In China, Raiding Old Tombs For Artifacts
BAOLING VILLAGE, China — One day last November, Yang Mingzhen received a tip: Construction workers digging on his family’s land had discovered an ancient tomb.
That night, Mr. Yang, his father and uncle sneaked down to the tomb outside the entrance of Baoling Village, on a hilltop in Shaanxi Province.
The next morning, a worker found the bodies of Mr. Yang and the two other men. The tomb had collapsed, and they had been buried alive.
Such are the allures, and perils, of grave robbing, an ancient practice that has made a comeback as the global demand for Chinese antiquities has surged. With prices for some objects reaching into the tens of millions of dollars, thieves looking to get rich quick have hit the countryside.
The looting has resulted in the destruction of many Chinese cultural heritage sites. In 2016, China’s State Administration of Cultural Heritage reported 103 tomb-raiding and cultural relic theft cases, but many more cases have gone undetected. Between ancient and modern thieves, experts say, up to eight out of every 10 tombs have been hit.
Provinces rich in Chinese imperial cultural heritage, like Henan, Shaanxi and Shanxi, have been especially hard hit. “Henan has pretty much been emptied,” said Ni Fangliu, the author of several books about tomb raiding. “There’s nothing left to steal.”
China, under President Xi Jinping, has shown a growing desire to embrace traditional culture. The government, which asserts ownership over ancient tombs and underground cultural relics, has sought to combat the problem through lawmaking, increased surveillance and monetary rewards for people who turn in relics.
For over 3,000 years, Chinese rulers and aristocrats adhered to elaborate funerary rituals, including the practice of burying the dead with objects to use in the afterlife. The objects included everything from jade discs and bronze vessels to lacquer boxes and glazed pottery figurines.
In the second century B.C., tomb robbing was so widespread that the Lüshi Chunqiu, a classic Chinese text compiled around 239 B.C., advocated frugal burials to deter looters. Even the mausoleum of China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, is rumored to contain booby traps intended to ward off potential robbers.
During the post-Mao opening of China in the 1980s, tomb robbing became an epidemic. Farmers, whose families had for generations been charged with safeguarding tombs, began moving to cities. Vast areas were turned over to make way for subway tunnels, apartment buildings and highways. Construction sites doubled as archaeological pits, and countless tombs and historical relics were unearthed.
Many Chinese, buoyed by rising incomes, developed an appreciation for relics, giving rise to a new class of Chinese collectors. For tomb robbers, the appeal is clear. “One nice bronze from the Qin or Han dynasty can buy you a big house,” Mr. Ni said.
In China, most grave robbers are migrant workers and farmers. Others are part of trafficking networks.
The task is dirty and dangerous. Thieves crawl into small tunnels and handle explosives. The objects are often passed through a shadowy network of middlemen, smugglers and dealers before reaching collectors and museums in China and abroad.
The online fiction series “Grave Robbers’ Chronicles” by Nanpai Sanshu became a sensation in 2006. Since then, television shows and movies have also been made about tomb robbing, including Wuershan’s “Mojin: The Lost Legend” and Lu Chuan’s “Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe.”
In research for the film, Mr. Lu met with tomb robbers. The discussion was so off-putting, he said, that he avoided depicting scenes of tomb raiding. “I thought to myself, ‘This is just plain robbery,’ ” he said. “It’s not romantic at all.”
In 2015, the police broke what they called the biggest antiquities trafficking case since 1949, arresting 175 people for stealing and trafficking objects worth an estimated $80 million. “It’s a constant battle between us and the criminals,” said Wang Jinqing, head of cultural relics protection in Shaanxi.
Experts say that more action needs to be taken to protect untouched tombs.
“No one would risk their life to loot a tomb if there wasn’t a market for the stuff,” said Donna Yates, an archaeologist at the Scottish Center for Crime and Justice Research at the University of Glasgow. “No demand, no looting.”