Digging Up the Present

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Dr Qian Gong: Good evening everyone. How are we? Yeah, ma hao. This is such a pleasure for me, to talk to you tonight, and this is my fourth talk of this Terracotta Warrior expert talk series, and my last one as well. So, really excited to take you underground tonight to find out more about treasures, history and tombs, but, of course, thieves. So, yeah, so my topic tonight is treasures and the thieves, tomb robbing in China's history. Tomb robbing, actually, has been around as long as tomb exists. Tomb robbing itself, in China, is a popular business. It's a huge industry. So the Government estimates that there are at least a hundred thousand active tomb robbers in China even today. So it's, it's also a very long, a business with a very long history in China. So tomb robbing has a lot to do with, of course, archeology, history, crime, folklore and even engineering. So, it is a story of great and survival, but also of culture, belief and power.

In China today, modern China, the preservation, archeology is very much, what they call, emergency room archeology as an analogy, but it's, it's about basically saving the tombs, because it's already at a state that something has to be done. So I myself had two personal experiences that shows, that show you how this is like in China. When I was in university, in my second year I think, the university in China had this annual event called, called tree planting excursion. So all of us would be, you know, boarding a bus and, and then we shipped to the suburban Beijing, and all of us would be digging holes and plant trees, and sort of like a campaign. And I remember we were into the second day of the digging and then suddenly it was like, oh, okay, we had, we had to stop because there's something big coming up. So basically, the students had chanced upon, so when they, they were digging, they found a small bronze horses and, and little figurines. So we had to stop, and the archeologist came to examine, and it was found to be a Warring States period of tomb. So that has about over 3000 years of history, dated back that, that far. So, yeah, things like that happen very often.

Second time, that was when I was working at China Daily. So I went on a tour to Inner Mongolia to look at the tomb of Genghis Khan. So, not the tomb, the capital of the city, capital city. Or what remains of the capital city of Genghis Khan. I went with the State Bureau of Cultural Relics and Archeology, a group of experts, and we,so after we examined the remains of the city walls, etc., we were on our way back to Beijing. We were all in a van and on the way back, in a city called Zhangjiakou we stopped, orXuanhua, couldn't remember exactly. So we stopped for dinner. And then the local cultural relics bureau people, archeologists, came to us and said, actually we just found something. Could you guys come to have a, have a look? So it happens that they found, suddenly found, a tomb of Liao dynasty, so again, you know, over, around 2000 years of history. And so we had a look at the tomb site, and then we were invited to also have a tour of their, it's, it's not even a museum, it's just a few houses where they put all their archeological finds in it, and, yeah, and these are, you know, not the best stage I would just say. If you look at how we presented Terracotta Warriors here, so beautifully preserved, and everything in there is like things or, you know, kind of jumbled together because there's just not enough manpower and financial means to preserve those artifacts properly, because, you know, things just pop up very by chance, and that they are, they have to be preserved, once it's, it's exposed, their tombs exposed.

So it's not really active archeology in many cases.

