Unearthed: A grandma's grief

In the summer of AD 608,9-year-old Li Jingxun set out with her grandmother, Yang Lihua, for a seasonal retreat at Fenyang Palace in present-day Shanxi province. What should have been a fun escape ended in tragedy: the young girl fell suddenly ill and died, her condition unrecorded in historical accounts.

Her body was returned to Daxing, the Sui capital — now Xi'an — where she was laid to rest. Overwhelmed by grief, Yang, a prominent member of the Sui Dynasty (581-618) royal family, resolved to care for her granddaughter in death as she had in life. She assembled an extraordinary burial: ceramics, jewelry, glassware, gold and silver ornaments, and an array of pottery figurines arranged within and around a finely constructed stone coffin.

Yang went further. Defying burial protocols, she had the tomb built within the Wanshan Monastery, close to the imperial palace complex. She also ordered the construction of a multi-storied pagoda in traditional Chinese style at the site, reflecting the prominence of Buddhism during the Sui era. On the sarcophagus lid, she had four characters engraved — kai zhe ji si, meaning "whoever opens this shall die" — a warning meant to protect the grave from disturbance.

Yang died a year later. Over time, the pagoda vanished, its existence preserved only in the tomb's epitaph. For more than 1,300 years, the grave remained sealed and undisturbed, until 1957, when archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences rediscovered it by chance.

What they found was remarkable: a tomb intact, its treasures undisturbed, and unusually well-documented. The burial's scale and layout suggested a status higher than many Sui tombs known at the time. Crucially, the identity of its occupant and the date of burial were clearly recorded — a rarity that offered scholars a precise window into the period.

More than 240 sets of artifacts were excavated. Many are held by the National Museum of China in Beijing, where some feature in long-term displays. Among them is a striking gold necklace set with pearls, rubies and blue gemstones which was once worn by Li and has been on display at the Ancient China exhibition hall.

For the first time, objects from the same tomb have been brought together in a special exhibition, Discoveries at Li Jingxun's Tomb, running through Oct 8.

Zhao Yuliang, the exhibition's curator, says "more than 50 objects on show have been restored" and along with dozens of artifacts loaned from other museums, will provide information on Li "as comprehensively as possible".

The exhibition is layered and wide-ranging. Jewelry enthusiasts will be drawn to the intricacy of Li's personal ornaments; others may linger over celadon and white porcelain, or the inscriptions carved into stone tablets. Some visitors may even find connections to popular culture — the story of the Chinese martial arts manhua (graphic story) biaoren (Blades of the Guardians) by Xu Xianzhe unfolding around the same historical moment.

For Qi Dongfang, a professor at the School of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University, the tomb's importance lies in its completeness. The objects, he says, are "representative in every social, economic, and cultural aspect" of the Sui Dynasty, a pivotal period bridging the fractured Northern Dynasties (439-581) and the rise of the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

Qi, with expertise in Sui and Tang archaeology, specializes in the study of ancient wares of glass, gold and silver. He cites Li's gold hairpin with a moth, the first object on display at the exhibition, as an example of Sui's superb workmanship and artistry.