In April 2018, lightning flashed and thundered, and the gentle Burning Car River surged in torrential rains, while several tall mounds on the riverbank were already in jeopardy. This is no ordinary mound, and under the mound can be buried a large ancient tomb of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty! However, what is unexpected is that when the sealing soil is uncovered, large stones are stacked under the soil layer.
The entire tomb appears to be made of stone. The crevices of the three layers of rock are also filled with a large amount of fine river sand. The four walls of the tomb are stone walls doped with rice paste, and the stone walls and coffins are artificially covered with straw mats and slime. Together, these tight measures form a set of firm barriers, combined to resist the covetous and poisonous hands of tomb robbers.
In the damp earth, a dazzling golden color attracted everyone's attention. Gold has been a symbol of wealth and status since ancient times, and this small gold leaf has been tempered for thousands of years to be as thin as a cicada's wing. However, after removing the surrounding dirt, archaeologists regrettably found traces of tomb robbers! The fine gold leaf in the dirt became more and more abundant, which also proved the nobility of the owner of the tomb. For more than 2,000 years, the hand-hammered lines on the post-gold leaf are presented to the eyes of experts, and these lines depict the appearance of a phoenix soaring.
The image of birds can be seen everywhere in traditional Chinese literature and decoration, and perhaps these phoenix gold leaf is the sustenance of the tomb owner to pray for good luck and well-being.
The dirt at the bottom of the tomb is full of ash marks left by the decay of the wood, but how can there be wood ash under the gold leaf? What followed was another large, well-preserved, well-defined fragment of gold leaf. Under the decaying wood ash, an arc is revealed and closely connected with the gold leaf, and the wood ash and the gold leaf seem to be a pair of difficult brothers!
Animal-patterned gold leaf attached to the utensils may seem accidental, but it is actually inevitable.
As early as 2019 in Luoyang, 8 pieces of strangely shaped gold leaf were unearthed from the Western Han Dynasty tombs.
The gold leaf depicts 6 animals and two figures with different shapes. They are an ornament of a Han Dynasty lacquer.
However, more than 2,000 years later, the stable nature of gold has finally been left over the long years, and the once gorgeous lacquered wood utensils have long since decayed into ashes.
Although we are speechless today to see the true appearance of the gorgeous artifacts, the gold leaf on which the tomb owner inlays it in order to show his noble status has finally become a unique bright color in the endless years.
I am afraid that the owner of the tomb could never have imagined that his elaborate tomb would continue to speed up the culprit of the decay of the burial products!
The boulders in the tombs have created many gaps, and although the craftsmen have filled them with fine sand, they still cannot change the status quo of water seepage. During the rainy season, rainwater seeps through the mud and fine sand into the tomb, eventually causing and accelerating the decay of the artifacts.
I think that the owner of the tomb was bent on keeping his cherished belongings. But they did not try to be self-defeating, but let them decay prematurely.
And his elaborate anti-theft system ultimately failed to resist the greedy heart of the tomb robber.
Curiously, the grave robbers who have painstakingly passed through the layers of anti-theft seem to have been quite hasty.
Could it be that they were cursed for disturbing the peace of the tomb owner?
The clean-up of the tomb continues, and a bright green color is particularly eye-catching in the filling.
This bright flake is precious turquoise, and incredibly, the precious gems appear almost in piles.
And they are most likely also decorative on lacquerware, it seems that the owner of the tomb is really fond of lacquerware.
This lacquerware can be said to be a collection of the top production technology of the society at that time, and if it is not destroyed, it must be a valuable national treasure!
Although there are still some inconspicuous small lacquerware remaining in the tombs, it is precisely because of them. The face of the owner of the tomb gradually became clear.
It should be known that more than 2,000 years ago, lacquerware belonged to the exclusive use of the nobility and was a symbol of its status. Subsequently, several small jade artifacts that survived by chance were unearthed one after another, and most of them were polished smooth, peaceful and warm. Regrettably, however, until the end of the excavation of the tomb, the identity of the owner of the tomb has not been solved. In order to solve this doubt, experts immediately began to excavate the surrounding area, and soon Tombs 54 and 58 surfaced one after another. These two tombs are also graves of stone and sand. Unfortunately, none of them escaped the clutches of the tomb robbers. At this time, near Tomb 53 on the west side of the tomb group, a large remains were found, which is a carriage and horse pit! The car and horse pit is about 27 meters long and about 10 meters wide, and such a huge car and horse burial pit can be described as a rare place in the country!
Sure enough, a large number of gray and white bone remains soon appeared in the pit, and several 10 bones maintained the same shape. The bones were blunt at one end and sharp at the other, neatly packed together, which were the teeth left behind after the decay of the horse's head.
You must know that in the pre-Qin period when productivity was low, horses were extremely valuable strategic assets!
This shows how valuable the identity of the owner of Tomb 53 is! The horses that appear in the burial pit represent the strict etiquette system of more than 2,000 years ago.
Yi Li. It is recorded in the Wang Du that "the Son of Heaven drives six, the princes drive five, and the Qing drive four."
The 4 horses unearthed in the pit represent that the owner of the tomb is a middle-level nobleman of the rank of Qing Dafu.
But the surprise is far from over, and a familiar green under the filling of the soil suggests that the complete horse bone is about to appear.
However, the result was unexpected, the horse's body had not yet surfaced, could it be that only the horse's head was buried with the owner of the tomb?
It's chilling to think about. Subsequently, 9 horse heads were unearthed in the pit.
The owner of the tomb did not hesitate to kill 13 horses to bury himself, which was tantamount to an act of showing off his wealth in ancient times!