Terracotta warriors, you know that it was found by a villager who was digging a well in suburban Xian. But by chance, nobody had looted it before so it was one of the rare examples of something that's really preserved quite well and intact. But it's not always like that. Look at this, this one on the screen. It's Qin Gong No. 1 Tomb. It's actually the, the, the one that's buried there is the ancestor of the Qin emperor whose Terracotta Army is exhibited here. This tomb actually was built in the valley that goes down to about eight stories of building that deep and in an inverted pyramid sort of shape. So when the archeologists found this tomb, they spent ten years tries digging down into the very, very bottom of the tomb chamber. But once they reached the tomb, they found that it's already been robbed. And actually, 247 robbing holes were discovered. It's like a piece of Swiss cheese. So the tomb was already robbed quite close to, you know, like, after it's, it's, it's, it's been sealed. Not, not long after that, it's already being robbed. Okay. So why were tombs so frequently looted in China? You know, we, if we compare the tombs, Chinese tomb robbing, with the tombs in the other civilizations, it seems that its situation is extremely more serious in China. So, the reason, there are many reasons. First of all, it has something to do with the scale and the wealth of the burials. In China, the elite burials had been extremely massive and also very rich. Last week I was here talking about burial traditions. As I said, whatever, you know, that people have, they bury underneath in China, that's the tradition. Yeah. So there's so many stuff, that's, you know, precious things that's buried underneath that. So it's worth the risk, basically. You know, people really want to strike it rich by digging. The, this tomb that I showed you just now, this Qin Gong No. 1 Tomb, already been robbed many times, and the archeologists were very, very saddened by the fact that it's been robbed so many times. Even then, they still excavated 3500 objects out of it, that's what's been left. So you can see that, originally, how many precious things were buried there. In, comparatively speaking, in places like Europe, the ordinary burials were quite simpler, a lot more simpler. And in Egypt that we, we do have more, you know, richer, burial objects. However, in the Egyptian tombs tend to be located more remotely, in the desert, and it's harder to reach. Second reason being the political fragmentation and local instability. So, frequent dynastic changes in China, rebellions, etc. and a local warlord, left many tombs disturbed and unguarded as well, and central control can be quite weak. I'm going to show you one example of this, and towards the end, with the Dunhuang Mogao Grotto. In other civilizations, like classically, classical Greece or Rome, political centers were relatively stable for longer periods of time, so, yeah. Then, there there's also, yeah, it basically allows for better enforcement of tomb security.

Culture and social norms. We know Confucianism is very much about, you know, the veneration of ancestors. So disturbing, actually, digging up somebody's tomb is considered a moral outrage. It is a very bad thing. However, when it comes to survival, then, you know, like, I guess, money talks and people were really, and they couldn't be bothered. And, and also there's a certain beliefs that if you perform a ritual and you, you make offerings, then it should be fine. So, but in many other societies, if you desecrating graves, you could bring strong religious or legal sanctions. For example, in medieval Europe or Egypt that could incur very severe punishment or consequences. Another reason is the technological knowledge and the local expertise. So in China, the tradition is, some of the important tombs, they tend to have families who, whose sole duty is to guard these tombs. So for generations, that's their job. You know, like a, you. So this these locals would have quite a good knowledge of how the tomb was constructed and where the entrance is, and what are the devices in place to protect the tombs, etc. So with that knowledge, of course, that if the thieves got a hand of it and then it makes it easier to avoid, to actually dodge those traps that's built to protect the tombs. I think somehow, yeah, oh, yeah, I'll talk about that later. But in other civilizations, tombs are often buried in, as I said, is hidden, is hidden among hills or in very remote areas and making access physically harder. In Europe, tomb constructions was less elaborate. But lootable objects were smaller and more dispersed, so there's less of an incentive to actually dig up tombs. There's also the continuation and ironically, tradition, what we should call in tomb looting in China. It has a kind of normalized, become a normalized practice, and, and becomes sort of, you know, like those tomb, tomb robbers, they are often seen as legendary figures in a way, and so now what I have there, the picture is a series of Gui Chui Deng (Ghost Blowing Out Candle”, a series of stories about tomb diggers, and they become kind of romanticized in a way and become very attractive stories, people love reading about them. They're kind of mysterious and interesting in a way. And that, of course, results in somehow taking the stigma away from this tomb diggers. In other civilizations, tomb looting occurred but often linked to, to invasions of political collapse rather than persistent and socially ingrained phenomena. To show you how good those tomb raiders are in China, even the tools that archeologists use today actually were invented by the tomb robbers. So you see here, this is called Luoyang spade. Luoyang is a city, central, central, northern-central China. This spade, if you thrust it into the ground and twist it, you put it out and you have a look at the mud that's taken out, people can, the experts, the tomb robbers can see, have a quite a good idea of whether there's tomb underneath. It turned out to be a very useful and good tool. So archeologists today are still using it because it's, it's very effective, but also, does not disturb the, it's quite safe to use, disturb the what's underneath.

