In 2003, a loud noise came from the Turki Mountain Quarry in Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia, and the mountain stone rolled down, and an unusual stone wall suddenly appeared in front of the quarry workers, which caused everyone to be amazed.
Archaeologists heard the news, and after careful investigation, it was determined that this was an ancient tomb of the Khitan nobles of the Liao Dynasty, and the exquisite burial items in the ancient tomb made the archaeologists marvel. The red phoenix coffin and the gold-plated dragon prove that the owner of this tomb must have a noble status.
However, the tomb is very shabby and simple, and traces of hasty burial can be seen in the burial chamber, and archaeologists have not found an epitaph that can prove the identity of the owner of the tomb several times.
Opening the coffin, a female corpse appeared in front of the archaeologists, a dark skull, indicating that she had been dead for thousands of years, so who was she? Why is she noble but not left an epitaph, the tomb is simple but rich in burial goods, and how did she die? Can archaeologists solve the mystery of this phoenix coffin female corpse?
The quarry surprises the ancient tomb
On March 9, 2003, on the Turki Mountain quarry in the left wing rear banner of Horqin, Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia, quarry workers were working intensely and busily, and with a loud noise, the stones on the mountain were shattered and rolled down, but behind the rolling rocks, a strange stone wall suddenly appeared.
Thousands of quarrymen inspected it and immediately saw that this stone wall was not naturally formed, and there were obvious traces of artificial carving on the huge stone wall. Who in the wilderness of the mountains will carve the stone wall here? Workers talked about the stone wall.
At this time, an older quarry worker stood up and said that there must be something behind the stone wall, and it could not continue to be fried, and it was quickly reported to the cultural relics department. Suddenly, the news of the treasure blown up in Turki Mountain did not go away, and the Inner Mongolia Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology immediately sent staff to the scene to investigate.
The person in charge of the archaeological mission was Tara, the deputy director of the Archaeological Institute, who led the archaeologists to the site and began a preliminary survey, the results of which showed that there was an empty stone wall behind it, most likely a tomb.
The profession's sensitive sense of smell told Tara that there must be something unusual behind the stone wall, and since the news of the place had spread, it was likely that there were already grave robbers eyeing the place, so Tara decided to start the archaeological excavation work immediately.
Fortunately, this place is a quarry, the transportation is also convenient, and there are some large equipment and mining tools ready for use, and the excavation work is progressing smoothly and quickly, and the rubble has been cleared in less than a month.
As the stone wall was opened, a corridor was revealed, and at the end of the corridor stood a huge stone door, blocking all the secrets inside.
Tara walked into the yongdao and saw some mottled murals clearly above the stone wall on the side of the yongdao. Some strange symbols similar to words can also be seen in the murals, revealing a mysterious atmosphere.
The stone door has not yet been opened, and the corridor alone has made the archaeologists very excited. Tara has a hunch that this archaeology will be the most exciting and bizarre one in his 20-year archaeological career.
Judging from the murals and written symbols in the Yongdao and the shape of the tomb, Tara believes that this should be a Liao Dynasty tomb. He asked the staff to extend the symbols to Beijing for experts to identify, so as to finally confirm the age of the tomb.
Finally, confirmed by Beijing experts, Tara's judgment was confirmed, and these symbols were the Khitan script of the Liao Dynasty. The Khitan were a nomadic people living in the northern steppes in ancient China, and in 916 AD, the Khitan leader Yelü Abaoji established the Liao State and confronted the Song Dynasty in the Central Plains for more than a hundred years.
At that time, the Tongliao region belonged to the territory of the Liao State and was also one of the main settlements of the Khitan people, so it is very normal to find Liao Dynasty tombs here. Unfortunately, the Khitan script has long been lost, and it is not known what these words on the murals in the Yongdao are. Experts speculate that it may be a list of burial items with the owner of the tomb.
