Lam Pin Foo

The December 2009 discovery of the mausoleum of the celebrated Cao Cao in Henan province’s Anyang City excited everyone in China and created a stir among foreign historians and archaeologists too. This is hardly surprising because Cao, one of China’s most controversial statesmen and brilliant military strategists of the Three-Kingdom era (184-280 AD), is reputed to have constructed 72 decoy tombs in order to thwart any future attempts by any grave raiders to desecrate his final resting place and to steal the treasures buried with him for his needs in the afterlife. His very colourful life and famous exploits have been vividly captured and romanticised in one of  China’s best known classical novels, the 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and he became a household name in China. This discovery has been proclaimed by the media and some cultural experts as the greatest archaeological find since the unearthing of the terracotta  army in 1974 in Xian, which protects the yet to be excavated burial chamber of the First Emperor, who built China’s Great Wall more than 2200 years ago. Even before Cao’s 740 sq. m mausoleum, with an assortment of 250 artifacts found therein, has been officially authenticated and opened to the public, the province’s government officials and tourism authorities are optimistic that his tomb will soon become a cash-tree, as it were, and will generate up to an annual windfall of 420 million yuan, in close competition with the revenue created by the terracotta army in Xian.

Despite the national rejoicing over the discovery of the elusive Cao burial chamber, many well-known historians, scholars, archaeologists and anthropologists have cast doubts as to its genuineness. Their main dissenting views can be summed up as follows:

The tomb was earlier raided by tomb robbers before the archaeologists found it, and some of the artifacts in it had already been removed by them. It is possible that some of the remaining artifacts could have been tampered with, including the stone tablets bearing Cao’s posthumous title, King Wu of Wei,  which could have been forged ingeniously so as to deceive even the experts as had happened in some disturbed tombs of other prominent people. These stone tablets are said to offer the strongest evidence that the tomb must belong to Cao himself.

The discovered burial chamber does not correspond with the descriptions of Cao’s in historical records. Also, none of the stone tablets mentions his name and no memorial mourning album was found, which would have been the practice for such an important figure of that period.

While one of the skeletons in the tomb is claimed to be of Cao’s age and of the period, experts believe that as the remains are not in good condition because of long burial, it would be extremely difficult to extract DNA samples from them. Furthermore, it is not known that there are living lineal descendants of his who could undergo DNA tests to either confirm or reject the authenticity of this discovery. To trace any possible descendants that Cao might still have will be an uphill, if not impossible, task.

These experts also have reasons to believe that Cao was not buried in Anyang, but in Bozhou in Anhui province, where he was born. Some experts are convinced that the discovery has been hyped up prematurely by sensational media publicity and by the opportunistic local government authorities in order to promote the expected increased tourism and the revenue windfall this will bring.

Finally, it is significant that China’s authoritative Institute of Archaeology has maintained a guarded stand that it is too early to confirm that the unearthed tomb is truly Cao’s until all the available evidence have been exhaustively analysed and firmly established.

Despite China having the longest continuous civilisation in the world dating back to 5000 years, there are not that many truly ancient monuments and other historical edifices in their original state of preservation left in this vast country. This is because most of these were either destroyed by ravages of nature, frequent wars or due to human neglect in the course of time. Be that as it may, the saving grace for China and that of mankind is that its immense wealth of historical cultural heritage has been largely preserved beneath the ground awaiting discovery to see the light of day again. For the record, the most extravagant mausoleums are those of its numerous reigning monarchs and others belonging to lesser royalties and prominent personages throughout the ages. All of these would have contained valuable funerary items. However, not that many of these prominent tombs have, to date, been found  and for  those that have already been located, the Chinese government is in no hurry to excavate them until the state of technology has become sufficiently advanced for them to undertake such a task so as to ensure the safe preservation of the artifacts in these tombs for the benefit of all.

Take the tombs of the emperors and various kings as an example. China’s First Emperor’s burial place, with its inestimable wealth of funerary treasures, has not yet been opened up. Neither have those of the rulers of the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), when China was at its peak of prosperity and was probably the richest and most powerful nation on earth. The experts are of the view that, based on the grandeur and artifacts-rich tombs of minor royalties that surround the not yet excavated mausoleum of the 6th Han emperor Jindi, his mausoleum, and that of his successor, Emperor Wudi, could well match the First Emperor’s in scale and extravagance. Of the emperors’ tombs of the nation’s last two dynasties, namely Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911), only that of the 13th Ming Emperor Wanli’s has already been dug up and has since become one of the top tourist attractions in China. The array of high quality and rare artifacts in this tomb had long ago been removed to a museum for display, but the replicas of these can still be seen on site. Situated in the outskirts of Beijing, it is one of the thirteen royal mausoleums crisscrossing a vast expanse of land, all with grand structures surrounding each of these tombs. Needless to say, they were all constructed strictly in accordance with the best fengshui principles, China’s art of geomancy.