The carriage and horse pit is a burial pit for the ancient high-ranking nobles to bury the carriage and horse, since the war horse has appeared, will the appearance of the chariot be far away? However, the much-anticipated chariot eventually disappeared without a trace, and only some strange strips appeared at the bottom of the tomb.
These traces resemble tree roots entrenched at the bottom of the pit, which have long since merged with the soil.
It is speculated that this is most likely the reins used to control the carriage!
During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, cavalry warfare was not yet widespread, and the strongest combat effectiveness was still the chariot, which would cause heavy casualties to the enemy once it rushed into the enemy's position.
And the number of chariots is often closely related to the national strength of a country, since it is a chariot, why has it not appeared for a long time?
The burial ceremony of the owner of the tomb is special, and the various contradictory practices in this tomb are also puzzling.
In the sand in the northeast corner of Tomb 53, experts found the usual green color, which was still full of anticipation, although it was buried deep under the boulder. Regrettably, there are two deep cracks in this bronze goblet. Not only that, but Go has already broken. This bronze ge is a typical early Spring and Autumn weapon, but the bronze ge does not have any inscriptions on the seal about the identity of the owner of the tomb, it seems that the owner of tomb No. 53 is not only a nobleman, but also a brave and warlike general!
At this time, a terrible scene appeared on the second platform of the tomb, and a huge robber hole hung above the tomb wall!
Inside the cave are not only wooden brackets, but also used mineral water bottles and a variety of modern tomb robbery tools.
Obviously, the greedy thieves have never stopped, and their traces spanned two thousand years and still have not stopped. Fortunately, the Emperor Did Not Live Up to the Hardships, and this time the Goddess of Luck visited here smoothly.
The refreshing green color appeared again in the dirt, and it was a copper spear. It has a slender body, double edges and sharp edges, and has smooth lines. It is gratifying that due to the bronze wrapping, the wood in the copper spear has not decayed, but the fracture of the wooden handle is very strange. This is the custom of destroying instruments and burying uniquely in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the ancients believed that all things have animism, and only by damaging weapons can the soul of the artifact enter another world.
The purpose of the destruction of the bronze goat is also to allow the deceased to continue to use these weapons in another world, to continue the will of the deceased to fight.
In addition to the copper spear, the appearance of a large number of arrow clusters has shocked the experts even more, and these seemingly identical arrow clusters are actually very mysterious! Among them, the wings are narrow and short. Less lethal. Due to their slender size and strong lethality, the three-sided arrow cluster gradually became the mainstream long-range killing weapon in the late Warring States period. Over time, the three-edged cluster swept all over the country and became the standard for soldiers and soldiers to fight in the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period.
On a mountain in the south of Ye County, the earth dragon on the ridge is still clearly visible. These earth dragons are made up of fragmented stones and dirt that accumulate together, which is a section of the ancient city wall. Although it has gone through thousands of years of wind and frost, it can still be faintly identified.
The interior of the earth dragon is a huge stone made of local materials, and their history is also very long, almost the same age as the burning car river tomb. Spanning 25 counties and stretching for nearly 500 kilometers, Tulong is not only the border of the southern part of the Chu State, but also the Great Wall in the earliest sense of China. The Great Wall of Chu guards the necessary places between the Chu State and the Central Plains, and it is also one of the strategic choke points of communication between the Central Plains countries going south. Book of Han. The Geographical Chronicle records that "Chuye Gongyi, there is the Great Wall, known as FangCheng. "Yeyi is Ye County. However, as a military and political yeyi, it resembled an isolated city, alone outside the encirclement of the Great Wall.
This also means that in the event of war, Ye Yi is the most direct and solid line of defense outside the Great Wall of Chu! As an important town in the northern Xinjiang of the Chu State, the importance of YeYi is self-evident. Looking back at the various signs of Tomb No. 53, could it be that the tomb is buried by Ye Gongshen Zhuliang? Shen Zhuliang was ye Yi's first consul, a military man and politician. Not only that, he also led troops to quell the civil unrest in Chu, and also served as the prime minister of the Chu state. And every Ye Gong who had been sealed here was always exhausted and always on the lookout for the enemy's attack. Through the study of the tomb shape system and the number of stones, experts have made reasonable speculations about Tomb 53 in combination with reality.
They believe that the owner of Tomb No. 53 may be a certain generation of Ye Gong who was sealed in Ye Yi, although its identity has been lost! Although the successive Ye Gongs were in different eras, the opponents they faced were always the same! As early as 1986, experts found a group of ancient tombs from the Spring and Autumn Period in Xuejia Village near Ye County. Not only were 5 bronze dings and 6 bronze guises unearthed in the tomb, but also exquisite and sharp bronze swords were unearthed!
The owner of Tomb No. 1 is holding a delicate jade in his hand, and the green and white jade is carved into an eagle. And the owner of this tomb is the king of Ying Guo! Ying Guo was one of the princely states of the Zhou Dynasty. He shouldered the mission of garrisoning southern Xinjiang and defending against Jingchu. The Ying state was one of the many opponents of Ye Gong and the southern Chu state. The capital of Yingguo was outside the gates of the four sides of the city, east, west, south, and north, and a city gate was added, and the city gate was named Wangchu. The direction is directed at Ye Yi.
For Ye Gong, the Ying Kingdom and the Princely States of Zhu Ji in the Hanyang Valley were the opponents he would face! From the Spring and Autumn Period to the Warring States, the State of Chu defeated the attacks of more than 60 Princely States surnamed Ji, and at the same time plundered large tracts of land from these princely states. It was in the course of confrontation with one powerful opponent after another that the Chu state finally changed into a powerful country with great inclusion!