Then the archaeological work continued, the huge stone door was opened, behind the stone door is a wooden door, and there is more than a meter high silt, after some cleaning by archaeologists, the wooden door was fully revealed.
I saw that the wooden door was locked by a rusty copper lock, and there were two copper bells under the wooden door, one large and one small. The copper lock is intact, which shows that the tomb is well preserved and has not been excavated by the tomb robbers, which makes the archaeologists very happy.
Because for archaeology, the most feared thing is that the tombs are stolen, and because of the continuous wars of the northern nomads, basically all the large tombs have been seriously damaged. Especially the tombs of the royal family and nobles, which have a large number of treasures, are the objects of key care for tomb robbers.
Therefore, there are very few well-preserved Liao Dynasty tombs found today, but fortunately, this tomb has not been found by the tomb robbers because it is hidden deep in the mountains. After careful investigation and determination that there was no mechanism behind the wooden door, the archaeologists opened the wooden door, and the ancient tomb that had been silent for thousands of years finally reappeared.
When the archaeologists walked into the ancient tomb and saw a red coffin placed on the coffin bed in the center of the tomb, this made Tara instantly excited, because in ancient times, the person who could enjoy the colored coffin must be of noble status, which showed that this archaeology must have a major discovery.
Tara carefully stepped forward, only to see a magnificent golden phoenix carved into the red coffin, and the coffin bed with six railings, each with a gilded lion carved on it. The six lions are different and lifelike, as if they are guarding the owner of the tomb in the coffin.
This made Tara and other archaeologists unable to suppress their excitement and exclaim, because they knew that in the ancient hierarchy, the phoenix and the lion could not be used at will, and only the royal people were qualified.
Through the red coffin and phoenix motifs, as well as the many jewelry funerary items on the coffin bed, it can be judged that the owner of the tomb should be a woman, and it is likely that she is still a woman of the Liao royal family, but it is not known which empress or princess of the Khitan she is.
The person with the phoenix coffin is a mystery, the Khitan empress or the princess?
In the history of archaeology in Inner Mongolia, phoenix coffins are not uncommon, as early as 1988 in the excavation of a Liao Dynasty tomb not far from Turki Mountain, phoenix coffins were found, and there are also some gold crowns, silver boots and other funerary items carved with phoenix patterns. Through an epitaph unearthed from the tomb, it was learned that the owner of the tomb was named Princess Chen Guo, who was the granddaughter of a Khitan emperor.
Under the influence of the Han Central Plains Dynasty, the Khitan people also used dragons and phoenixes to show the dignity of the royal family, so which empress or princess in the Liao Dynasty was the owner of this tomb on Turki Mountain?
According to historical records, the Khitan Dynasty lasted for nearly 300 years, and there were a total of 9 empresses and 16 princesses before and after, so is it one of them inside the phoenix coffin? In order to know this truth, archaeologists eagerly searched for burial items that could prove the identity of the owner of the tomb.
Generally speaking, there will be an epitaph in the tomb to record the identity of the owner of the tomb, the most non-epitaph, there are also some burial items engraved with some introductions of the tomb owner, so in the next excavation process archaeologists pay special attention to the cultural relics with words.
After more than a month of cleaning up the silt in the tomb, archaeologists excavated a large number of burial items, and on the left side of the tomb door there was a pair of gilded saddles, and the saddle also appeared on the exquisite phoenix pattern.
Near the saddle was a silver box with a dragon carved out of gold. There is no doubt that there are dragons and winds, there is gold and silver, the identity of the owner of the tomb must be noble and abnormal, to know that China is a country with rare precious metals, ordinary people and even rich and noble families will never have the luxury to use gold and silver to make funerary products, not to mention engraved with dragon and phoenix patterns.
The excavated burials all revealed a royal style, but as the burial chamber was cleaned up, Tara found that the burial chamber was very simple to build. Its area is less than 20 square meters, the height is not only a little more than three meters, and the space is very small.