The worldwide interest created by the discovery of the tomb of Cao reminds me of a related article that I wrote in 2002, which was published in Singapore’s Sunday Times, under the caption, “What lies beneath”, and I should like to share it with my readers. It is posted immediately after this article.

Lam Pin Foo

This article first appeared in the Singapore Sunday Times on 2 June 2002.

Five thousand years of  civilisation is a powerful magnet that draws visitors from across the world to China.

As the oldest continuous civilisation on earth, the attraction is undeniable. Yet a discerning visitor seeking a profound cultural experience in China may well leave disappointed. Why? The ancient monuments in the Middle East and Europe have survived well because they were built of stone. But in China, palaces, temples and other major buildings were generally constructed of timber. Most had succumbed to the ravages of nature and human conflict. Examples include the historic Buddhist temples that are spread in Chinese cities and sacred mountains. Hordes of devotees flocked there in their heyday.

Your Chinese guide would recite with eloquence their illustrious history dating back to Tang Dynasty or earlier, regaling you with stories about the long-gone relics and exquisite woodwork of the original buildings. But what greets you would likely be less refined buildings and art works of a much later dynasty, rebuilt on the same site. Some are recent replicas of the ancient works.

Brick-and-mortar structures like pagodas, watch-towers, city walls and bridges have fared better. However, most are dilapidated, or have been so extensively renovated over the centuries that they no longer resemble the original.

Aside from the ravages of time, the preservation of China’s historic monuments and artifacts suffered a further blow during the Cultural Revolution. Much of the country’s cultural heritage built up over the centuries were reduced to ruins in a few months of madness by fanatical Red Guards on the rampage. Fortunately, China’s foremost national treasures, including the sculptures and wall frescoes at the Dunhuang grottoes and the peerless imperial art collection at Beijing’s Gukung (Forbidden City) escaped the fury of the Red Guards, thanks to the timely intervention of the late Premier Zhou Enlai.

Even so, many of the choicest of these national treasures were long ago looted by rapacious foreigners and removed to their home museums.

Despite the scarcity of ancient monuments above ground, the real saving grace is the immense cultural wealth that lies hidden beneath China’s soil. In ancient times, it was the custom to bury precious, ornamental and household items with the departed for their use in the hereafter. This has resulted in major discoveries, the most widely publicised was the discovery in Xian in 1974 of some 8000 life-sized terracotta warriors. These earthen warriors guarded the outer tomb of the 2200-year old  mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shihuang, a man who unified China and built its Great Wall but who feared being harmed, even in death.

As the technology of archaeological excavation advances, more of China’s national heritage will again see the light of day.

Chinese cultural experts, including the Director of the renowned Shaanxi History museum, Mr Zhou Tian You, are convinced that what had been dug up so far constitute only a small portion of the nation’s heritage. For example, recent digs have thrown up evidence that verified the existence of the Xia Dynasty, which was founded in 2200 BC.

The tombs that have been unearthed so far have generally been those of minor royalties and high officials. Far grander in terms of construction and funerary contents would be the tombs of China’s monarchs. But most of the burial sites of China’s early rulers are not known, while those of later periods remain largely unexcavated.

How do the Chinese experts ascertain the identity of a tomb’s occupant? They rely mainly on the Muzhimin (inscribed stone memorial tablet), normally erected at the entrance to a burial chamber.

Usually written by someone of standing who was close to the deceased, it would set out his biography, highlighting his achievements and contributions to society. A copy of this written eulogy would be kept by his family. Only royalty and privileged people could afford one.

The formidable Han Emperor Wudi and the egotistical Empress Wu Zetian insisted that the inscriptions on their memorial tablets be different from the standard formulation. His invited posterity to judge whether his contributions outweighed his shortcomings. Hers was deliberately left blank, confident of history as her scribe.

Visitors to China looking for a profound cultural experience should tour selected excavation sites, especially those with quality museums nearby showcasing the artifacts recovered from the pits.

Many of these sites are scattered in the provinces of Shandong, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hubei, Henan, Hebei, Sichuan and along the Silk Road. Some are accessible from the cities of Xian, Loyang, Beijing, Zibo, Qingzhou, Chengdu, Turpan and Yinchuan, to name a few.

As is said about true beauty, one has to look deeper to find the glory of China’s cultural heritage.

Lam Pin Foo