Zhou Mausoleum

Zhou mausoleum is the combined name of the tombs of King Wen and King Wu of the Western Zhou Dynasty. It is the cemetery with the largest number of Royal Sacrifice inscriptions in China. It is one of the "Eight Sights of Xianyang" and is known as "small forest of Steles". In addition to the tombs of Zhou Wen and Wu Wang, the cemetery also has a wooden archway, a theater building, a sacrificial hall, a supporting hall, more than 40 sacrificial steles for emperors of all dynasties, and the accompanying tombs of Jiang Taigong in the Western Zhou Dynasty.

Zhou Mausoleum

Zhou mausoleum is the mausoleum of King Wen, King Wu, King Cheng and King Kang of Western Zhou Dynasty and the tomb of Duke Tai of Zhou Dynasty. Located in ZhouLing Town, Weicheng District, Xianyang city. In 1957, it was announced as the first batch of provincial key cultural relics protection units by Shaanxi Province.

brief introduction

Key cultural relics protection units in Shaanxi Province. It is located in ZhouLing middle school, ZhouLing Township, Weicheng District, 6 km north of Xianyang city. It is said that it is the mausoleum of King Wen and King Wu of Zhou. At the bottom of Zhouwen mausoleum is 310 meters long and 11.8 meters high. In front of the tomb is a stone tablet erected by Bi Yuan of the Qing Dynasty. 100 meters north of the mausoleum is the mausoleum of King Wu of Zhou Dynasty, with a perimeter of 285 meters at the bottom and a height of 12.3 meters. The two mausoleums are basically well preserved, and the Xiandian and the mupailou have been repaired and painted.

The first batch of key cultural relics protection units in Shaanxi Province. Located in ZhouLing Town, Weicheng District, Xianyang City, about 4 km away from the city center. In the cemetery, there are one Zhouwen mausoleum, one Zhouwu mausoleum, one mupaifang mausoleum, two Xiandian mausoleums, two auxiliary mausoleums and more than 40 steles of the emperors after Song Dynasty. To the west of the cemetery, there are more than 2000 ancient cypresses, which are lush and magnificent. Located in ZhouLing middle school, ZhouLing Town, Weicheng District, northeast of Xianyang City, ZhouLing is the mausoleum of King Wen and King Wu in ancient Western Zhou Dynasty. There are one Mausoleum of King Wen and one Mausoleum of King Wu, one wooden archway theater, one sacrificial hall and one accessory hall. There are more than 40 sacrificial steles of emperors and other Western Zhou tombs, such as Jiang Taigong“ One of the eight sceneries in Xianyang, known as "small forest of Steles". The two mausoleums are basically well preserved. The Xiandian and the mupailou have been repaired and painted. Key cultural relics protection units in Shaanxi Province. There are more than 2000 ancient cypresses in the west of the cemetery. In recent years, the local government has carried out a comprehensive renovation of the Zhou mausoleum to develop tourism resources. The walls were rebuilt, the halls, steps and stele towers were renovated, the eastern and Western stele corridors and auxiliary halls were renovated, the statues of King Wen, King Wu and Duke Zhou were painted in clay sculptures, and the mausoleum and cemetery of King Wen, King Wu were afforested.

Origin and development

King Wen and King Wu of Zhou inherited and developed the farming culture created by Houji (Houji was born in buku) and Gongliu, the ancestors of the Zhou nationality, and made contributions to the destruction of the brutal Shang Zhou regime. After losing the agricultural officials, buku (JU) came between Rong and di (now Qingyang, Gansu Province) and led the Zhou people to engage in agriculture. After his death, buku (JU) was buried in zhouzuling (today's Qingcheng, Gansu Province) Going south and entering Guanzhong made them enjoy high prestige in the history of Chinese civilization. For more than three thousand years, the political power of all ethnic groups on the land of China has been highly respected by them. King Wen, King Wu, Duke Zhou and others have become the common idols of Chinese descendants, and they are respected and missed by people of all generations in the form of sacrifice. Over time, the way of sacrifice has also experienced the evolution from scattered to centralized, from temple sacrifice to mausoleum sacrifice.