The walls around the burial chamber are made of large rough stones, which is extremely incongruous compared to the royal style of burials. Such a simple tomb really does not look like the home of a royal nobleman.
What's going on? Through a review of historical sources, Tara guessed that the tomb was probably built in a particularly hasty situation. One is that the tomb passage is irregular, and the other is that the tomb chamber is particularly small, which is not built in accordance with the royal standards at all, and in the Khitan tombs found in the past, it is the tombs of ordinary civilians, and most of them are made of regular green bricks.
However, the burial items in the tomb also prove that the owner of the tomb must have a noble status, so the most reasonable explanation is that the owner of the tomb needed to be buried immediately for some reason, so he hastily built a tomb.
The next discovery also proves Tara's speculation from the side, archaeologists found pieces of broken frescoes on the ground of the burial chamber, obviously these frescoes fell off the wall, but strangely, these frescoes are all face up, and it is reasonable to say that if they fall from the wall, they should be face down.
After a careful look at the walls of the burial chamber, archaeologists found that this phenomenon was caused by the construction of the tomb, and the white ash smeared on the walls had not yet dried, and the frescoes were painted. Before the painting could be finished, the owner of the tomb was buried.
Later, as soon as the walls of the tomb entered the water, the soil of the frescoes was drummed outward, the middle was empty, the bottom was loose, and the falling frescoes slid down, so these shedding frescoes were all facing upwards.
So if it is true that, as Tara speculates, the owner of the tomb was buried in a hurry, what will be the reason, the identity of the owner of the tomb has not yet been clarified, adding a new mystery, and what secrets are hidden in this small burial chamber?
The mysterious corpse of a thousand-year-old woman
At first, Tara pinned his hopes on the epitaph to solve all the mysteries, but during the excavation process, no epitaph or anything that recorded the identity of the owner was found. The only text in the whole tomb is the Khitan script on the Yongdao and the murals in the tomb, and Tara can only send these Khitan characters to more writing experts, hoping that someone can crack it.
However, what disappointed Tara was that no writing expert could identify the Khitan script on the mural, first, this script itself has been lost for nearly a thousand years, and second, the mural is badly damaged, and almost none of the Khitan script on it is complete, so even if it is guessed, it is impossible to start.
A month later, the burial chamber was empty, only the last coffin remained, and all the other burial items were cleared out and transported to the Archaeological Institute for further restoration and protection.
The identity of the owner of the tomb has never been known, and Tara can only put her last hope in the coffin of the ancient tomb. Opening the phoenix coffin, what appeared in front of everyone was a female corpse. The female corpse was dressed in ornate silk fabrics, and although it had been corroded beyond recognition, the little remains of the corpses could still be seen how gorgeous these costumes were at that time.
Wearing a gold necklace around the neck of the female corpse and a gold bracelet and a gold ring on her hand, it can be described as golden glittering, but there is a strange phenomenon, the female corpse has many strange black spots on the chest, and at first the archaeologists did not pay much attention, thinking that it was only caused by rust.
Just when the archaeologists were preparing to dispose of the remains of the female corpse, the black spots on the chest of the female corpse oozed a large amount of unknown liquid, and the archaeologists panicked, hurriedly retreated, and only after X-ray testing did they find that the abdominal cavity of the female corpse contained a lot of mercury.
In ancient times, in order to prevent the decay of the body, the body would be preserved by infusion of mercury, but it cannot be ruled out that the tomb owner committed suicide by taking mercury, which also makes the identity of the tomb owner more mysterious.
In order to determine the identity of the owner of the tomb, archaeologists conducted further observations and studies on the female corpse, and through the measurement of the female corpse's skeleton, the archaeologists determined that the height of the female corpse before death was about 1.59 meters, and the age was about 30 years old, and the maximum was not more than 35 years old.
Although in ancient times, the average life expectancy of Chinese was only about 35 years old, but for the nobles and rich people with better living conditions and medical conditions, in fact, the life expectancy was much longer, and the owner of the tomb died in his 30s, most likely due to special circumstances.
