decaying coffin and many broken porcelain and pottery placed on the ground. So the farmers climbed out of the grave in frustration and told the other members of the tomb about the situation. Everyone summed it up, since there is no "treasure" in the tomb, why keep it? Just backfill it. So the peasants set out to fill the graves.
In 1979, an ancient Tomb of the Han Dynasty was discovered near Wang guo Village. In the process of archaeological excavation of this tomb, the archaeological team hired some local farmers, whose main job was to cooperate with the archaeological team to excavate the tomb and do some manual work. However, although the archaeological excavation was quite moving, it did not achieve much results. Since this ancient tomb of the Han Dynasty has been excavated, no valuable cultural relics have been excavated in the ancient tomb.
Just as the leader of the archaeological team was preparing to return home in frustration, a migrant worker inadvertently mentioned to the captain that they found an ancient tomb in Wangguo Village in 1971. When the leader of the archaeological team heard the news, he immediately asked the farmer to lead him to the site, and after exploring the site, the archaeological team decided to move to Wang Guo Village for archaeological excavations.
After the archaeological excavation work began, the archaeologists found that there were 13 pirate holes in the tomb. Seeing these robbery caves, all the archaeologists participating in the excavation were heartbroken, and they realized that the ancient tomb may have been removed by the tomb robbers. But now that it has been decided to carry out excavations, the work of the archaeological team must continue.
When the tomb was opened, a surprising scene was displayed in front of the archaeology team. I saw that the walls of this ancient tomb were covered with exquisite murals, and those murals were bright and vivid, as if they had just been painted yesterday. For archaeologists who often engage in archaeological excavations, these exquisite murals mean that the identity of the tomb owner is certainly not ordinary.
Subsequently, in the process of cleaning up the tomb, the archaeologists found the epitaph of the owner of the tomb. At the same time, 848 pieces of pottery, porcelain and other cultural relics have been unearthed in this ancient tomb, and at present, these excavated cultural relics are all collected in the Shanxi Provincial Museum.
So, who is the owner of this ancient tomb? Through the interpretation of the epitaph, experts confirmed the identity of the owner of this ancient tomb, who turned out to be Lou Rui, the king of Dong'an County in Northern Qi.
Lou Rui was a member of the Xianbei clan, born in 531 AD, and his aunt was Empress Dowager Wuming, Lou Zhaojun. Because he was a foreign relative of Northern Qi, Lou Rui received a good education from an early age, he was able to write and fight, and at the age of 16, he followed the Shenwu Emperor Gao Huan to raise an army in Xindu, and then he made many military achievements, and the official was Taifu, and the king was returned to the throne.
Although Lou Rui was a founding hero of Northern Qi and held a high position of authority, his style evaluation was not good, and historians evaluated him with "no other instruments, foreign relatives are lucky, indulgent in wealth, and gathered tirelessly". Lou Rui died of illness in 570 at the age of 39.
The murals in Lou Rui's tomb are more than 400 square meters in total, and the content of the murals is divided into two parts: one part depicts Lou Rui's life on horseback, his achievements and his happy life after he was crowned king; the other part is to paint the illusion of Lou Rui's ascension to heaven in a fictitious way.
Although the murals in Lou Rui's tomb have been eroded by more than 1400 years, the murals are brightly colored and the lines are perfect. Experts deduce from the style and style of the murals that these murals are from the hands of Yang Zihua, the "painting saint" of Northern Qi, and the lou rui tomb murals are the highest level of painting in the murals found in the mainland so far, and they are veritable national treasures.
To the sadness of the archaeologists, after two years of excavation of this ancient tomb, when the archaeological work was about to end, a tomb wall on the north side of the tomb suddenly collapsed, and the murals on the wall were all destroyed. In view of this, the cultural relics department decided to cut all these murals and put them in the museum for preservation. Later, the murals of Lou Rui's tomb were perfectly cut and sent to the Shanxi Museum for preservation, and these murals became the "treasures of the town hall" of the Shanxi Museum.
In 2002, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage issued the "Catalogue of the First Batch of Cultural Relics Prohibited from Going Abroad (Border) for Exhibition", which lists a total of 64 cultural relics that are prohibited from going abroad (border) for exhibition, each of which is a national treasure, including the mural of Lou Rui's tomb. The discovery of lou rui tomb murals provides a valuable physical basis for experts to study the historical and humanistic information of the Northern Qi period, and is a valuable cultural wealth.