Shunling

Shunling mausoleum is the burial ground of the Yang family, the mother of Empress Wu Zetian. On the East, West and north sides of the mausoleum, there is a pair of stone sitting lions, and on the north side there is a pair of stone horses. Tianlu (also known as Unicorn) has a head like a deer and a body like an ox. it has two wings with beautiful cirrus patterns carved on the wings. Its feet are horseshoes, and its tail is connected with the stone base. It is the most romantic and gentle stone carving in the Tang mausoleum, which can be called a national treasure. The stone walking lion is 4 meters high. It has a large size and magnificent shape. The whole sculpture is majestic and full of texture. The whole sculpture is majestic and powerful, especially the protruding tendons, belly and chest muscles and the legs and feet. It is well proportioned and full of quality. It is known as "the first lion in China". It is the largest and most representative of the existing tombs in the Tang Dynasty One of the stone carvings.

Shunling

Shunling, the tomb of Yang, the mother of Empress Wu Zetian, is located in Hanjia village, Dizhang Town, Weicheng District, 20 kilometers northeast of Xianyang city.

Yang died in the first year of Xianheng (670), and was first buried as a princess. In 690, Empress Wu Zetian granted the title of empress Gao of Xiaoming to the Yang family and changed the tomb to tomb.

After Emperor Xuanzong ascended the throne, he issued an imperial edict to remove the title of empress xiaominggao of the Yang family, still known as the princess of Taiyuan, and to replace Shunling mausoleum with the tomb of the princess

But it is still called Shunling in later generations.

In March 1961, the State Council announced Shunling as the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units.

Historical evolution

Wu Zetian's mother, Yang, died in September of the first year of Xianheng (670) of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty at the age of 92. At the beginning, it was presented to the wife of Jin State and buried on Hongdu yuan in Xianyang as a princess. It is called Yang's tomb. The cemetery and stone carvings are just like the old system.

Later, for the sake of political needs, in the first year of Yongchang, Emperor Ruizong of Tang Dynasty (689), Empress Wu Zetian was only a short distance away from the throne of God. In order to raise her value, she sought to honor her father as "emperor Zhongxiao", and her mother Yang was also honored as "empress Zhongxiao", and her tomb was renamed "Shunyi mausoleum". After Wu Zetian officially became emperor, in order to match her status, she named Yang as "empress Xiaoming Gao" in 691 and changed her mausoleum to "Shun mausoleum".

With the constant change of Yang's identity, Wu Zetian repeatedly expanded the cemetery. The area of the last mausoleum was expanded from 83070 square meters to 1094624 square meters, an increase of 12 times, which is nearly double the area of the Mausoleum (554510 square meters) offered by the founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty.

In the first month of the second year of Chang'an (702), at the order of Empress Wu Zetian, an article was written by Wu Sansi, the grandson of the Yang family and the king of Liang. Li Dan, the grandson and prime minister (later Tang Ruizong), wrote the tablet of empress Gao of the supreme filial piety of the Zhou Dynasty (also known as Shunling tablet), which stands beside Sima road at the South Gate of Shunling. The stone tablet, about 10 meters high, has 4300 characters in full. The inscription is square and standard. There are zhuanli in between. The handwriting is graceful and beautiful. Among them, there are 16 new characters created by Wu Zetian. It is a common name tablet in the early Tang Dynasty.

At the same time, Wu Zetian also ordered that skilled craftsmen from all over the world should be recruited to select the stone materials. In violation of the system of the imperial mausoleum of the first dynasty, many giant stone carvings were made for Shunling beyond the standard. However, the owner of Shunling tomb, Yang, was not a real emperor after all, so it was not only not recognized by the world, but also became a place for Li Tang's descendants to vent their anger. In the first year of Kaiyuan (713), Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty, who had just ascended the throne, issued an imperial edict to remove Yang's title of empress xiaominggao, still known as the princess of Taiyuan. It was very clear that Shunling was renamed the tomb of the princess, and the name of Shunling no longer existed

. Shunling mausoleum is not an imperial mausoleum, but it is the largest and the highest level of Royal relatives mausoleum in the Tang Dynasty. The stone carvings are magnificent, which is the most outstanding mausoleum in the Tang Dynasty.

Shun mausoleum was built three times

The first stage is the period of Taiyuan Princess tomb. On August 2, the first year of Xianheng (670), Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty, Yang died. Wu Zetian was the queen and participated in political affairs. Yang was granted the title of Taiyuan princess. Yang's tomb was called "Taiyuan princess's garden dormitory" or "Taiyuan princess's tomb". Before the earth was sealed, there were 13 stone carvings, including one stone tablet, one pair of stone pillars, two pairs of stone tigers, two pairs of stone sheep and one pair of stone men. The scale of the cemetery is equivalent to the inner city we see today.

The second stage is Shunyi mausoleum period. In the first year of Tang Ruizong's civilization (684), the second year after Gaozong's death, Wu Zetian took the sole power, granted the Yang family the title of Princess Wei and Empress Dowager Zhongxiao, transformed the tomb of Princess Taiyuan into "Shunyi mausoleum", and carried out a large-scale expansion project of Shunyi Mausoleum. A wall was built around the cemetery, and eight pairs of stone figures were placed inside the south gate, with a total of 16 stone carvings.

