According to the "Encyclopedia of China Archaeology", archaeology is a science based on the physical materials left by ancient human beings through various activities to study the history of ancient human society. Originated in the Northern Song Dynasty, the "Epigraphy" with a certain academic system was more developed in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD), and eventually formed the predecessor of Chinese archaeology.
Grave robbery is on the rise
Unlike the archaeological act of studying the ancient history of mankind, tomb robbery refers to the act of entering a mausoleum that is not part of one's own property in an illegal way, taking out the items in it and using it for one's own purposes.
Tomb robbery is generally accompanied by the irreparable destruction of ancient tombs, and the phenomenon of conscious tomb destruction can already be seen in Neolithic data.
In the Spring and Autumn Period, after the social "bad etiquette and happy collapse", due to the rise of the wind of thick burial, tomb robbery was becoming more and more prevalent.
In order to prevent the entry of tomb robbers, the ancients set up a large number of traps in their tombs to guard against them. Nevertheless, some highly skilled grave robbers can easily get their hands on it.
Historically, many tombs have been patronized by tomb robbers, but one tomb has not been damaged for thousands of years.
This tomb is located in Xiangyang, and it is still impossible to know the true identity of its tomb owner, but according to the size of the tomb and the burial items of the tomb owner, it can be preliminarily inferred that this is an emperor's mausoleum.
As we all know, the tombs of emperors are large in scale and costly. Even emperors known for their frugality, such as Emperor Wen of Han, who pioneered the rule of Wenjing during the Western Han Dynasty, were also the same.
In the "Records of History", it is said that when Emperor Wen built the Baling Tomb, he used clay ware, not gold, silver, copper and tin as ornaments. In order to be frugal and not to disturb the people. But even so, the construction of Baling still consumed one-third of the country's fiscal revenue that year.
It is enough to see that the scale of the imperial tomb is extremely grand, and the tomb robbers naturally take this as the first.
Why it became "China's first murderous tomb"
This tomb, whose identity is not yet known, was dug up by a group of workers during construction in Xiangyang, Hubei Province. At that time, the workers found a large stone, but when they looked closely, they could find that the stone was engraved with words, which was obviously traced by hand polishing.
The workers immediately felt that the stone was very unusual, so they quickly reported it to the local cultural relics department. After the experts arrived at the scene, after some investigation, it was finally confirmed that there was an ancient tomb around it, and excavations began as a result.
In the end, it was found that there were more than 200 robbery holes in this ancient tomb, which meant that there were more than one batch of tomb robbers before.
The experts led the team to continue digging down, and found eighty bodies. Judging from the posture of these remains, it can be seen that they are not the owners of the tomb, and their costumes are different, and they are tomb robbers of different dynasties.
So why did these 80 tomb robbers die tragically in the tomb, and what happened to them in the tomb?
As mentioned earlier, in order to prevent tomb theft, when there is a wind of tomb robbery, anti-theft technology is already available. However, most of the anti-theft methods are set up by setting up mechanisms, such as poisonous arrows and poisonous gas. But these anti-theft methods have not been able to prevent all tomb robbers.
The 80 people who died in this tomb can see that the design of this ancient tomb is extremely unique, and the mechanisms inside are even more numerous.
"Advanced" anti-theft technology
After investigation by archaeologists, it was found that there were many empty areas around the tomb wall of this ancient tomb. The anti-theft method of this tomb uses quicksand technology, the so-called quicksand technology is that when the tomb robbers hit the hole to a certain depth, the surrounding sand will bury it instantly.
And in these quicksand, there are also a large number of sharp small stones, so even if the tomb robber successfully enters the tomb, but the sand blocks the opening of the cave, and after the air in the tomb is consumed, the tomb robber will soon suffocate and die.
Therefore, it can be seen that these eighty tomb robbers were also attracted by the huge structure of this ancient tomb, but because of the lack of in-depth understanding, they ignored the danger of this ancient tomb, resulting in the eventual burial here, and even lost their lives.
It is precisely this setting that makes it possible that the cultural relics here have never been taken out. Although tomb robbery accidents have often been encountered in previous archaeological publications, experts say that tombs with a large number of bones like this are the first to be found. Therefore, in the archaeological community, this tomb is known as "China's first murderous tomb".
Finally, after studying 80 corpses, experts also found that the time of death of these 80 corpses was very different, and the earliest and the latest died were thousands of years apart.
This also proves that no one has been able to conquer this tomb for thousands of years.
brief summary
It can be seen that although modern science and technology has been very advanced, we cannot ignore the wisdom of the ancients, and there are still many things worth learning.
References: Encyclopedia of China, Archaeology, History