Being one of Le kings who were buried in Lam Son forest, Le Nhan Tong king's tomb is still not define where it is up to now.
Being one of Le kings who were buried in Lam Son forest, Le Nhan Tong king's tomb is still not define where it is up to now.
In early 20
th century, French scientists as: Gaspardone and Louis Bezacier intersested in exploring and studying of location of Le Nhan Tong king's tomb which haven't any vestiges left. Fortunately, in Louis Bezacier's exploration, he was showed and guided by local residents to Luong hill (Dao Xa village), far from Lam Kinh relic centre about 1km in the Northeast.. . Althought he didn't find any vestige he had maintained that the Le Nhan Tong king's tomb just had been located in this area.
In the process of studying archaeology, defining the location of the Le Nhan Tong king's tomb is important and urgent in restoring system of royal tombs of Restored Le dynasty's kings, queens as well as rebuilding and restoring the Lam Kinh relic group (second capital of Le dynasty). While studying and exploring, we thought that system of Le kings's tombs at the Lam Kinh relic were located into rows of Chieu-Muc (rows of left-right) in which the Le Thai To's tomb (first king of Le dynasty) was standard. That's why Muc Lang (Le Nhan Tong king's tomb) must be in the West. Base on that judgement, we carried out a field examination and chose Xa Cu hill to explore and find the Le Nhan Tong king's tomb because Xa Cu hill area is in the West of the Lam Kinh relic centre and its behind is the Le Hien Tong king's tomb. However, result of this exploration was only some building materials, architectural decorations, there wasn't any vestige of tomb. So the jottings in historical documents of Muc Lang (the Le Nhan Tong king's tomb) still be unknow and our judgements of locating into Chieu-Muc (rows of left-right) infact still be interprested too.
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Together to exploration at Xa Cu hill, we also carried out an exploration at Luong hill. In general, the Luong hill is a good position for locating the royal tombs, too. In this exploration, we dicovered bricks in the shape of section of a pumelo especially compoud pieces which were usually used to build sepulchral vault. So, results of this exploration as well as ethnological documents showed the Le Nhan Tong king's tomb could be located in Luong hill. However, it seems be needed to fill up more evidences (picture)
On October 2004, during dredging and repairing Ho Chi Minh road (road part pass the Lam Kinh relic area (Tho Xuan district, Thanh Hoa province)), workers discovered a turtle in the deepness 0.7m on top of Luong hill. The turtle was small, white colour without head (maybe it's missing), 4 toenails, mesuring: 1.05m x 0.9m and with a groove on its back where is put in stele with length: 46cm, large: 12,5cm, deep: 15cm. Base on the mesurement of turtle, we could define that this stele would be small and the same size with stele of the Le Thai Tong king's tomb. Why the turtle head missing was because the place where the turtle was discovered, previously belong to Phu Lam village but according to legend it belong to Lam Son village. That's why, in early 20th century, residents of Phu Lam village distroyed and threw it in the Den lake (Phu Lam lake).
Discovering a stone turtle (support stele), one more time, gave us suppositions of the Le Nhan Tong king's tomb could be located in Luong hill. Moreover, it also showed system of royal tombs at the Lam Kinh relic could be arranged into the rows Chieu-Muc, excepted the Le Nhan Tong king's tomb because he had been killed and usurped the throne by Nghi Dan (his elder brother).