1969 in early autumn, members of the original fresh commune in Wuwei county, Gansu province, China accidentally dug the outer wall of the tomb while digging an air-raid shelter in Leitai area. Due to the lack of common sense of cultural relics, farmers continue to dig out the outer wall and enter the tomb. After seeing the bronze chariots and horses arranged neatly in the tomb, they moved them out of curiosity, thus destroying the archaeological site and making it difficult to repair the honor guard in the future. Farmers also want to sell bronze chariots and horses to waste collection stations, buy livestock for production teams, and temporarily put bronze chariots and horses in warehouses.

At that time, Dang Shoushan, a cultural relic cadre of Wuwei Pass, found the production team to inquire about the situation after hearing the news that Leitai had been dug. The production captain denied digging bronze chariots and horses. Dangshou Mountain entered the tomb from the place dug by farmers. Judging from the scale of the tomb and the large amount of money for laying the floor, the owner of the tomb should be very rich, and the things in the tomb may have been moved. Dang Shoushan found fresh commune leaders to explain the situation and let them realize the seriousness of the problem. After persuasion and education, the production team leader agreed to take them to the warehouse to see what they had dug up. Dang Shoushan registered these bronze chariots and horses and sent them to the cultural relics preservation unit and reported them to the Gansu Provincial Department of Culture. In 65438+February, the cultural relics unearthed from Leitai Tomb were handed over to the Provincial Museum for preservation.

Leitai Han Tomb is a brick tomb with the entrance facing east and the entrance direction. It consists of three main burial chambers: the back chamber, the middle chamber and the front chamber, in which the middle chamber has the right ear chamber and the front chamber has the symmetrical left and right ear chambers. The middle room is equipped with copper lamps, copper pots, copper bottles, copper fuming stoves, etc. There are a lot of pottery in the right ear room of the middle room, including a pottery building. In the back room where the owner of the tomb was buried, four silver seals with turtle buttons were found.

Although the tomb has been stolen many times, more than 230 precious cultural relics have been unearthed, including 17 warrior figurines, 28 handmaiden figurines, 39 bronze horses, 14 bronze chariots, 1 bronze bulls and 1 copper coins. One of the most famous is the bronze galloping horse, which later became the tourist symbol of China. Archaeologists' judgment on the style of unearthed bronzes is a feature of the late Eastern Han Dynasty. There are some inscriptions on bronze horses, such as "Left Riding a Thousand Men" and "Zhangye County in Liangzhou", which only appear in the documents of Han Dynasty. Unearthed shop money does not contain five baht in Phnom Penh, which is the characteristic of five baht in Wei and Jin Dynasties. The Eastern Han Dynasty was connected with the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and the conclusion was not contradictory.

As no epitaph and related historical records were found, the identity of the owner of the tomb could not be confirmed. Judging from the unearthed ceremonial cars, horses and turtle buttons, the owner of the tomb, surnamed Zhang, was a general who was once the chief of Wuwei, the first of the four counties in Hexi. Leitai area is the family cemetery of the Zhang family.

See /p/4253796749 for more details.