The use of stone carvings in front of Huo Qubing's tomb

1, historical value. Ouyang Xiu's Preface to Historical Records in the Song Dynasty said: "The juxtaposition of husband and wife can correct mistakes with history, so as to pass on the knowledge of later generations." The so-called que, that is, the historical biography is lost; The so-called fallacy means that the historical biography is wrong. It is the historical value of stone carving materials to make up for the lack of history and the absurdity of official history. Common tombstones and epitaphs in historical materials of stone carvings. A tombstone is erected in front of the tomb, and an epitaph is buried in the tomb. The contents are all biographies of the tomb owner. It goes without saying that these biographies are often not seen in history books, or are briefly recorded in history books. As for correcting the mistakes in historical biography, there are also many predecessors' views.

2. Literary value. Ye Yu Shi, Volume 6, The Wind of Monuments: "What is carved on the stone is nothing to worry about. The historical sites in Qin and Han Dynasties, ice rocks and Song Ya are the same. The book Ancient Wen Yuan is mostly taken from epigraphy. In other words, the large-scale system of literary works under the Sui and Tang Dynasties often existed. Try to use the books of Ren Fang and Liu Xie to test their differences, which is clever and specific. " As far as style is concerned, inscriptions cover a wide range, but biographies are still the richest, because tombstones and epitaphs have the largest number, and they are nothing more than biographies for characters. Among them, there are many famous works, which are a treasure house of biographical literature. As for the writers' stories in these tombstones and epitaphs, such as Wang Zhihuan's life story recorded in Wang Zhihuan's epitaph (see "The Epitaph of the Tang Dynasty in Qu's Lu Jing"), it can make up for the regret that the books of the two Tang Dynasties in Wang Zhihuan have not been circulated. At the same time, "Chronicle of Tang Poetry" said, "People who live in Bingzhou and have brothers are all literate and treasure heaven." According to the epitaph, Xian was Huan's cousin and died on February 14th, the first year of Tianbao, at the age of 55. The records of "Xianshi Brothers" and "Tianbao Jianren" in Chronicle of Tang Poetry are not accurate (refer to Cen's On the History of Stone Carvings and Xu Zheng). This kind of stone carving historical materials should be specially hunted by researchers engaged in classical literature.

3. The value of philology and calligraphy. There are various fonts in ancient inscriptions, such as ancient Chinese, seal script, official script, regular script, etc., and a considerable number of other characters have been preserved. On the basis of predecessors, Qin Gong and Liu Daxin compiled Guang Bei Biezi, which contains more than 3,450 inscriptions with 2 1300 repetitions. This is an important material for studying the development and evolution of Chinese characters. As for calligraphy, copying ancient inscriptions is a common method, from Shi Guwen to Han Li, to Wei Bei, to regular script, running script and cursive script. There are many carved calligraphy posts in history, and Rong Geng's Cong Tiemu has a systematic record, mostly copying calligraphy.

4. Confucian classics and religious historical materials. China's Confucian classics have a tradition of carving stones. After the engraving of Xiping Book of Songs in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there are Shi San Book of Songs in Wei Dynasty, Kai Cheng Book of Songs in Tang Dynasty, Shu Book of Songs in the Five Dynasties, Erti Book of Songs in the Northern Song Dynasty, Yushu Book of Songs in the Southern Song Dynasty, Qingshi Book, etc. Now Tang Dynasty and Qingshi Book are well preserved, and the rest remain in the world. There are many achievements in the study of stone classics in past dynasties, which is an interdisciplinary subject between Confucian classics and epigraphy and has always been valued. There are many Buddhist scriptures carved in stone, the most famous of which is Fangshan Stone Sutra in Beijing. From Sui Dynasty to early Qing Dynasty, there were more than 5000 stone carvings and more than 5000 Buddhist scriptures, among which 88 Buddhist scriptures were not collected by other Tibetan scriptures. In addition, there are many inscriptions on these Buddhist scriptures, which are important Buddhist historical materials. The Collection of Fangshan Stone Inscriptions is edited by Jinshi Group of Beijing Library, Stone Inscriptions Group of China Buddhist Library and Cultural Relics Museum, and published by Bibliographic Literature Publishing House.