1. History

2. Note

The Yongling Mausoleum ({{zh|c=永陵|p=Yǒnglíng}}), commonly known as the tomb of Wang Jian ({{zh|c=王建墓}}), is the burial place of Wang Jian (847–918), the founding emperor of Former Shu. It is located at 10 Yongling Road, Jinniu District, Chengdu, Sichuan, China. In the Later Tang dynasty (923–937), Meng Zhixiang issued a decree to protect the tomb, but since the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127), its auxiliary buildings have been gradually destroyed, and only the grave mound and the coffin chamber are left. People usually attaches the legend of Sima Xiangru and the legend of Zhuge Liang to the grave mound, thinking that they have played the qin, a traditional Chinese musical instrument, in there. Therefore, the grave mound was named Fuqintai, meaning the place of playing the qin. In 1940, when building a bomb shelter under the Fuqintai, the ancient tomb was discovered. After an excavation by archaeologist Feng Hanji and others, the tomb was confirmed as Wang Jian’s tomb.

The tomb is the only royal tomb that its coffin chamber was built on the ground. ^[1]Its grave mound is in a round shape, and the coffin chamber is located at the bottom of the grave mound middle. The chamber has three rooms, with a coffin in the middle room and a sitting stone statue of Wang Jian in the back room. In 1956 and 1980, tomb of Wang Jian was twice listed as a cultural relics protection unit in Sichuan Province. In 1961, it was listed as a national key cultural relics protection unit. In 2001, according to regulations of the imperial mausoleum of the Tang dynasty, a tomb passage was built on the south side of the Wang Jian Tomb, and several stone statues were added by the Yongling Museum.

History

Wang Jian (847 – July 11, 918), formally Emperor Gaozu of (Former) Shu, was the founding emperor of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period state Former Shu. At the age of 72, he died in the first year of Tianguang period (918 CE), with a temple name of Gaozu and was buried in Yongling.^[1] In December 918 and March 925 (the first year of Xiankang period), Wang Yan, the next emperor, twice visited the tomb.{{r|five|page=6079,6081}} In 933 (the fourth year of Changxing era in the Later Tang dynasty), Meng Zhixiang sent people to renovate the tomb and prohibited people from cutting firewoods in the nearby area.{{r|five|page=6091}} In 1014 (the 7th year of Dazhongxiangfu era in the Northern Song dynasty), parts of the mausoleum buildings of Yongling were demolished, and the building materials were used to repair a local Taoist temple named Yuejuhua.{{r|twenty-five|page=9-10}} The remaining buildings of Yongling were retained as a Buddha palace named Yongning and were renamed as Yongqingyuan in 1103 (the second year of Chongning period in the Northern Song Dynasty), which later was destroyed by a fire.{{r|twenty-six|page=775}} Since then, there have been plenty of wars around Yongling, and only the grave mound and chambers of the tomb have been preserved.^[3] However, the accurate location of the tomb was not clearly marked in historical records, and the most popular statement of the location was first recorded by Lu You in his poem,{{efn|According to the poem name "the tomb of Wang Jian along with the tomb of Empress were situated outside of the old west gate, within one mile away. Two stone columns carved with scriptures, and huge human and horse statues were erected here, as good as new "{{r|six|page=186}}}} saying that the tomb was outside the old west city gate, and was very desolate.^[4] Since then, the records of the tomb in the local chronicles has basically followed this statement, without further research. {{r|seven|page=1}}

There is a mound named Fuqintai in the western suburbs of Chengdu, and there are several legends associated with it, saying that Sima Xiangru and Zhuge Liang has used the mound as a table to play the qin. In 1940, brick walls were founded during the process of building a shelter in Fuqintai, which drew the attention of Feng Hanji, a professor at Huaxi University. After an investigation, Feng identified the mound as an ancient tomb.^[5] Subject to conditions at that time, the exposed parts of the site had to be temporarily closed, and the relevant excavation plan was not developed until the establishment of the Sichuan Museum in 1941. On September 15, 1942, the excavation of the tomb began, led by Feng Hanji and Liu Fuzhang. At the time of excavation, the tomb was filled with silt, and archaeologists were only able to clear out a 3-meter path towards chambers. During the excavation, the staff unearthed several volumes made by jade and determined that the tomb was the Yongling of Wang Jian. This location is close to the location recorded in the poem of Lu You,{{r|seven|page=1-4}} but the archaeologists did not find the huge stone human statue mentioned by Lu You.^[6] Sinologist Michael Sullivan also joined the excavation and was mistaken by a middle school student for a foreign grave robber. The student reported him to government officials, and Sullivan along with other archaeologists were detained. The excavation work was interrupted for a while until Feng Hanji and Guo Youshou, then the director of the Education Department, showed the license of excavation issued by the government. In November 1942, the excavation work was temporarily suspended. On March 1, 1943, Wu Jinding, an archaeologist, led the staff who had previously participated in the excavation, and Wang Zhenduo, an expert in museology, launched the second stage of excavation. Compared with the previous preliminary excavation, the focus of this stage was mainly to clean up the southern area of the grave mound, and further clean up the chamber. The excavation discovered traces of the grave robber and unearthed a large number of cultural relics. On September 21, all excavations works were completed. The unearthed cultural relics were handed over to the Sichuan Museum,{{r|seven|page=1-4}} and the underground palace was closed again.^[5]In 1971, when building a house 300 meters south of the tomb, a member of the Fuqin production brigade of Chengdu Jinniu District found a stone statue with a height of 3.18 meters, thus confirming the statement of Lu You.^[6]

Note

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