The brothers dug for treasure late at night and dug up ancient coins in the fish pond! Is it a robbery of ancient tombs or a theft?

On July 29, a number of special cultural relics were officially put on display at the Zhangjiagang Museum in Jiangsu Province. These cultural relics include bronze mirrors, clay pots, porcelain bowls, etc., most of which are ancient burial supplies. Who would have thought that hundreds of years later, these items would be rediscovered, but they would have gone through a thrilling journey.

Buy metal detectors online for excavations

Daniel Zhang (pseudonym) and Zhang Qiang (pseudonym) are brothers, and their grandfather buried a small jar in the cellar of the family before his death, but the unexpected death of his grandfather made the family forget the existence of the small jar. Until 2005, my grandmother accidentally remembered the small jar in the cellar and told Daniel Zhang and his father the news, and Daniel Zhang remembered that there was a small jar under the house.

In April 2011, Daniel Zhang's father asked him to find a way to dig out the small jar. Daniel Zhang bought a metal detector from the Internet, and with the help of the metal detector, he quickly found and dug out the small jar buried by his grandfather, which contained some ancient bronze coins, silver dollars, silver locks and other antique objects. This made Daniel Zhang, who loves to play with antiquities, feel hot.

Since then, Daniel Zhang took the time to take a metal detector and a shovel to the nearby fields and wastelands to probe, because a person has limited manpower and low efficiency, Daniel Zhang persuaded his younger brother Zhang Qiang to "dig treasure" with him, and also showed him "trophies". Zhang Qiang saw his brother's harvest, the two hit it off, as soon as they heard the news that there was construction or there might be an ancient tomb, the two acted alone during the day, or met in the middle of the night to "hunt for treasures".

The two brothers have been digging for 12 years. During these 12 years, the two brothers harvested a lot, most of them were ancient coins, and occasionally porcelain bowls, broken copper mirrors, broken porcelain pieces and other antiquities.

On June 2, 2023, Daniel Zhang was alone looking for a "baby" near a fish pond in Fenghuang Town, Zhangjiagang City. When the metal detector scanned a pile of mud under the south slope of the fish pond, an alarm sounded, and Daniel Zhang was overjoyed and immediately used a shovel to dig at the mud.

With a "bang", Daniel Zhang knew that he had dug it. He carefully dug out the object, brushed off the mud on it with his hands, and vaguely saw that it was two copper mirrors, except for a little patina rust, which were well preserved, and Daniel Zhang put the two copper mirrors in his pocket and took them home, hiding them in the mud next to the toilet.

After checking information on the Internet, when they learned that these two bronze mirrors might be Han Dynasty antiquities, Daniel Zhang and Zhang Qiang repeatedly "patronized" the fish pond where the copper mirrors were dug up, and dug up 3 white bowls and 4 "Kaiyuan Tongbao" copper coins from and around the fish pond.

Late at night, "digging treasure" was seen

With the big harvest last time, the brothers became more and more interested in "treasure hunting".

"Brother, there is still a fish pond under construction in Phoenix, let's try our luck again in the evening!" On June 6, 2023, Zhang Qiang received a call from his brother and immediately packed up his metal detector, shovel and other tools, ready to work hard at night.

At about 11 o'clock in the evening, the two arrived at the agreed place, which was a fish pond construction site in Fenghuang Town, Zhangjiagang City. Not long after carefully searching with a metal detector, they heard the sound of Dididi, and the brothers immediately excavated and dug out a coffin, and when they opened the coffin, they saw that the corpse inside had already decomposed, and there were several copper coins and a porcelain bowl scattered next to it, and the copper coin said "Kaiyuan Tongbao". The two brothers were happy: "I'm really lucky today, I dug up the copper coins of the Tang Dynasty, hurry up and look around to see if there are any." ”

While they were digging hard, workers resting at the construction site on the other side of the fish pond heard movement and came over to check. Out of curiosity, the worker took a video and posted it online for fun. As soon as the video was released, it immediately attracted the attention of netizens, who commented that "excavating ancient tombs is illegal" and reported it to the public security organs online. After receiving the report, the public security organs quickly opened a case for investigation and arrested the Daniel Zhang brothers on June 14, 2023.

Is it theft of ancient tombs or theft

The public security organs found a large number of suspected ancient cultural relics in the residence of the two people, and after counting, a total of 2 bronze mirrors, 3 porcelain bowls, 1 corner mirror, more than 30 pieces of broken porcelain, and more than 400 ancient coins.

Subsequently, the public security organs invited the procuratorate to intervene in the investigation in advance. After reading the case file and visiting, the procurator learned that the scene of the crime was a fish pond under construction, and that coffins and other typical burial items had been dug up during the construction process, but there were no special objects or objects that proved the identity of the tomb owner among the antiquities excavated, and held that the behavior of the Daniel Zhang brothers did not conform to the expression of the crime of "stealing and excavating ancient cultural sites and ancient tombs with historical, artistic, and scientific value", and should not be recognized as the crime of illegal excavation of ancient tombs, and their actions were suspected of theft.

The public security organs adopted the opinion of the procuratorate, and on July 14, 2023, Zhang Qiang, who participated in a small number of thefts, was released on bail pending trial, and on July 21, Daniel Zhang was arrested on suspicion of theft.

After identification, the two bronze mirrors in the cultural relics involved are imitation of the bronze beast figure mirror of the Six Dynasties in the Song Dynasty, which has relatively important historical, artistic and scientific value, and belongs to the national third-class cultural relics, and the rest are general cultural relics. According to the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases Involving Obstruction of the Management of Cultural Relics (hereinafter referred to as the "Interpretation"), the theft of third-class cultural relics shall be deemed to be a "huge amount" as provided for in Article 264 of the Criminal Law, and shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years.

When listening to the opinions of the criminal suspect's defender, the defender had no objection to the identification of the bronze mirror as a third-level cultural relic, but proposed that the value of the online bronze mirror was only a few thousand yuan, and the sentencing based on the grade of the cultural relics was obviously too heavy, and the criminal suspect's conduct met the circumstances provided for in Article 2 of the Interpretation: if the cultural relics are stolen and the grade of the cultural relics cannot be determined, or the conviction and sentencing according to the level of cultural relics is obviously too light or too heavy, the conviction and sentencing shall be based on the value of the stolen cultural relics.

Subsequently, the prosecutor handling the case contacted the experts for the identification of cultural relics several times, and confirmed that the value of each third-level cultural relics was about 30,000 yuan, and the total number had reached the standard of "huge amount" for the crime of theft. In this regard, the criminal suspect and his defender have no objection.

After the Zhangjiagang Municipal Procuratorate initiated a public prosecution, on March 31, 2024, the court adopted the prosecution's accusation opinions and sentencing recommendations after trial, and sentenced Daniel Zhang and Zhang Qiang to three years in prison, a fine of 10,000 yuan and a fixed-term imprisonment of one year, suspended for one year and three months, and a fine of 5,000 yuan.

(Source: Procuratorate Daily· Der Spiegel Weekly · Criminal Case Author: Fan Zhiyang Gu Fei)