Changsha Evening News, Changsha, December 21 According to China News, the two-day 2023 Henan Archaeological Work Results Exchange Conference continued to be held in the ancient capital of Luoyang on the 21st. The reporter learned that the Sino-Mongolian joint archaeological team discovered the burial customs of the Central Plains in several small Xiongnu aristocratic tombs in the No. 2 cemetery of Gaole Maodu in Mongolia this year. Archaeologists believe that these discoveries provide important new clues for exploring the early exchanges between the Central Plains civilization and the steppe civilization, and the origin of the Xiongnu Jiazig tombs.
The No. 2 cemetery of Gaolemaodu is a large Xiongnu aristocratic cemetery in Mongolia, located in the western part of the country. From 2017 to 2019, archaeologists from Henan Province and Mongolian scholars carried out joint archaeology. In July this year, the Sino-Mongolian joint archaeological project "Research on the Archaeological Remains of the Ancient Steppe", participated by the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, was launched in Mongolia.
According to Zhou Ligang, the person in charge of the project and a researcher at the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, this year, archaeologists excavated three small circular stone tombs numbered M227, M228 and M2255 meters. A large amount of charcoal was also found at the bottom of the M225 tomb. "This phenomenon is very rare in Xiongnu tombs," he said.
According to Zhou Ligang, the three tombs excavated this year have different characteristics in terms of surface structure and tomb content, and the dating results show that they are no later than 97 BC, which may be the earliest tombs on the cemetery. In particular, M225 is a circular tomb with a burial passage, and there is a 3-meter-long stone burial tunnel in the northeast corner, and there are related sacrificial remains, which may be an early form of a zigzag tomb.
In addition, archaeologists have also made new discoveries in a small A-shaped tomb numbered M20, and its unearthed relics include: crystal beads, copper three-legged plates, copper pan pots, gold sun and moon, silver ornaments, persimmon pattern copper sheets, pottery (with millet inside), lacquerware, etc., especially gold sun and moon, lacquerware, Han-style bronzes, which were only seen in large and medium-sized tombs in the past, and were found for the first time in small tombs. He believes that M20 raises new questions for the study of the status level of small zigzag tombs.