The tomb of the thousand-year-old Chu nobleman
The thousand-year-old female corpse was exposed to the field and exposed to the sun for more than a month, but it was still intact.
After the archaeologists arrived after hearing the news, they accidentally found two thousand-year-old chu noble tombs, and unearthed the mother copy of "Lao Tzu" of the rare treasure level.
What shocked archaeologists the most was that the funerary items in the tomb showed that the identity of the owner of the tomb was most likely Qu Yuan.
So, what's going on here?
The thousand-year-old female corpse was exposed to the field
At the beginning of 1994, in the rural areas of Jingmen City, Hubei Province, as the Atmosphere of the New Year gradually dissipated, the villagers began to devote themselves to daily farming life, and the local area was full of a busy and peaceful atmosphere.
No one expected that under this piece of peace, there was a great discovery brewing.
One day, the police in Jishan Town, Jingmen City, suddenly received a call from a villager claiming that a female body had been found in their field.
The place of discovery was in Guodian Village, Jishan Town, and when the police rushed to take a look, they suddenly realized that the case could not be closed by relying on them alone, because the female corpse obviously belonged to the scope of archaeology.
Soon, under the notice of the local police, a professional archaeological team rushed to the scene to carry out on-site inspection.
They found that the female corpse had been dead for a long time, and although it was not yet certain when it had been exposed to the field, it was already a shocking news for all archaeologists to be judged by the fact that the female corpse was still well preserved.
At the same time, the local police were not idle, and during the inspection of the female corpse by archaeologists, they searched the nearby fields and soon found a robbery hole where the mud was still fresh, and it seemed that the tomb robbers had just visited.
At the same time, this also shows that this rather elderly female corpse was originally located in an ancient tomb under the field.
Archaeologists came to the cave and found that the ground near the entrance of the cave was scattered with a lot of green paste mud. In addition, the soil dug up by the stolen tomb thieves was also mixed with the sawdust of many black lacquered coffins.
Such a discovery made archaeologists happy at first, and then fell into deep anxiety.
Since the tomb robbers have patronized the tomb here, they will also take out the female corpse of the tomb owner and abandon it in the field at will, which is enough to show that they lack the awareness of protection of the ancient tomb and the cultural relics inside, which may not only be a large-scale looting in the tomb, but also caused irreversible damage to the ancient tomb.
If this is the case, then protective excavations of tombs must be carried out as soon as possible.
After preliminary excavations, archaeologists found that the tomb was not sealed, and the time was probably more than 2300 years ago during the Warring States period, when the area around Hubei belonged to the Chu state.
Generally speaking, the thicker the seal of the noble tombs in this period, the higher the status of the tomb owner. Since the tombs in this area of Guo Jiagang are not sealed and the scale is not large, it means that the owner of the tomb is most likely only a low-ranking nobleman of the Chu State during the Warring States period, probably the level of Shina.
Thinking of this, archaeologists can't help but be a little surprised, because the ancient corpses that have been found for thousands of years are basically excavated from the large tombs of those princes and nobles in ancient times, after all, they have a high status and better anti-embalming methods.
Archaeologists turned their attention back to the uncorrupted female corpse. After the police investigation, the robbery hole in the Guojiagang field appeared more than a month ago, which means that the female body is likely to have been exposed to the sun for more than 30 days.
When archaeologists examined, they found that the female corpse is not only incorruptible, but some joints on her body can move freely, the muscles in many places are full, and the skin can bounce back with a pinch.
However, the clothing and jewelry on the female corpse were looted, and the original hair was well preserved, but the tomb robbers forcibly pulled in order to remove the hairpin in her bun, causing her hair to fall out in large quantities.
In addition, it may be due to the grave robbers dragging her on the ground, and the female corpse has more serious and fresh bruises on her legs and elbows.
Such a rude act of the tomb robber made the archaeologists present very angry. The police are responsible for pursuing these crimes, while archaeologists are divided into two sides, one side continuing to study the secrets of the female corpse and the other to continue the excavation work.
At that time, archaeologists thought that the discovery of a thousand-year-old female corpse was extremely rare, but they did not expect that there was a bigger surprise waiting for them.
A terrible price
Experts who study female corpses found that female corpses were about 75 years old before they died, which is not a big deal now, but if you put them in the Warring States era a thousand years ago, in the period when science and technology were not developed, the medical level was backward, and the eating and drinking were not good, more than 70 years old was already called a high lifespan.
After scientific dissection, experts were surprised to find that not only was her skin and muscles well preserved, but even the vascular nerves in her body did not adhere.
There are many kinds of human parasites and eggs in her intestinal system, which are no different from today's eggs. Interestingly, this is also the earliest human parasite egg found in human history, which is a new world record.
But so far, experts who study female corpses have not yet figured out why she has been able to survive for thousands of years.
At the same time, scientists excavating ancient tombs have their own discoveries.
They found a lot of things similar to silt in the ancient tombs, and after chemical tests, those things turned out to be ancient Chinese herbs.
However, these herbs were rudely exposed to the air by tomb robbers, and after oxidation, it is impossible to specifically test their composition.
