As we all know, Shaanxi has always been a big province of "unearthed cultural relics", and people often make fun of it. One of the reasons why large-scale infrastructure projects in Shaanxi are difficult to advance is that the graves have been dug up on the construction site.

In 2009, dozens of ancient tombs were found in the middle of a construction site in hancheng city, Shaanxi Province.

After the archaeological restoration by archaeologists, it was found that a Song Dynasty tomb named M2 18 was well preserved, and the sleeping couple in the tomb gave the experts a great "surprise".

In 2008, Shaanxi Hancheng Mining Bureau requisitioned land for construction. During the construction, the workers found hundreds of graves. Researchers from Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology rushed to the construction site to clean up and excavate these tombs.

These tombs are mainly located in the east of Panle Village, among which 47 tombs range in age from Han Dynasty to Song Dynasty, but most of them have been seriously looted. However, a well-preserved tomb named M2 18 gave experts a "big surprise" and became an important achievement of this emergency excavation.

In fact, archaeologists didn't expect much from Tomb M2 18 at first, because before excavating this tomb, archaeologists had excavated two tombs nearby, both of which were small modern tombs with little archaeological value. The preliminary survey results also showed that Tomb M2 18 was also a small tomb.

Tomb M2 18 is 7 meters underground. Archaeologists didn't dig until noon in the morning before they dug the brick outside the tomb.

Judging from the tomb bricks, experts believe that this tomb should be earlier than the Qing Dynasty, but the exact time of the tomb is still uncertain, so archaeologists hope to continue digging.

According to further excavation, Tomb M2 18 is only 2.45 meters long, 1.8 meters wide and 2.25 meters high. This is a small brick tomb.

With the progress of archaeological excavation, experts believe that these tiled tomb bricks are a kind of "anti-theft" design. If grave robbers dig these bricks, they may think that they have dug to the bottom of the tomb, and this is just an empty tomb, and give up stealing.

Moreover, this tomb is deliberately small, allowing only one person to enter and exit. Experts believe that this is also an anti-theft design.

Sure enough, after excavating the tomb and the city gate, archaeologists found that this is an ancient tomb that has not been stolen, and the brick seal on the tomb door has no passive traces, which means that archaeologists can find more information about the owner of the tomb from the funerary objects or furnishings in the tomb and trace back more traces of ancient social life.

With expectation, archaeologists opened the tomb door, but unfortunately there were no funerary objects, not even coffins, only a bed.

The base of the bed is made of brick, and above it is a wooden bed with two pairs of bones lying side by side.

In the later excavation, experts found that these were two bodies, a man and a woman. When they are buried, they should be covered with some kind of blanket or quilt made of coarse fiber. Obviously, this is a husband-and-wife burial tomb.

Further archaeological excavations show that men live on the east side of the tomb, and the skeleton is 1.8 meters long; Female lives on the west side, with a skeleton length of1.65m.. Although their clothes and blankets have completely rotted, their hair still exists, and it can be seen that their hair is brownish red.

Moreover, from the perspective of bone detection, the bones of women's feet are complete and there is no sign of "foot binding". Coupled with the burial custom without coffins and funerary objects, experts have always wondered whether the owner of the tomb is Han.

As we all know, Han people have various customs and etiquette when they are buried. For example, when they are buried, the bodies should be put in coffins, and some things they loved to use before their death will be put in as funerary objects. Even if their family conditions are limited, they will be buried with a thin coffin and a few belongings.

However, these customs of the Han nationality were not found in Tomb M2 18, and the collapse of bricks used to place corpses reminded experts of another burial custom, Zoroastrianism.

According to China's previous archaeological achievements, the Sogdians who had contact with China believed in Zoroastrianism, and they would be buried in this way; Moreover, the owner's hair is reddish brown, probably not because the melanin in the hair fades with time, but because the Sogdians from Central Asia originally had such hair color.

However, there is no more evidence to support the expert's guess, and even some "evidence" in the tomb denies the expert's guess.

Although there are no funerary objects in this tomb, this tomb gives experts a great "surprise" because on the three walls of Tomb M2 18, beautifully painted murals are preserved, well preserved and as bright as new.

It is unique in the archaeological history of China to find such exquisite and well-preserved murals in tombs.

Experts said that when they saw these murals, what impressed them most was that the colors of these murals were as bright as ever, as if they had just been painted.

On the wall facing the tomb door, there is a portrait of a man. Obviously, it should be the male owner of Tomb M2 18, but the characters in the portrait do not have the characteristics of Central Asians such as deep eye sockets and high nose.

There are some poems written behind the portrait, most of which are covered by the portrait of the man. According to experts' research, the exposed dozens of words may be a poem describing Lv Dongbin in the whole Tang Dynasty.

This seems to indicate the owner's understanding and love of China culture, and to some extent, it may also reduce the possibility that the owner is a Sogdian.

