In 1992, the cultural relics protection department of Baoji City, Shaanxi Province, when conducting archaeological exploration work on Yimenbao Village, found a surprising scene, when a shovel was shoveled, it was not ordinary mud, but similar to blood-red cinnabar, and what made experts even more strange was that this ancient tomb that guessed to be luxurious was only 3 square meters after opening, which was really shabby to a certain extent.
What archaeologists can't understand is that although the tomb is not large and looks bland, in the subsequent archaeological excavations, there are a wealth of funerary products, among which the standard and scale of gold and jade are not inferior to the tombs of the monarch, and even three gold-handled iron swords with exquisite workmanship.
According to past practices and experience, such a small tomb will not have too many funerary products, but this time it completely broke the expert's cognition, so what is the origin of this tomb?
Image: Screenshot of the humble data of the burial chamber specifications
First, the astonishing discovery in the narrow burial chamber
1. Sudden surprise
In the subsequent exploration, experts conducted scientific tests on the surface of the tomb, and found that the tomb was indeed strange, because the thickness of cinnabar alone was more than 5 centimeters.
According to common sense, the substance of cinnabar in ancient times belonged to the "standard" of high-standard tombs, generally there are tombs where cinnabar appears, and the identity of the owner of the tomb is correspondingly very high. The tombs of the general nobles found in Shaanxi generally use cinnabar at about 2 centimeters, and this thickness is 5 centimeters, which is very little.
Of course, it is not completely absent, for example, in the "Tomb no. 1 of the Duke of Qin" that has caused a sensation in the national archaeological community, the thickness of the cinnabar used is between 5 cm and 10 cm, but compared with this 3-square-meter "small tomb", the owner of the tomb of the "Tomb no. 1 of the Qin Gong", but the fourteenth generation of the qin dynasty in the history of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Jinggong, he ruled the northwest for more than 40 years, and the area of the mausoleum was as high as 5,000 square meters.
On the one hand, it is cinnabar up to 5 centimeters thick, and on the other hand, it is a small ancient tomb of only 3 square meters, what is the mystery in this?
Image: Screenshot of scientific testing data on the surface by experts
Just when the experts were completely confused, when some archaeologists were cleaning the tomb, they accidentally found a red, yellow, and green thing on the surface, which looked like a part of an ancient weapon from a distance.
After careful excavation, it turned out to be the hilt of a sword, made of gold throughout, and inlaid with valuable turquoise and beads.
Here to popularize a little knowledge for everyone, the so-called "beads", in fact, is an ancient ornament, the main raw materials are agate and purple hydrangea, the finished product presents a translucent state, generally round-based, in ancient times it was generally rich or powerful people to own and use, and above the hilt of the sword is an iron blade, because of the age, has been corroded rusty.
Image: Screenshot of rusty blade data
2, bigger surprises
Judging from the previous archaeological experience, China only began to appear artificial iron smelting technology from the Western Zhou Dynasty and the early Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and the various signs of this ancient tomb show that it is most likely from the Spring and Autumn Period. In the eyes of experts, although this iron sword has been broken, it is an "artifact" with important archaeological significance, and its value can be much more precious than gold.
In fact, everyone present did not know that the surprise brought by this small tomb was far more than that, in the later excavation work, two similar gold-handled iron swords were unearthed, as well as a large number of various gold and silverware, jade, etc. After statistics, the total number of cultural relics unearthed was more than 100 pieces.
It is worth mentioning that in this small tomb of 3 square meters, as much as 6 kilograms of gold alone was unearthed, which was the most excavated in the Spring and Autumn Tomb Group of the Central Plains at that time, and the conservative estimated value was at the level of 100 million yuan.
Image: Screenshot of unearthed gold and silver and jade materials
Second, the bold speculation of ancient tombs
1. The doubts of experts
From the investigation of the scene, it can be found that there is no obvious theft hole in the entire tomb, and the original funerary goods are almost no loss, which shows that this mysterious tomb did not have tomb robbers.
Then the question arises, why does the coffin have no trace of being used? The remains of the owner of the tomb are not among them, where did they go? At this time, some experts asked: Since the thickness of cinnabar is so similar to the "Tomb No. 1 of Qin Gong", is there any connection between the two?
Judging from the excavated cultural relics, the funerary items in this mysterious small tomb are also similar to the "Tomb no. 1 of The Duke of Qin" to a certain extent, which is obviously a craft belonging to the same era, and there is no difference in the cultural background. In other words, could the owner of this small tomb be a member of the royal family of the former Qin State?
Photo: Screenshot of archaeologists surveying data at the site
2. Several different statements
Considering that as many as 247 robbery holes were found in the "Tomb no. 1 of Qin Gong", which almost became a "small warehouse" for tomb robbers, completely as free as going home, so experts made bold speculations based on empirical evidence, and after discussion, two opinions were formed.
First, this tomb is actually a fake tomb deliberately made by tomb robbers in order to store the stolen items, and the cultural relics unearthed in the tomb are also from the tomb of Qin Jinggong, but later for some reasons, these tomb robbers failed to come back and transfer the buried treasures.
Second, although the tomb is small, it is a real ancient tomb, but although the owner of the tomb has a prominent position, he was ultimately unable to be buried for unknown reasons.
Image: Screenshot of the Humble Tomb data
The first speculation after careful consideration, there is a very obvious hard wound, since it is the tomb robber temporary storage of cultural relics and excavation, why spend time and effort to engage in 5 cm thick cinnabar paving? This is clearly unreasonable. Later, it was speculated that the remains of the owner of the tomb should be very precious, even to a certain extent exceeding the total value of the funerary items in the burial chamber.
But Dahui believes that since the tomb robbers have come to steal the treasure, how can they dislike the treasure in the tomb? Moreover, this inference cannot be found in the historical data, and what kind of person can be as prominent as the Jinggong identity of Great Qin? In that era, cinnabar was not something that ordinary people could afford.
Although to this day, experts have still not been able to clearly find the true identity of the tomb owner, but a large number of cultural relics excavated from the narrow burial chamber are precious, to a certain extent, it also makes up for the regret of the large loss of cultural relics in the "Tomb no. 1 of The Qin Gong".
Image: Screenshot of tomb data of Qin Gong No. 1
However, at present, it seems that finding the true identity of the owner of the tomb will become a major puzzle in the archaeological community in a short period of time.
Article author: Dahui
The entire graphic was produced by the team of the Big Cafe Say History Studio!