Princess Jeonghyo
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Ancient Tombs at Longtou Mountain are the burial sites of twelve royal figures from the
Balhae Balhae,, , ) also rendered as Bohai or Bohea, and called Jin (; ) early on, was a multiethnic kingdom established in 698 by Dae Joyeong (Da Zuorong). It was originally known as the Kingdom of Jin (震, Zhen) until 713 when its name was changed ...
(Bohai) kingdom. It is located on Longtou Mountain, southeast of Toudao Town () in
Helong Helong (; Chosŏn'gŭl: 화룡; Hangul: 허룽) is a county-level city in southeastern Jilin province, Northeast China. It is under the administration of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. In January 2024, several thousand North Korean mi ...
,
Jilin ) , image_skyline = Changbaishan Tianchi from western rim.jpg , image_alt = , image_caption = View of Heaven Lake , image_map = Jilin in China (+all claims hatched).svg , mapsize = 275px , map_al ...
Province, China, a region possibly called the "Western Field of the Ran Valley" () by the Balhae people. The mausoleum of Princess Jeonghyo is located here.


History

Construction on the first tombs at Longtou Mountain began sometime after 745, when King Mun moved the Balhae capital city to Junggyeong. The cemetery was in use until the end of the Balhae Kingdom. The discovery of Princess Jeonghyo's
tombstone A gravestone or tombstone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. A marker set at the head of the grave may be called a headstone. An especially old or elaborate stone slab may be called a funeral stele, stela, or slab. The us ...
resolved speculation amongst scholars that the area was the former location of Hyundeok Province (顯德府) of the Balhae Kingdom. The site has been a
Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level A national priority protected site is the highest-level national protection for immovable cultural relics in China. The designation was first created under the 1961 Provisional Regulations on the Protection and Management of Cultural Relics, whic ...
since January 13, 1988. The walls and the murals of the tomb have been covered with anti-corrosive chemicals; at one point the tomb included at least one tower, but it is no longer standing.


Excavation

The first excavations at Longtou Mountain were conducted in 1980 by the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture Museum of Jilin (). They excavated the Mausoleum of Princess Jeonghyo in the Dragon Sea section. At the same time, members of the museum, in addition to other organisations, conducted a survey of a 7.5 km2 area. Local archaeologists were also invited to conduct test excavations on some of the other tombs, which produced various precious artefacts. In 1982, the Yanbian Museum excavated seven tombs in the Dragon Sea area. All seven were clustered quite close together, but the tomb roofs had already collapsed. Some tombs cut through older tombs. Two of these tombs contained two people, who had been interred at the same time; four tombs contained two people, who had been interred one after the other; one tomb contained four people, one of whom was first interred, followed by the other three on a separate occasion. In the cases of a secondary burial, the second person was placed on top of the first body's head or feet.


Layout

There are three burial zones: * Dragon Lake () * Dragon Sea () ** The location of Princess Jeonghyo's mausoleum ** One robbed-out tumulus to the south-east. The inner north, east, and west walls were plastered, but the tomb had collapsed by 2012. ** 10 burials distributed over terraces to the east of Princess Jeonghyo's burial * Stone Kingdom ()