Moreover, the owner of the female tomb still holds coins in his hand, which is also the funeral custom of the Han nationality. It is difficult to see such a scene in the funeral customs of other nationalities.

The mural on the other wall depicts the Buddhist theme and the scene of Buddha's nirvana, showing that the tomb owner may have Buddhist beliefs, and the whole tomb has no Zoroastrianism elements, which makes experts wonder, is the tomb owner really Zoroastrianism Central Asia?

In this regard, experts have made some speculations. Some people think that the owner of the tomb may be a "mixed-race" and his ancestors may be Sogdians, but he has already come to China, been sinicized and married with the Han people, so his appearance has no obvious characteristics of Central Asians.

Some people think that it is possible that the tomb owner married the Han people and accepted the sinicization. Their descendants will bury them together in this form on the basis of following the customs of both husband and wife.

However, these speculations may never be confirmed again. Because in the later further research, although experts extracted the hair of the tomb owner for DNA testing, unfortunately, the test results can only exclude Mongolians.

In other words, the possibility that the tomb owner came from China has been ruled out, but where they came from, because there is no epitaph unearthed in the tomb, this may only become a permanent mystery.

Fortunately, although we can't know exactly the nationality of the tomb owner, we can learn some information about the tomb and other information about the tomb owner.

When the archaeologists were cleaning up the bones, they found some crystals on the bones of the two men. After analysis, experts believe that this may be caused by the couple taking Dan medicine.

As we all know, emperors in ancient China used to take Dan medicine and pursue immortality. This habit will naturally affect people, and many people also hope to keep fit through Dan medicine. The tomb owner obviously has the habit of taking Dan medicine, so where did his Dan medicine come from?

Experts found that the murals in the tomb painted a detailed process of making drugs, and there were pictures of men holding "cinnabar pills" medicine boxes to learn medical skills.

In addition, there are people holding the medical book Taiping Sheng Huifang on the screen, which clearly shows the scenes related to ancient Chinese medicine. This is the first mural scene showing Chinese medicine in China, which is of great research value.

According to the book Taiping Sheng Huifang, experts speculate that the owner of the tomb lived in the Song Dynasty, because Taiping Sheng Huifang was written in the third year of Chunhua of Emperor Taizong in the Northern Song Dynasty (AD 992), which was an extremely important medical classic in the Song Dynasty and even one of the gifts given by the emperor to foreign envoys at that time.

According to the coins of "Xi 'ning Yuanbao" (A.D. 1068- 1077) held by the hostess, experts believe that the age of this tomb is most likely the last year of the Northern Song Dynasty.

After dating, experts believe that according to the custom of "no official and no ambition" in the Song Dynasty, no epitaph was found in the tomb, probably because the tomb owner was not an official, so the Chinese medicine life scene in the mural can only be because the tomb owner himself is engaged in Chinese medicine-related work.

Experts believe that the owner of the tomb is probably an expert in Chinese medicine.

In addition, the murals on the western wall of the tomb also show the performance scenes of the drama in the Northern Song Dynasty. There are 17 people on the screen, which are divided into two parts: bands and actors. The picture is vivid and lifelike.

This mural reveals a puzzle that has puzzled archaeologists for a long time, that is, whether there is a band accompaniment in the performance of zaju in the Northern Song Dynasty. Judging from this mural, obviously there is, and the scale of the band is not small.

This mural is the most vivid and complete drama scene of the Song Dynasty that we have discovered so far, and it has high historical value.

In order to better protect and study the ancient tombs and murals on them, experts reinforced and protected the ancient tombs and murals, and then hoisted them to the Jingwei base of Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology in the northern suburb of xi. Because the murals in the tomb are well preserved, this tomb is also called M2 18 mural tomb of the Song Dynasty.

In 20 10, M2 18 Song Dynasty murals were successfully selected as "Top Ten New Archaeological Discoveries in China" due to the discovery of rare wooden benches and well-preserved murals in Song Dynasty.

However, despite this, there are still many mysteries in this ancient tomb that have not been solved.

For example, archaeologists found that the second burial of male and female tomb owners had no trace, and they were basically buried together directly after they died in almost the same time. What caused the man and woman to die almost at the same time?

Is it martyrdom? Experts found no obvious signs of martyrdom in these two men. Did you die from an overdose of Dan medicine? However, experts did not find any signs of Dan medicine poisoning such as black bone.

These mysteries may never be solved, but regret may always be an inseparable part of archaeological work.

Cctv. Com, tomb painting doubt cloud

Sanqin Metropolis Daily, Ten Archaeological Findings of Song Dynasty mural tombs in Hancheng, Shaanxi Province.

China Daily, "The overall relocation of the mural tomb of Song Dynasty in Hancheng, Shaanxi"