"The First Grave"
It is said that tomb robbery is a "technical work", in fact, tomb anti-theft has higher technical requirements.
In 2005, an ancient tomb excavated from Guozhuang Village in Shangcai County, Henan Province, a 2,000-year-old tomb, had relied on superb anti-theft means to make a large number of tomb robbers in the past dynasties come and go, and folded here.
When archaeologists excavated the tomb, more than 120 caves of various sizes and the remains of more than 80 tomb robbers were found.
What kind of tomb is this?
Who is the owner of its tomb?
Mysterious thousand-year-old tomb
The Spring Festival of 2005 is approaching, the New Year in Guozhuang Village, Shangcai County, Henan Province, is full of flavor, everyone is in the joy of the upcoming New Year, and many families can't wait to take out the firecracker salute flowers they have purchased long ago and start celebrating in advance.
In the midst of the crackling of firecrackers, the villagers celebrating the festival suddenly heard an unusual explosion. The sound was so loud that even the sound of firecrackers being fired in the village could not completely cover the explosion, and the ground was shaken slightly, which also frightened many villagers.
Everyone didn't care about setting off firecrackers, so they walked out of the house and followed the direction where the sound had just come from. The sight that appeared in front of them made everyone take a breath of cool air. The smoke from the explosion here has not completely dissipated, but there is a large hole in the ground, and it is pitch black and bottomless.
The villagers looked around and did not see the unfamiliar faces, and it was obvious that the person who had made the big hole had realized that something was wrong and fled. As soon as the villagers looked at the hole, they knew that it was broken, and someone was probably running to rob the tomb. This is actually not the first time that someone has come to rob the tomb, so the villagers are calmer and quickly call the police.
At the same time as the police arrived, they also informed the local antiquities department, and an archaeological team also arrived at the scene. When they saw the dark opening, they were sure that it was a burglary hole, and then, with the assistance of the police, they protected the vicinity for a preliminary inspection.
The archaeologists found that there are more than one robbery cave here, some large and some small, scattered here, some of the dirt is still very fresh, it seems that not long ago there were tomb robbers to patronize. Some of them look very old, as if they were laid a long, long time ago.
Seeing this, the mood of the archaeologists has become very heavy. With such a dense cavern, it is almost certain that the tomb buried below has been emptied. Not only are valuable artifacts lost, but it is even possible that the entire tomb has been destroyed.
The archaeological team did not dare to delay any longer and rushed to apply for protective excavations.
After the excavations officially began, the archaeologists noticed something strange.
Before the excavation officially began, they conducted a preliminary investigation of the tomb and found that the scale of the tomb was unexpectedly large, and it was likely to be a high-grade tomb, in which the burial was by no means ordinary people. It is not surprising to think about it carefully, what can attract so many tomb robbers to try is certainly not an ordinary tomb.
Soon after the excavations began, workers involved in the construction at the site came to the archaeologists and said, "What is dug out below is not soil, it is sand." ”
This surprised the archaeologists. Because the local soil layer does not contain yellow sand, sand can be dug out from here, which means that the sand is transported from somewhere else.
Under the attention of the archaeologists, the workers continued to dig down, and finally dug out a large bunker more than ten meters deep, which was unexpected by all the archaeological team members. According to their previous experience, ancient tombs were generally buried using "five-flowered soil", and it is really rare to use so much sand like this.
Just because it's rare doesn't mean it doesn't. Soon, after consulting various materials, the archaeologists found relevant records about this kind of tomb, and it turned out that this relatively special tomb was called "Jisha Tomb".
"Sand Tomb"
The "sand tomb", as the name suggests, is to prepare a lot of sand. This is a common tomb system used by nobles in ancient times, and those princes and nobles will use this kind of tomb in order to protect their large tombs, funerary products and remains.
It is said that all the sand used to fill the burial chamber is fine sand, and these fine sands are not dug up and put into use, they will first be fried by craftsmen with fire, remove all the water vapor in them, and then fill the fine sand into the rafter chamber, and then fill the soil to tame the four walls.
These fine sands after being fried are drier and more fluid, and once a tomb robber forcibly excavates the robbery hole and enters the tomb, the fine sand around it will gush towards the robbery hole like running water until the robbery hole is completely blocked. If the tomb robber is unlucky enough not to notice this, he will not even have the opportunity to escape, and will be directly trapped in the tomb chamber and become the "funerary product" of the tomb owner.
Such sand tombs were mainly popular in the Warring States to the early Western Han Dynasty, and the amount of engineering was very large, and the general nobles could not afford to use them. In addition, when people filled the sand at that time, they would also load a lot of stones into the sand, so that when the sand came like flowing water, it would bring the stones together, which could not only block the robbery hole, but even directly kill the tomb robber.