Mausoleum of Princess Jeonghyo

The Mausoleum of Princess Jeonghyo (Chinese: Zhēnxiào Gōngzhǔ mù 贞孝公主墓, ) was made in 793 by the people of the early Balhae kingdom.Lee Injae, Owen Miller, Park Jinhoon, Yi Hyun-hae, 《Korean History in Maps》, Cambridge University Press, 2014. p. 65 The
mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type o ...
contains, among other things, the first complete discovered and detailed
mural A mural is any piece of Graphic arts, graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' ...
s done by Balhae artists, and hence provides valuable insights to historians. The mausoleum originally had a funerary
pagoda A pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist, but some ...
made from brick and stone slabs, in addition to a
tumulus A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...
. Only the pagoda's foundations remain, which show that it was originally square, measuring 5.50x5.65 m. Below the funerary pagoda and tumulus, the princess' burial comprised an entry passage, tomb entrance, internal passage, and burial chamber. The burial chamber is underground, and was excavated in October 1980. The burial chamber measured 2.10x3.10 m and was built from bricks, with stone slabs forming the roof. The mounds of earth lined with stones demonstrate the continuance of Goguryeo-style tomb but the formal clothing shows Tang style, which implies that Balhae actively accepted the Tang culture. There were originally 12
murals A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spanish ...
depicting people on the rear walls of the internal passage and north, east, and west walls of the burial chamber. The chamber is surrounded by four murals on each wall, depicting thirteen people in action, such as warriors (3), chamber attendants, musicians, and maids, wearing red, blue, yellow, purple, and brown robes. The murals displayed the image of the Balhae people in its completeness for the first time. The burial chamber contains a 1.05-metre tall, 0.58-metre width × 0.26-m depth ''mugui''-shaped () complete and unbroken granite
epitaph An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...
, on which 728
Chinese character Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only on ...
s, in the
Regular Script The regular script is the newest of the major Chinese script styles, emerging during the Three Kingdoms period , and stylistically mature by the 7th century. It is the most common style used in modern text. In its traditional form it is the t ...
style, are inscribed in 18 horizontal lines. The epitaph is of a typical combined written form, which contained both the chronological writings of the Princess' whole life and the remembrance writings which displayed the praise and remembrance for the Princess. The Balhae scholar author of this epitaph was highly learned in the traditional Chinese literature, as reflected in the use of poetic lines modeled upon poets of the early Tang dynasty.


Interments

The epitaph explains that Princess Jeonghyo (貞孝公主) is the fourth daughter of King Mun, the third ruler of Balhae and a younger sister of Princess Jeonghye (貞惠公主). The epitaph shows that Balhae considered its ruler as an emperor equivalent to that of the
Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...
.Korea Herald, "Korea Now", Vol. 33 1–13, 2004. 32 The epitaph also recorded that the Princess died on Monday, 6 July 792, during the fifty-sixth year of the Daeheung era.Northeast History Foundation, "Journal of Northeast Asian History" Vol. 4, 1–2, p. 92 She was accompanied in the burial at Ran Valley () in Xi Yuan (西原 or Western Plains) in the winter of 809 () (western Gregorian solar calendar Monday, 11 January 810, Chinese lunar calendar 28th day of the 11th month). She was given the
posthumous name A posthumous name is an honorary Personal name, name given mainly to revered dead people in East Asian cultural sphere, East Asian culture. It is predominantly used in Asian countries such as China, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand. ...
"Jeonghyo" to qualify her as virtuous and filial. She was likely a horse-rider, as the remains of a horse were found in the chamber. The epitaph recorded the year of death as 792. This corrected previous works such as Jin Yufu's () ''Book of the Balhae Kingdom'' (), which recorded 793 instead. The skeletal remains were scattered all over the chamber when discovered by archaeologists, due to previous looting. However, the looters missed several golden and copper items, jewelry, pottery, and figurines. The gold ornament depicting a three stranded bird's wing is a piece of evidence demonstrating how Balhae was inherited of Goguryeo's crowns.Find Challenges China's Claim to Balhae Kingdom
The Chosun Ilbo, 2009-08-27, Retrieved in 2015-06-28
Reconstruction showed that the bones belong to a woman, presumably the princess; but there is also a male, possibly an attendant or child. But family ancestry records do state that the princess married and had a daughter who was born in 782 but died in 787.


References


External links



, ''People's Daily'', 27–06–2002. Retrieved on 04–02–2007. (
Traditional Chinese A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examp ...
) {{Jilin topics Longtou Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Jilin Archaeological sites in China Cultural history of Korea Zhenxiao Buildings and structures in Yanbian 793 establishments Buildings and structures completed in the 8th century 8th-century establishments in China