So, Tomb Raid Brigade. It's, it's really a one person, business, yeah. Usually you would at least have six people in this group, so I use the, this, this people here, they are actors. As I saw a film, a TV drama recently in China, just quite recently. A very well rated one as well. So, number one, there is the spotter. So in this TV series, this person here is presented as very knowledgeable person, a gentleman, like, sort of style, very calm and, and even, you know, has certain sense of, you know, very empathetic to, and good to, his friends, to his family, to his wife. But he will decide where possibly the next campaign is, but he has to have the knowledge of how to find out a prospect where the tomb is located. And then you would have the fence. And this person is responsible for selling whatever you; so in China, all the tombs, whatever artifacts, officially belong to the state. Nobody has the right to actually dig up tomb and then sell the artifacts in the tomb. So it is a crime if you privately carry out digging, right. So the fence is responsible for selling this and turn those into, you know, cash, of course. And so it has another nickname called, was mai mide, the rice, the “rice seller”. So basically turning the artifacts into the food, the rice for the gang. So in this film, this person is called Huanan Tiger. So he's from the southern China and he has the money to actually acquire those very expensive and precious artifacts. Then we have the digger. Okay, the digger is, did the hard labor digging the tunnels, breaking chambers. But they have very, they also have to be really good, have very skillful, knows how to do it properly. In this TV series, this person is very good at dynamite, you know, he knows how to watch amount of dynamite to use to properly blow up and without actually damaging the tomb artifacts. And then you have the lookout. This person helps to keep watch for dangers, authorities, villagers, rival gangs. Some of them would be, you know, if they spot a tomb, a possible tomb, it would be he would move into a nearby village or town, even may start a small business. And just be stationed there and try to talk to everyone and look out for possible dangers. And then you have the logistics support, and this person is responsible for providing lands, the tools, the ropes, the food, and sometimes arrange transport as well. So, really when you, when you think of tomb robbers team, you can think of a small company really. So the spotter would be your R&D, and the fence would be the sales, and the digger would be the engineer, and you have the logistics and, of course, the lookout is the security. Yeah, so you have the whole company set up there.

So, the, the, the tomb robbing is the fight between the life and the dead. They also have their rules. And the rule number one, basically, do not rob after the candle goes out and the rooster crows. So what they do is they, once they enter into the tomb, they would put a candle and offerings on the southeast part of the tomb, so that's considered, in the Taoist tradition, a very auspicious position, yeah. And then they start to, you know, like, make their offerings and thank the tomb owner, you know, taking these, but for whatever reason. So there's a ritual, ritual to be performed. And then, but if something happened and the, the candle started to wave in a strange way that the light or it's actually died out, then is the time to immediate retreat, regardless of, you know, how you see all this beautiful jewelries. You just have to move out. So, yeah, rule number two is you have to perform the rituals and make the offerings. And, rule number three is, there are certain objects and omens you have to observe as well. So, for example, they normally don't take the jade objects that covered the, the dead carcass. So, Chinese has this belief that jade is a, an, an object that's quite spiritual. It will help the, the dead, to preserve the body of the dead and, and, and somehow help, help this person to achieve immortality. So it's a bad thing to remove those things, yeah. So there are certain things that they don't touch. What they were looking at, of course, is the things that, that's gold and silver, that's easy and quick sell, can be turned high, very fast, that kind of objects. The Qin, Qin mausoleum, the, the, the, we know the Terracotta Warriors were dug up from the guarding tombs of the Qin mausoleum. So the main tomb is still there, and it's very big, is the size of the Manhattan as I said, it's huge. But, so far, there's no active digging of the tomb. And so far, reputedly, miraculously there's no tomb holes, I mean, rob holes that's been found yet.