（1） Temple sacrifice. In the fourth year of Yuanding (113 BC), Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty searched Luoyang for Zhou's descendants and found a man named Ji Jia as the successor of Zhou's family. He was granted a land of 30 Li and 3000 households. He was granted the title of Nanjun, the son of the Zhou Dynasty. He was here for generations to worship the ancestors of the Zhou people (located in Ruzhou City, Henan Province). According to the records of the historian Zhou Benji, "in the nineties of the Han Dynasty, the emperor would seal Mount Tai and go hunting to Henan to seek Miao descendants of the Zhou Dynasty. Then he would seal the land of jiasanli, named Nanjun of the Zhou Dynasty and Marquis Bili, to offer sacrifices before him."

"Shiji · Xiaowu Benji" records: so the emperor Suidong, began to set up the Houtu temple on the fenyin Road, such as kuanshu and so on. Go up and worship like God. After the ceremony, the emperor returned to Xingyang. After passing Luoyang, he issued an imperial edict, saying: "the three generations of Miao Jue are far away, and it is difficult to survive. After thirty Li, he became the son of Zhou, Nanjun, and worshipped the first king

In the fifth year of the Yuan Dynasty (44 BC), Ji Jiazhi's Sun Ji entered the rank of Chengxiu marquis. In addition, the Hanshu geographic records and Hanshu Jiaosi records that "the lake (located in the west of Lingbao in Henan Province today) has two ancestral halls of Zhou Tianzi", "Guo (Guo town in Baoji County in Shaanxi Province today), and the huangdizi and Zhou Wenwu ancestral halls". The two ancestral halls of King Wen and King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty mentioned above are located in Guo to the west of Guanzhong and Guo to the east of Guanzhong.

In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, when the Han Tombs declined, the tombs of King Wen of Zhou and King Wu, which Cao Pi called "human thought", were honored among the people. Since then, there has been a "Wei Shu · topographical records" recorded that "Shi'an county has Zhou Wenwang Temple". In the Northern Wei Dynasty, Zhou Wenwu temple was often worshipped by the prefects and herdsmen of Chang'an. In April of the fourth year of Yanxing (474), Emperor Xiaowen of Wei sent king tuobapi of Dongyang to worship King Wen of Zhou and King Wu of Zhou in Chang'an, which is regarded as the highest standard of sacrifice to King Wen of Zhou after Qin and Han Dynasties. During the reign of Zhenguan, Xianqing and Tianbao in Tang Dynasty, they all sacrificed to King Wen of Zhou, Yu Feng, and King Wu, Yu Hao. In 812, the seventh year of Yuanhe of Xianzong, the ancestral hall of King Wen and King Wu of Zhou Dynasty should be decorated by the secretary

It can be seen from the above records that after the Eastern Han Dynasty, the official sacrifice to King Wenwu of Zhou was in Xianyang in Weibei, and in Chang'an in Weinan; in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, there was a trend of transferring from Weinan to Weibei.

（2） Mausoleum sacrifice. It has been about 1800 years since the sacrifice took place in the Wuling Mausoleum of Zhouwen in Xianyang. Its development process can be divided into two stages: the first stage, from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the end of the Five Dynasties, namely 220-960 A.D. Over the past 700 years, it has been the stage of "common name". The sacrificial activities in this stage can only be folk sacrificial activities. But under certain conditions, the possibility of official sacrifice can not be ruled out. The second stage, from the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty, is the official sacrificial period in Xianyang. The newly built Temple stele of King Wu of Zhou in the great song dynasty (the stele is now in Xianyang Museum) founded in the sixth year of Kaibao of Song Dynasty (973) records: "our emperor read the historical records of Tiger Temple, put on the map of the official party, and got his old Mausoleum in the hometown of Fengyi. Because he ordered his ministers to keep watch, he bowed to examine himself: it is said that the mausoleum is as old as before, and the road of barren hazelnut is forbidden to be explored by woodcutters; the temple is very poor, and the foundation of the prison is not known to be eaten by the ancestors.... " The museum also has a copy of the newly built Temple stele of King Kang of Zhou in the Song Dynasty, which was carved in the same year. The Song Dynasty decided to set up five families to guard the mausoleum of Zhouwen and Wuwang respectively, and the Tailao ancestral temple in spring and autumn (LI BA, history of the Song Dynasty). In the Jin Dynasty, King Wenwu of Zhou was sacrificed in the third year of the reign of emperor Wenwu in Jingzhao mansion. There is no record of Zhou mausoleum sacrifice in the history of the Yuan Dynasty. The only official sacrifice is the temple of King Wen of Zhou in gujiuli city of Tangyin, Henan Province (where King Wen of Zhou was imprisoned by King Zhou of Yin) and the temple of Duke of Zhou in Qishan, Shaanxi Province. In 1370, Zhu Yuanzhang sent people to investigate the tombs of King Wen, King Wu, King Cheng, King Kang, Emperor Gaozu, Emperor Jing and Emperor Wu in Xianyang. It was found that the tombs of the tombs were buried by those who had been stolen, the mounds were filled by those who had been destroyed, and the temples were repaired by those who had been demolished. Every three years, the imperial court issued congratulatory articles and fragrant silk,