In addition, experts also found that the entire burial chamber had a serious water leakage, but the composition of this water is not simple. After testing, this water is steam water, which is generated by groundwater under completely natural conditions due to temperature differences.
In the past, these water vapors filled the burial chamber, creating a layer of pure natural protective barrier for the female corpse, isolating bacteria and air, which should be an important reason for her incorruptible for thousands of years.
However, it is regrettable that they came too late, the original scale of the tomb was not large, the funerary goods would not be too much, the tomb robbers rushed into the tomb chamber and looted it, and archaeologists did not find too many valuable cultural relics.
Fortunately, the police quickly returned the good news, the tomb robber gang that excavated the ancient tomb was arrested and arrested, and 19 cultural relics were recovered.
According to the arrested tomb robbers, among the cultural relics they stole included a set of Chu state musical instruments Tiger Seat Bird Drum, but they had sold most of it, and only double tigers and two birds and a pair of drumsticks were recovered.
The most valuable of the cultural relics is a silk fabric embroidered with a scarlet phoenix, which is said to have a delicate dragon and phoenix and sika deer pattern on it, and the tomb robbers know at a glance that this thing is absolutely valuable, so they take it away.
But considering that the silk fabric was worn by a female corpse, the tomb robbers who stole it were worried that there would be ancient bacteria on it, so they scrubbed it with alcohol.
His ignorance paid a terrible price, so that the original exquisite patterns on the silk fabric were dissolved by alcohol, and the silk fabric itself became tired. When the silk fabric was recovered, the experts sighed at its tattered appearance.
Just as the archaeological work was nearing its end, the regretful archaeologists suddenly received a police notice to rush to a place less than a kilometer away from the female corpse's tomb.
Here, another ancient tomb was stolen.
Is the owner of the tomb Qu Yuan?
After the arrival of archaeologists, after preliminary investigation, they judged that this second ancient tomb is also a Chu state tomb in the Warring States period, which is also very small in scale, but it has a tomb passage, and the overall shape is a figure of armor.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Glyph was a typical tomb form that could only be used by the first class of scholars. There is almost no need to guess too much, the owner of the tomb must be a scholar of the Chu Kingdom.
Similar to the first female corpse tomb, the second Chu tomb was also filled with a large amount of water, but the difference was that the water was groundwater and rainwater, which was purer than steam water. Archaeologists judged that the tomb belonged to the Qingshui tomb, and the funerary products in the tomb were basically soaked in water, including some bronze objects such as arrow clusters.
After cleaning, experts soon found a large number of bamboo janes under the water, a total of 804 pieces, on which were engraved more than 13,000 Chu characters.
Archaeologists quickly invited professional experts on ancient Chinese characters to interpret, and according to the time recorded on the bamboo jane, the tomb should have a history of about 2300 years. The content on the bamboo strip surprised everyone.
These bamboo records are all Taoist and Confucian classics, a total of 16 articles, including the Confucian "Silk Cloth", and the most classic Taoist "Lao Tzu", but the content on the bamboo jane is more concise than those that are now circulating.
There are two things that make people wonder.
The first point is that of these 16 works, only "Lao Tzu" and "Silk Cloth" have been baptized by the years and are still circulating in the world, while the remaining 14 have not been handed down, which makes archaeologists puzzled.
Another point that makes people very confused is that the "Lao Tzu" recorded on the bamboo jane is also different from the current one. There are now 81 articles of "Lao Tzu" in circulation, which is 5,000 words, while on the bamboo jane excavated from the ancient tomb, "Lao Tzu" has only 3 concise articles and only 2,000 words.
Archaeologists can probably explain this.
In one case, the "Lao Tzu" on the bamboo jane is an excerpt, and in the other case, they believe that the ancient tomb bamboo book is recorded in the original "Lao Tzu", that is, the original content, and those that have been circulated later are the annotations of the mother text by later generations, just like our current translation of the text.
In addition to these precious bamboo tablets, there is also a funerary item in the ancient tomb that excites archaeologists.
It was a lacquer ear cup, something precious but not rare, and the strange thing was that the word "Master of the Eastern Palace" engraved on the lacquer ear cup meant the teacher of the prince.
Judging from the scale of the tomb and other funerary items, the tomb is an ancient tomb of the Chu Huai King,and the teacher of the Chu Huai King is very remarkable, it is the famous Qu Yuan. Historically, Jingzhou, Hubei Province, was Qu Yuan's hometown.
Could it be that the owner of this thousand-year-old tomb is Qu Yuan, who committed suicide by throwing himself into the river?
While archaeologists would like to come to this conclusion, there is not much evidence to support it.
In addition, some archaeologists have come to different conclusions, believing that the owner of the tomb is not Qu Yuan, but the teacher of Prince Heng, who was selected by King Huai of Chu.
Prudent was one of the founders of the doctrine of the Dharma, and it was normal for the texts of the Dharma to appear in his tomb. And the time of his burial is also very close to the time of this ancient tomb.
However, it is frustrating that due to the rampant excavation of tomb robbers, the ancient tomb has been destroyed, and it is difficult to find more evidence to support any of the above conjectures.
Whether the owner of the Guojiagang Chu Tomb is Qu Yuan or Cautious, can only wait for future archaeological discoveries to verify.