Therefore, many tomb robbers regard this kind of sand tomb as a "murderous tomb", and if the ability is not enough, it is undoubtedly to send death to excavate such a tomb.
Thinking of this, the archaeologists are already very sure that the owner of this tomb must be unusual, at least a high-status nobleman, and his funerary products must be numerous, that is, I don't know how much is left in the tomb after being patronized by generations of tomb robbers.
With the deepening of excavations, the overall outline of this ancient tomb gradually appeared in front of the archaeological team. The tomb as a whole presents a shape of an eastward carapace, the tomb is built by rammed tombs, after 2,000 years of erosion, archaeologists excavated, the seal soil is still 2 meters thick.
Underneath the sealing layer is a burial chamber about 15 meters long from east to west and about 17 meters wide from north to south, which is also filled with a large amount of fine sand under the rammed earth layer. During the excavation, the archaeological team will find several huge stones from time to time, the large ones can weigh 150 kilograms, and even the small ones weigh dozens of pounds.
Interestingly, these stones are not only different in size, but even the texture of the stones is not very different, there are many types, probably from different places.
In addition, during the excavation process, the archaeological team also excavated many things that were impossible in the Warring States period, such as copper coins from later generations, as well as nylon bags and plastic bottles, and even found more than 80 remains wearing clothes from different periods.
Obviously, many tomb robbers of the dynasty have fought the idea of this ancient tomb, and not all tomb robbers can come and go and leave safely. The most rampant of these dates should be the Han Dynasty, because the archaeological team found 7 Han Dynasty robbery caves on the east side of the tomb.
In those days, many armies often chose to rob tombs in order to raise salaries. However, what makes the archaeologists breathe a sigh of relief is that the caves of these tomb robbers are basically in the east of the tomb, and the west should not have been stolen and excavated.
At a depth of 20 meters, the archaeological team found two wooden coffins. But it was empty, and there were a few small utensils around it. Archaeologists speculate that these two wooden coffins are used to confuse tomb robbers, making them think that this is the bottom of the tomb, so they will not continue to dig down, so as to protect the real owner of the tomb.
When archaeologists bypassed the coffin and continued to dig down, they accidentally dug out a lot of red things.
Chu Wangsun?
After collecting and examining, the archaeologists found that the red things were some patterns, which were popular during the Warring States period, and the nobles at that time liked to prepare such patterns on their coffins.
In addition, the archaeological team also found a lot of gold leaf in the sand. You know, this is a very precious thing, and such a discovery has excited the archaeologists. Subsequently, the archaeological team finally found the real coffin of the tomb owner.
Although it has been visited many times by tomb robbers, there are still many valuable bronzes, jade and gold leaf and other precious cultural relics of thousands of years in the tomb. One of the most special artifacts is a circular bronze vessel called the Bath, which is rare in the north, mainly used in the south.
Because of the hot weather in the south, people need to bathe frequently, and ordinary people's homes use pottery or crock pots to hold water, and only noble families can use such bronze baths as bath utensils, which shows the extraordinary identity of the tomb owner.
In the main coffin room, archaeologists found an extremely precious bronze sword with a jade handle, and buried the remains of 13 female mourners between the ages of 20 and 30 near the main coffin. They were probably the maids or concubines of the tomb owner.
It is just that there are two holes chiseled on each side of the main coffin lid, which should be left by tomb robbers in the Han Dynasty. When the archaeologists opened the main coffin, only half of the skull remained of the owner of the tomb, and the other remains disappeared, most likely by the tomb robbers at that time.
This makes it difficult for archaeologists to speculate on the identity of the tomb owner. Fortunately, the teeth on the skull are relatively intact, and it can be seen that the degree of wear and tear is not serious, indicating that the owner of the tomb was not very old when he died.
Prior to this, 5 of the thousands of bronzes excavated by the archaeological team were Da Ding, but experts speculated that there should have been 7 such Da Ding, but only two of them were stolen. In the Warring States period, only the Tianzi could use the Nine Dings, and there could be 7 Dings, which showed that the owner of the tomb was at least a member of the royal family.
In addition, archaeologists have also found that the tomb has similarities with the tomb of the Prince of Chu excavated in 1978 in Huaichuan, Henan, and even the pattern on the gold leaf excavated before is exactly the same as the decorative pattern in the tomb of prince Huaichuan.
Archaeologists judged that the owner of the tomb who died young should be the most senior nobleman in the Chu State from the late Spring and Autumn Period to the early Warring States period, and it is likely that there is a close relationship with the King of Chu, and he is a first-class figure of the Grandson of the King of Chu. It is only because the stolen tomb robbers have stolen too many funerary items, and the true identity of the tomb owner is difficult to judge.
However, technology is always improving, and with the deepening of bronze rust removal and restoration work, I think that one day, the identity of the owner of the tomb will eventually come out.
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