So the legend has it, so in the history book, it was noted that the Qin tomb has many devices that protects it from being robbed. First of all, it has this crossbow and Qin state has very powerful crossbows that can go apparently over 800m. So the history book said, if you dare to enter the tomb, you will immediately be turned into a porcupine, basically all the arrows on you and, and, and it says that the power of the Qin crossbow can shoot through a horse, so it is very powerful. Secondly, it says the Qin emperor has the tomb builders construct the, a miniature of the Qin state with rivers built of mercury, they call stream of liquid silver. And of course, this was always a question mark whether they did do that. But the scientists actually tested the soil on top of the mausoleum, and they found that actually the percentage of the mercury is 400, sometimes, times more than the normal. So it could be, well, being true that there's those kind of devices there. Also, it is said that there's traps in the form of sinkholes and activated by treading, and if you're go in, you could fall onto those very sharp knives laid on the bottom of the tomb. There's also the concealed fire trap. It says the, the walls contain phosphorus, white phosphorus, and sulfur and, and acid fluid. So, if it's opened, if the air goes in, then you could actually start a fire. And all this may or may not be true, but it looks like so far it may, may be quite real. So that's probably one of the reasons why it hasn't been disturbed yet.

Okay, so looting of course continues into the modern times. The most famous one that's been very much dramatized is the Qing Emporer Sunzhi’s tomb, Dong ling, the eastern mausoleum, which was actually bombed by this very desperate warlord called Sun Dianying. Apparently when they, at first they had trouble to go in, and then they actually located one of the offsprings of the tomb guarder, family, and he showed them, the, the soldiers how to get into the entrance of the tomb. So it was dug up very savagely, and they found that there are so many jewelries and all the wooden treasures, that everyone had a go it, according, based on their, the ranks. The high ranking get the first go and then, you know, gradually, even the, the powerful lady, even the clothes was taken out because it was made of gold, gold thread. And the soldiers used the blade to pry open her mouth and to, to get out to this very precious stone from her mouth that's repeatedly to help to protect her body. So it's very ironic. And they were, of course, shocked by how rich the artifacts are in there.

So I want to end with a very controversial type of kind of modern, well you can call it expedition but many Chinese would see it as kind of looting as well. So this is the Mogao Grotto at the beginning of this, the Silk Road in China. So it's a number of caves, 243 caves carved into the cliff off, on the side of a river. And in it you have those beautiful statues and particular murals, murals, five, 50,000m² of beautiful, murals from the town. A dynasty and spanning about a thousand years of history. So what happened is that's a very chaotic era of China. And the Qing dynasty was at its, at its end. It had really no interest in properly protecting these grottoes. And what happened, what's left there is this Buddhist priest, Wang Yuanlu, he's a very devoted monk. He was, he was there trying to protect this huge grotto. But he's not, you know, he, he's not taking any money or whatever, whatever money he got, he will devote those into restoring the tomb, the grottoes. And then there came this expedition archeologist called Aurel Stein. So he's, he's a Hungarian, but British as well. And he came to here and he found this wonderful treasure trove. He tried to, to talk to this monk, Wang Yuanlu and found that he's completely not moved by money or, you know, any wealth or etc. So he came up with a clever story. He said, you know, I'm actually someone sent by the Buddhist in, in India to actually get those holy scriptures back to India because there's a huge amount of followers who want to get this ancient scriptures and get, you know, Buddhas words. So Wang Yuanlu actually believed this story and eventually he paid some silver and, and the monk sold him all of the old and, kind of looked not so good scrolls and paintings, actually, the most precious ones, because they are more ancient. So overall 13,000 scrolls were shipped out of China and many of them were now in the British Museum. Here you have a silk embroidery of Buddha image, which is now preserved in the museum. And the British Museum actually has a devoted, one secret room that's stored all of Stein's collection. And so far, only one fourth of the, whatever that’s there has been restored, many more leaves to be, you know, properly restored. So the, the, the controversies, of course, China sees it. It's, you know, Chinese archeology, archeologists and historians see a very, very sad page of Chinese history that we lost so many of the historical artifacts, artifacts that can tell you about the early history of China. But the, for the archeologists and experts from other parts of the world, these were properly preserved and restored and, kind of, you know, like, share a bright, page, page of Chinese history, civilization, to people all over the world. So that's how the argument is. So, I guess, yeah, it's, it's, that's the interesting, most interesting part of, tomb robbing or expedition.

Yeah. And so that's me, about this tomb robbing brief history.

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