In March 1986, an archaeological team drilled a 16-meter-deep burrow on the Baoshan Dazuka in Jingmen City, and the dirt they brought with them was mixed with some brand-new bamboo mat fragments. When the team members were carefully analyzing the soil samples brought up, suddenly, a rumbling sound came from the cave under their feet, like a thousand horses galloping, straight from the ground to the ground.
Ōtsuka Oshōsan
Everyone was horrified, hurriedly and quickly retreated, and what was even more frightening was that a smoking team member inexplicably formed a fire ball on his face, and then this fire quickly turned into a line of fire and reflected into the ground.
The incident happened in an instant, the team members were stunned by this sudden scene, and after the reaction, they quickly sealed the opening with a large piece of dirt, the fire was finally extinguished, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, fortunately, the team member only burned his eyebrows.
The leader of the team, Li Zhaohua, was extremely excited, he thought that this was the underground biogas, and there was biogas that proved that the underground space was sealed, which meant that the tomb was very likely to be well preserved, so the previously discovered robbery cave was not a worry.
Li Zhaohua soon proposed excavations to Liu Zuxin, director of the Jingmen Museum.
"Are you sure the tomb hasn't been stolen?" Liu Zuxin asked.
"No," Li Zhaohua said
"Excavation requires such a large amount of money, if you make a mistake, we will not be able to account for it in the future," Liu Zuxin said of his concerns.
"Rest assured, there will definitely be a harvest," Li Zhaohua repeatedly assured.
With flowing copper cup
Baoshan Otsuka was not originally intended to be excavated, but on February 28, 1986, the Jingsha Railway was planned, and Baoshan Otsuka was just blocking the necessary road.
According to local legend, this mound is the tomb of Shen Baoxu in history, and there are houses in the tomb, and there are many bricks and stones!
In the Spring and Autumn Period in which Bao Xu lived, the tomb form was mostly an earthen pit tomb, how could there be masonry? Legends must be false. If it were not for Shen Baoxu, judging from the remnants of the sealed soil with a diameter of 54 meters and a height of 6 meters, it must be a princely tomb, then who would he be?
As a result, the early exploration work fell on the shoulders of the Jingmen Museum.
Liu Zuxin's concern is not unreasonable, excavating such a large tomb, the cost of manpower, material and financial resources is huge, China's ten tombs and nine empty, if it has been stolen, there is no value of excavation, directly bulldoze the big tomb can be.
After a long period of repeated thinking, Liu Zuxin finally submitted an application for excavation to his superiors. But he also knew that before the moment he saw the rafters, any guarantee would be unexpected, and now he could only gamble.
Bird double cup
In June 1986, Baoshan Otsuka was officially excavated, due to the poor mechanical conditions at that time, coupled with the special needs of archaeology, sealing soil and filling soil can only rely on human shoulders, villagers in many villages near Baoshan have invested in this ancient tomb excavation, plus the lively villagers, there are tens of thousands of people, the scene is unprecedented.
After the sealing mound was removed, the opening of the tomb was exposed to people, it was 34 meters long and 32 meters wide, and the tomb passage was 19 meters long and 10.3 meters wide, with an area of nearly 1300 square meters.
While everyone was excited about such a tomb, Li Zhaohua was worried about two things.
First, in the stage of cleaning up the tomb, the tomb is always shrouded in a layer of mysterious white fog. What are these gases? Is it biogas again? But what puzzled him was where so much biogas came from in a tomb?
Thinking about it, Li Zhaohua believes that there is only one possibility, that is, there are a large number of martyrs buried in the tomb
Another worry is that there is a robbery cave that has been extending downward with the cleaning, which is already 8 meters away from the surface, but it is still deep, at this time, Li Zhaohua's heart is nervous, is there an error in the judgment of the tomb before? The pledges made before seem like a joke.
But there was no turning back from the bow, and now there was no choice but to continue digging downwards.
When the cleaning reached 15 meters deep into the grave, a miracle occurred, the robbery suddenly stopped, Li Zhaoxin's hanging heart finally let go, and the scene was full of cheers.
At this time, he carefully found that there were many directions in this robbery cave, and at the bend of the robbery cave, he found bronze shovels and tomb robbery tools such as long-decayed hemp ropes, and there was also a human skeleton, which was obviously a tomb robber.
The strange cave and the dead tomb robbers cast an even more mysterious shadow over the tomb. According to expert analysis, the tomb robbery occurred shortly after burial, the tomb robber was not skilled, and repeatedly doubted the correctness of the direction of the robbery cave, so the direction of excavation was adjusted many times underground, and the result was that the robbery hole was too tortuous, which was not conducive to ventilation, and the tomb robber suffocated inside.
On the morning of January 11, 1987, after going 18 meters underground, the rafters finally revealed the true face of Lushan, which was close to a square and about 7 meters long, at this time the bamboo mats covered on the rafters were as new as new in color and had good toughness, and everything seemed to happen not long ago.
The mayor is coming! The governor is coming! Experts in all fields are here! The scene was crowded, and everyone had only one purpose, to witness the freeze-frame moment of the burial 2300 years ago.
The lid of the chamber was opened in the eyes of everyone, and the 50 square meters of the rafter room under the cover was divided into 5 spaces, the middle of which was the coffin chamber, which was the resting place of the tomb owner, and the four sub-rooms around it were used to store burial items.
The cover of the sub-chamber was opened, and it was filled with a large amount of water, at which point Li Zhaohua suddenly solved a mystery in his mind, and the fog in the tomb during the excavation was actually the water vapor emitted from the tomb.
After a week of cleaning, more than 3,000 artifacts were excavated from the tomb, including 19 sets of national first-class cultural relics, and 448 bamboo janes were excavated, creating a number of firsts in China.
The most peculiar thing is the excavation of China's earliest folding bed, the folding bed is all wooden, there is no nail, all with the bite between the mortise and mortise structure, unfolded about 2 meters, only 60 centimeters after folding, the wisdom of the ancients is breathtaking.
Rollaway bed
There is also the earliest brush with sleeve in China. The earliest lacquer-painted figure painting in China: Welcome. Travel Map", which has an important position in the history of Chinese art. The earliest legal documents unearthed in China: the earliest excavated written materials on criminal law discovered so far.
After the inner coffin was opened, there was a human skeleton, the clothes on the body had long been decayed, and there were jade bi, jade rings and other artifacts buried close to the body, and it was also confirmed that the owner of the tomb was not the legendary Shen Baoxu, but zuo Yin Shaotuo, the third figure in the Chu State, who was in charge of the national judiciary. Due to the lack of historical data, it is impossible to know the details of his life.
Baoshan Otsuka was later listed as the third largest archaeological find in China.