Recently, in order to cooperate with the fourth phase of the open-pit mining project of the ancient city of Jungarqi, the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has carried out archaeological excavations on the Erchangqu tomb group of Jungarqi, and has preliminarily completed the cleaning of 49 brick chamber tombs and 7 small earthen pit pit tombs, and excavated a nearby building foundation.
▲ Distribution map of some tombs
The tomb group of Erchangqu is dominated by the circular coupon-topped brick chamber tomb with the tomb road, and the walls of the tomb are mostly masonry imitation wood architectural patterns, such as the imitation eaves pillars, buckets, general pai fangs, foreheads and other large wooden works inlaid on the brick wall, and the small wooden works such as doors and windows, tables and chairs carved on the bricks, and imitation tile bricks are used at the starting point. These imitation wood buildings have distinctive characteristics of the times. At present, the archaeological team is restoring these building components through 3D modeling and other means.
▲ Imitation wood building components in the tomb
The tombs have suffered from serious theft, and there are few unearthed relics, mainly ceramics, and a certain number of bronze, iron, and stone tools have been unearthed. Among them, the relatively complete preservation is a set of more than 20 pieces of tea sets, at the same time the tomb unearthed more copper coins, with "Kaiyuan Tongbao", "Qianyuan Heavy Treasure", "Zhidao Yuanbao", "Chunhua Yuanbao" and so on, the main body of the tomb group is preliminarily judged to be the early Northern Song Dynasty. In addition, many of the horse skulls and other sacrifices were unearthed at the bottom of the tomb of the brick chamber tomb, which provides important clues for revealing the historical picture of ethnic integration and cultural interaction in the region at that time.
▲ Some relics were unearthed
The excavation of the Erchangqu tombs provides important material for the study of the socio-economic and cultural life of the early Northern Song Dynasty. The tomb group is close to the location of the ancient city of Erchangqu, which has been verified to be the Fengzhou city built by the Tibetan talents of the Northern Song Dynasty. This archaeological excavation provides new materials and perspectives for the study of the ancient city of Fengzhou in the Northern Song Dynasty, and is helpful to have a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the social structure, economic form, cultural characteristics and ethnic relations of the three prefectures outside Hezhou during this historical period.
▲ Temporary protection and reinforcement of the unearthed fragile relics