Words are the carrier of history, recording many unknown past events, so that we can have a clear understanding and understanding of ancient social life and social landscape. The United Kingdom is one of the oldest countries in Europe, and archaeologists stumbled upon a wooden mucilage more than 2,000 years ago during an archaeological excavation and saw the earliest written records in Britain. What kind of wood is it? What is written on it? The following Xiaobian will reveal the secret to you.
From archaeological findings, it can be seen that the world's oldest mature writing system was formed more than 3000 BC. Among them, the most representative is the Sumerian invention of cuneiform, because it is engraved on clay plates like a triangular wedge, so it is called cuneiform; later in Egypt also formed hieroglyphs, it was written on a papyrus made of papyrus, can be preserved for thousands of years. There is also the oldest script oracle bone on the mainland, which is the divination script carved on the oracle bone in the Yin Shang period, and with the development of society, there are also zhongding scripts carved on bronzes, as well as seal books engraved on bamboo janes.
In short, the existence of writing necessarily needs a certain carrier, in the ancient society without paper, the ancestors still relied on infinite wisdom to invent a variety of text carriers, which not only promoted the development of the text itself, but also promoted the spread of culture and ideas. For a long time, the United Kingdom, as an ancient European country, has not found an ancient written record carrier, so historians have created a large number of gaps and obstacles in the study of British history, but a discovery in 2015 has played a role in making up for it.
In early December 2015, the latest site for the Bloomberg office building in the United Kingdom was under construction, and workers could always find some rusty ironware and broken pottery fragments when digging the foundation, and then there were hundreds of pieces. Therefore, after the media coverage, the experts of the British Museum became interested, they carefully studied the pottery pieces excavated at the site, and found that they were all Pottery from the Roman Period, so they speculated that there was an ancient site under the site, so they asked to stop the construction for protection.
After half a year of excavation and cleaning, archaeologists found the ruins of the palace about 12 meters underground, and in the process also unearthed more than 15,000 pieces of various precious cultural relics, such as jewelry and wine utensils made of gold and silver, clay pots for storing water and plates for dining, and a large number of rusty weapons. However, what surprised the experts most was that a large pile of small pieces of wood was cleared out of the silt, some of which were well preserved, some of which were rotten, and the most rare thing was the writing on the board.
After cleaning up one by one, the staff counted the total number of wooden planks as 405 pieces, although they were all square, but the sizes were different, of which the largest was about 23 cm long and about 16 cm wide, and the shortest was about 5 cm long and about 1 cm wide. Among these planks, there are more than 300 pieces of clearly visible text on the surface, which experts have determined after research is the text of the Roman period, and some planks also record a period of history of Rome's capture of London, which is basically consistent with the records in other historical materials. In 43 AD, the Roman Emperor Claudius I attacked London and successfully conquered the invincible British nation, and it was not until 409 AD that London ended its colonization history. For more than 300 years, the Roman Empire brought advanced technology and developed commercial trade to the British nation, laying a solid foundation for the establishment of the British Empire.
In addition to recording history, the excavated wooden planks also recorded the social life at that time, such as some loan treaties, some buying and selling vouchers, some recipes for making food, some judges' legal judgment documents, and even records of slave status, in short, all-encompassing, involving all aspects of social life. Maybe you see this and wonder, how do these wooden sticks write the text? At first, the experts were also very confused, and later after scientific testing, it was found that there was a honey component on the wooden mu, so it was speculated that a layer of honey was first coated on the wooden mule, and then wrote on the smooth beeswax with a hard pen. After a thousand years, the notches on the beeswax will not disappear, and they are still clear to this day - this is simply a modern high-end drawing board!
Beeswax can be applied repeatedly, writing can be carried on forever, this is not high-tech, what is high-tech.
It can be seen that the wisdom of the ancients is infinite, and at the same time, they can feel a strong force, that is, the power of the spread of words. For any nation, the formation of the word seems to be accidental, but in fact it is inevitable, as if the word also has life, urging people to record it, or use mud boards, or use turtle shells, or use sedge boards, in short, we must pass on the words, as well as historical events and cultural ideas, etc., so that our current people can also trace the roots and discover history.
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Wenlan Hairun Studio Editor-in-Chief Wen Xiucai, this article is written by: Special History Writer: Liu Lijiang's