The jade carved horse head exhibition is held in the first exhibition hall of Shaanxi History Museum. It is made of ink jade, with a rectangular horse head, sharp edges, slightly open mouth, and broken ears. The two eyes are carved with a single Yin line, and the back end of the neck is mortise shaped with small holes drilled for embedding and fixation. The style is realistic.
The jade carved horse head may be small in size, but its “head” is not small. Since 1976, the Yongcheng Archaeological Team of Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology has conducted large-scale archaeological drilling on the Sanqian Plain in the south of Fengxiang County, Shaanxi Province. A total of 49 types of ‘large tombs’ and more than 1200 small and medium-sized tombs have been discovered, and the moat facilities and clues of fourteen cemeteries have been explored or found. From 1976 to 1986, the earliest and largest Qin Gong No. 1 tomb was excavated, and more than 3500 cultural relics specimens were unearthed. The tomb shape and era were mastered, and the tomb owner was preliminarily confirmed, achieving very fruitful field archaeological results. This small jade carved horse head was unearthed from this Qin Gong No. 1 tomb.
Mr. Han Wei, who was then the leader of the Yongcheng Archaeological Team in Shaanxi Province, wrote in the “Brief Report on Drilling and Trial Excavation of Fengxiang Qin Gong Mausoleum”: “In the summer and autumn of 1976, we explored on Ling Mountain but were unsuccessful in searching for the Qin Mausoleum. At the end of the year, members of the Seventh Team of the Southern Command Brigade reported that a large area of land near the village was not lush with crops and the soil was as hard as stone, and we suspected it to be the Qin Mausoleum
After excavation, the first tomb of Duke Qin was gradually discovered. The plan of Qin Gong No.1 Tomb is in the shape of a “middle”, consisting of three parts: the tomb chamber, the west tomb passage, and the east tomb passage. The tomb chamber is rectangular, 59.4 meters long from east to west, 38.45 meters wide from north to south, and 24 meters deep; The eastern tomb passage has a gentle slope shape and is 156.1 meters long; The western tomb passage also has a sloping shape, with a length of 84.5 meters. The total length of the tomb is 300 meters and the total area is 5334 square meters.