The third stage is Shunling period. In the second year of Tiansheng (691), Empress Wu Zetian respected Yang as empress Xiaoming Gao, and the mausoleum was named Shunling. Outside the inner city mausoleum wall, there are many pairs of large stone sculptures, including a stone tablet, a pair of stone pillars, a pair of unicorns, three pairs of stone men and a pair of stone walking lions in the south gate, a pair of stone squatting lions in the east gate, a pair of stone squatting lions in the west gate, a pair of stone squatting lions, three pairs of stone horses and three pairs of horse bearers in the north gate. In addition, two large rectangular milk que were built outside the South Gate Shinto to make it more perfect in the system.

Shunling mausoleum was first built in 670, the first year of Emperor Gaozong of Tang Dynasty, and was finally completed in 702, the second year of Chang'an. It went through three stages: Taiyuan Princess mausoleum, Shunyi mausoleum and Shunling mausoleum. It took 32 years to build and expand, and finally formed a large-scale and well arranged Shunling mausoleum. Stone tiger and stone lion appeared before the mausoleum at the same time. In front of the seemingly contradictory stone carving combination and mausoleum system, it actually reflects the different stages of the construction of Shunling mausoleum and the gradual improvement and change of Wu Zetian's political status

. At the same time, Wu Zetian began to expand the mausoleum in order to raise Yang's status. The expanded mausoleum is the outer city, and the area of the expanded mausoleum is more than 100 times that of the first burial mausoleum. It is generally believed that the emperor's mausoleum is designed according to the palace pattern of the emperor's life, but the layout of Shunling mausoleum is not based on the palace specifications of Yang's life, but according to Wu Zetian's ideas. In appearance, it roughly inherits the shape of the feudal emperor's Mausoleum since the early Tang Dynasty, but gives a new connotation. The mausoleum from symbol to body image reflects the correspondence or performance with the Yitu The relationship between them. For example, the reason why the mausoleum is located in the north of the inner city and slightly to the west is mainly related to the location of the nine palaces and eight trigrams. The location of qianliugong in the nine palaces avoids the cover of Tianpan and Renpan, which conforms to the principle of supremacy.

There is an accompanying tomb in Shunling, which is the tomb of Yang's Sun Wu Sansi. The tomb stone of Wu Sansi was unearthed near Shunling. However, Wu Sansi once "dissected the coffin and killed the corpse" in the reign of emperor Ruizong of the Tang Dynasty, and the tomb was also excavated. The location of the unearthed tombstone is not necessarily the site of Wu Sansi's tomb.

Mausoleum pattern

The plane layout of Shunling mausoleum, in accordance with the order of construction, formed a triple layout from the inside to the outside.

In the center of the mausoleum, the first is the enclosure, the second is the inner city formed by the mausoleum walls around the enclosure, and the third is the outer city formed by the four gates symbolized by four pairs of stone lions. The layout of the triple buildings, in which the axes do not coincide, also proves that the triple buildings are not built at the same time from the perspective of architecture, because Chinese ancient traditional buildings pay attention to symmetrical layout, it is difficult to imagine that the Shunling mausoleum built at one time will have three different axes, and the volume, shape, carving techniques and other aspects of the stone carving also show great differences.

1. First: soil sealing. The earth sealing and the stone carving before the earth sealing constitute the core area of Shunling cemetery. At the beginning of the construction of Shunling mausoleum, this is the whole content of Shunling mausoleum.

Buildings in the same period form the same central axis, while buildings in different periods form different central axes. Following this principle, a central axis (axis 1) is formed by the geometric center of the earth sealing and the midpoint of the five pairs of stone carvings before the earth sealing, which is also the earliest axis of the whole Shunling cemetery.

The seal shaped like a bucket conforms to Yang's status at the time of burial, "buried in Xianyang with the king's ceremony"; the stone carvings symmetrically arranged before the seal are integrated with the seal, which should be the product of one-time construction.

2. Second: inner city. The inner city mainly refers to a closed space formed by the mausoleum wall. There are four corner towers on the mausoleum wall and two gate towers on both sides of the South Gate site. In addition, there are 8 pairs of stone people inside the south gate.

Shunling built the north-south axis of the inner city with the South Gate of the inner city and 8 pairs of stone figures, which was the product of the second construction of Shunling (2 axes). At this time, Shunling mausoleum has been "named tomb" and the status of the tomb owner has been greatly improved. In order to conform to the identity of the tomb owner and the title of the mausoleum, it is necessary to build the inner city mausoleum wall, build Sima road and carve new stone carvings. The construction of the mausoleum wall enlarged the scale of the mausoleum and formed a closed whole in space.

According to the layout of earth sealing, stone carvings before earth sealing, inner city tomb wall and stone carvings inside the South Gate of tomb wall, the earth sealing and stone carvings before earth sealing form a central axis, and the inner city south gate and stone carvings inside the south gate form another central axis. There is a big gap between the two. Therefore, it is reasonable to attribute the inner city tomb wall and stone carvings inside the south gate to the second construction.

3. The third: outer city.

The existence of the outer city is symbolically reflected by the four pairs of stone lions outside the mausoleum. Because stone lions are generally located outside the gate, the four pairs of stone lions should be located outside the four gates. But Shunling actually does not have such four gates, and even the wall does not exist, so the existence of the outer city is very important

Chinese PinYin : Shun Ling