It is said that Taichang temple music and dance students and Yousi were sent to the mausoleum to offer sacrifices. The court case at the location of the mausoleum Temple "took the first ten days of the spring and Autumn period (that is, the first ten days of February and August in the summer calendar) as the date of sacrifice".

From the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, based on the sacrificial system of the Ming Dynasty, the scope of sacrifice was expanded: from the four kings of Zhou Wen, Wu, Cheng and Kang to the tombs of Duke Zhou, Tai Gong and Bi Gong. Secondly, because there are too many tombs in Xianyang, the sacrificial mission is shared by the nearby counties. Among them, the tombs of Zhouwen and Wuling, Zhougong and Taigong are divided into three parts: Xianyang, Zhouzhi and Huxian.

On the basis of many renovations in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the cemetery of Zhou mausoleum, after two major repairs and expansion in 1929 and 1934, was surrounded by Berlin and the halls and houses were shining. In the suburbs, a memorial and sightseeing site was built, which could match the Konglin in Shandong Province and was known as "Xianyang offering sacrifices to Zhou and Qufu offering sacrifices to Kong".

textual research

The tangled Mausoleum of King Wu of Zhou

When it comes to the mausoleum of King Zhou Wu, the founder of the Zhou Dynasty, the reporter immediately thought of the mausoleum of Zhou Wu in Weicheng district. After reading some books about the mausoleum of the emperor, the mausoleum of King Wu of Zhou was also located in the mausoleum of Zhou. However, when contacted with experts, they said that it was a false story.

"Not Zhou mausoleum is the final conclusion"

"The Northern Zhou mausoleum in Xianyang is definitely not the mausoleum of King Wu of Zhou." Wang Xueli, a researcher at the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of archaeology, told reporters that before the Warring States period, when a monarch was buried, "no trees or earth heaps were sealed", which meant that the cemetery was not sealed and no trees were planted. The tomb of the Zhou Dynasty has a large mound, which is called the tomb of the king of the Western Zhou Dynasty. He believed that the so-called tombs of King Wen and King Wu in Zhou's Mausoleum should be the joint cemetery of King Huiwen and Empress of Qin.

According to the archives of Shaanxi imperial mausoleum by Shaanxi Provincial Bureau of cultural relics and Xi'an cultural relics protection and restoration center, it is said that the seal soil of Zhouwu mausoleum is in the shape of a dome, with a diameter of 66-68 meters at the bottom, a height of 17.7 meters, and an altitude of 495 meters at the top.

"To the north of Xianyang, the so-called" King Zhou's Mausoleum ", which is very high in the upper cemetery, is the result of later generations' Zhang Guanli Dai." Yang Kuan, a professor in the Department of history at Fudan University, pointed out before he died that according to the documents and archaeological data, there were no mounds in the tombs of the Central Plains. The mound type tombs in the Central Plains began in the late spring and Autumn period, and were generally carried out in the Warring States period.

"As soon as the land was sealed, it means that the age of the Zhou mausoleum was later than that of the Western Zhou Dynasty." Said Yue Qi, director of Xianyang Archaeological Research Institute.

Liu Qingzhu, director of the academic committee of the Institute of archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Chinese PinYin : Zhou Ling