In fact, after watching "Ghost Blowing the Lantern: The Ancient City of Jingjue", I think many people should think like me that the ancient country of Jingjue was imagined out of thin air. Anyway, I was so artificial at the beginning. But it turns out that it really did appear in history and was one of the thirty-six countries in the Western Regions. Doesn’t it feel like you’ve learned a lot, hehe. In fact, the exquisite ancient city in history is far more mysterious than the ghost blowing out the lantern. It has been unknown for a long, long time. Do you want to know about it? It was recently explained in detail in CCTV’s national treasure archives. Let’s unveil it together.
======The ruins of the ancient country of Jingjue====
The following is a picture to introduce the ancient country of Jingjue
Shirt-protecting brocade
This is a precious brocade from the Han and Jin Dynasties in China unearthed from a royal tomb in the Jingjue ruins. We can clearly see the words woven on it: Five stars from the east benefit China?. This tapestry is so famous (fortunately it was not stolen by the British), and is even hailed as one of the most important archaeological discoveries in China in the 20th century. What is this tapestry used for? According to historical records, such things were tied to the arms of people who practiced archery to protect their arms. The words woven on it belong to ancient Chinese astronomical divination and are auspicious words used for prayer. This kind of brocade represents the highest level of brocade art in the Han and Jin Dynasties. It would not be a surprise if it appeared in the Central Plains, but the fact that it was unearthed in Xinjiang has to arouse people's thinking.
This kind of brocade was specially made by the Han Dynasty for major rituals, sacrifices, gifts and other purposes. Also unearthed along with it was a fragment of tapestry. On this fragment are woven the three words "Trying for Southern Qiang". It can be found that this fragment and the five-star "Out of the East Li China" armband should be made from the same piece of fabric, and the two pieces of brocade are spliced ??together. From the tapestry, the information we get is: the five stars coming out of the east will benefit China and conquer the Southern Qiang. It means that the five stars of gold, wood, water, fire and earth appear together in the eastern sky, which is beneficial to the Central Plains in conquering the Southern Qiang. This probably means that the tomb owner helped the Han Dynasty defeat the Southern Qiang and was rewarded by the Han Dynasty. Therefore, some experts speculate that this cemetery is probably the royal cemetery of the ancient Jingjue Kingdom in the Western Regions.
The geographical location of the Jingjue Kingdom
The Jingjue Kingdom was one of the thirty-six states in the Western Regions of the Han Dynasty. It was located in the middle of the southern edge of the Tarim Basin in today's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Jingjue Kingdom appeared for the first time. In the historical data, it is "Han Shu? Biography of the Western Regions"
It says: Jingjue country, the king governs Jingjue city, going to Chang'an for 8820 miles, with 480 households and three mouths One thousand three hundred and sixty. From this we can see that there are ten small countries in Jingjue, city-states, and sparsely populated. But its geographical location is very important. It is on the southern route of the ancient Silk Road and is an important transportation route between the East and the West.
Unfortunately, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Jingjue was annexed by Shanshan, one of the thirty-six kingdoms in the Western Regions, and became a state of Shanshan. However, in the fifth century AD, Jingjue followed. Along with its host country Shanshan, it went into the dust of history. It was not until the Tang Dynasty two hundred years later that Master Xuanzang passed by Jingjue ruins on his way to ancient India to learn Buddhist scriptures. He wrote in "Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty": The swampy land is hot and humid, making it difficult to walk, and the reeds and grass are luxuriant, and there is no way out.
It can be seen that the Jingjue Kingdom, once built on an oasis, has become a daunting ruin. Since then, no one has mentioned Jingjue Kingdom again for more than a thousand years.
Until 1901, an Englishman named Stein, with funding from the British government, came to Xinjiang, China, and along the southern route of the ancient Silk Road, deposited for more than a thousand years The Jingjue Kingdom once again appeared in people's sight. He came to the ruins of the Jingjue Kingdom three times and robbed a large number of precious cultural relics. The cultural relics he robbed confirmed that the Niya Oasis ruins are the Jingjue Kingdom. of old land.
During Stein's three excavations, he took away a large number of wood chips engraved with Kala script (the writing of King Asoka of the Mauryan Dynasty in ancient India), Han slips, Han Dynasty bronze mirrors, glassware, Wood carvings, silk and wool fabrics, lacquerware fragments, etc. These precious cultural relics were smuggled back to the UK by Stein. Stein's discovery led many foreigners to come here to explore.
After the founding of New China, Chinese archaeologists made many discoveries at the Niya site and unearthed a large number of precious cultural relics.
This guy Stein is really hateful. Not only did he steal a large number of precious cultural relics from Jingjue Kingdom, but he also stole some Buddhist scriptures from Dunhuang. Not only that, he also didn’t even steal the murals. Let it go... I sincerely hope that our increasingly powerful motherland can one day recover all these precious cultural relics lost abroad...