Although the identity of the owner of the tomb cannot be determined, but from the approximate age of his death, archaeologists finally have some clues, first of all, some experts have proposed that this is the daughter of Liao Taizu Yelü Abaoji.
According to the "List of Princesses of LiaoShi", the eldest daughter of Yaoye Abaoji, the ancestor of the Liao Dynasty, was also a female shaman of the Khitan due to her noble status, which coincided with the clothing worn by her tomb owner. However, the history books record that Qinggu died early when he was less than 20 years old, which is inconsistent with the age of the owner of the tomb between 30 and 35 years old.
Soon other experts said it was the tomb of Abori, the daughter of Jeroboam the King of Dongdan. Yelü Bei was the eldest son of Yelü Abaoji, the grandfather of Liao, who was very intelligent and well educated from an early age, and was made crown prince at the age of 18. However, because he was inferior to his younger brother Yelü Deguang in terms of battle achievements, and because Yelü Abaoji's sudden death did not account for the aftermath, his mother Shu Luping liked his younger brother Yelü Deguang more, so he lost the battle for the throne.
After Yelü Deguang ascended the throne, he was very uneasy about his brother Jeroboam, and Jeroboam was afraid that Yelü Deguang would do something to him, so he defected to Hou Tang with the poison of his favored concubine. His daughter Abori, on the other hand, was left in the Liao State, and Abori was later imprisoned for his involvement in the rebellion, and died soon after.
Some people questioned this view of the experts, Aburi committed the great crime of rebellion, and it is unlikely that he will enjoy the treatment of a thick burial after death, let alone give her so many exquisite funerary products, so the owner of the Tomb of The Turki Mountain Liao has someone else.
Soon after, some experts proposed that the owner of the tomb was Princess Yulu, the sister of Liao Taizu, on the grounds that Princess Yulu was given to death by Yelü Abaoji after the failure of the rebellion, and the way to give death was to drink poisonous wine with mercury, which was consistent with the characteristics of mercury found in the abdominal cavity of the tomb owner.
However, mercury is a highly toxic thing, as long as a little can take people's lives, and the mercury found in the abdomen of the tomb owner can be more than a little, if you take mercury to commit suicide, there is no need to use such a large amount. Moreover, there is no record of Princess Yulu in the "LiaoShi Princess Table".
Seeing that there were many opinions, no one could determine the identity of the owner of the tomb, and finally archaeologists could only turn to modern DNA technology. The Ancient DNA Laboratory of Jilin University compared the remains of the owner of the tomb with the samples of the Yelü Yuzhi Family Cemetery and the Xiaohe Family Cemetery, and found that the Turkiliao Tomb sample on the phylogenetic tree was located in the distribution area of the Yelüyu Family Cemetery Sample, which basically concluded that the owner of the Turgi Mountain Liao Tomb must be a member of the Khitan royal family.
Although there are measurements in the ancient DNA laboratory, it is basically possible to determine the identity of the Khitan princess of the owner of the Turkiliao tomb, but which princess was the specific princess, how she died and why the burial materials were rich in burial materials, these questions need further investigation, I believe that with the improvement of archaeological technology, the identity of the female corpse of the phoenix coffin of the Turkiliao tomb will eventually be revealed.
The excavation of the Liao tombs on Mount Turki is a major discovery in the history and archaeology of the Khitan and Liao dynasties on the mainland, and many precious historical relics unearthed from them have made up for the gap in the mainland's study of shamanism. The Khitan script left on the murals also helps to interpret the Khitan script, which is of great help to us in studying the history of the Khitan and Liao Dynasties.
Through the Tomb of Thergy Mountain, we can imagine that in the northern steppe thousands of years ago, there was a brave and warlike and mysterious nation like the Khitans, who had a splendid culture, established a powerful regime, and finally disappeared into the long river of history, leaving us with only a few words, and more historical truths need to be constantly explored.