The fun of archaeological discoveries may only be experienced by archaeologists, and whenever some strange things are unearthed, experts will always be happy to study and explore tirelessly, and there will be some surprising discoveries. For example, a large number of "helmets" were found at the site of the Twin Kings Reservoir, and experts laughed after studying it, and it was actually related to table salt... What kind of "helmet" is it? If you also want to know, the following small will reveal to you.
Table salt is an essential spice for our life, don't look at its cheap price, but if it is less than it is full of tasteless food, it can be described as the "soul" of the dish, and salt is also good for people's health. According to historical records, in the Yanhuang period, the mainland ancestors learned to cook salt, but there is a lack of relevant physical materials, and the earliest excavated cultural relics about salt are still from the Shang and Zhou periods, but the problem is that the Ancestors of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties were certainly not the first to eat salt, so when the ancestors of China first ate salt became a difficult historical mystery, until the excavation of the salt industry site in the Double Kings City, the mystery was slowly solved.
Shuangwangcheng was once an old reservoir located in the northern part of Shouguang City, Shandong Province, but is now one of the reservoirs along the South-to-North Water Diversion Project. In June 2003, the local water conservancy department inspected and rebuilt the Shuangwangcheng Reservoir, and the construction personnel found that there were many pottery pieces 2-3 meters deep underground, and there was also a white powdery substance on the pottery pieces. Later, experts from the local museum also came to hear about it, and after some research, they determined that the pottery pieces were Neolithic pottery, and the white powder was the condensation of sea salt. The Shuangwangcheng Reservoir itself is also close to Bohai Bay, so it is speculated that there are salt industry sites underground.
In the years since, archaeologists have excavated the area around the Shuangwangcheng Reservoir, clearing out a large number of brine pits and wells, which are the basis for boiling salt. By 2008, the outline of the entire boiled salt site has been slightly embryonic, covering an area of about 30 square kilometers, dating from the Neolithic era to the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, is currently the largest area found, the oldest boiled salt site, experts infer that the earliest one is about 7,000 years old.
Among the boiled salt sites, experts have also unearthed the ruins of salt wells, salt pond groups and large salt stove sites, but the most important of these artifacts is a helmet with a pointed bottom and a round mouth, which looks like a helmet. The number of helmets is as many as a thousand, and there are hundreds of well-preserved ones, they are similar in size, about 20-30 cm high, about 25-40 cm in diameter, and there are various spiral lines on the outside, which also look very thick. At the beginning, experts thought that the helmet shape was used to store water, but it was impossible to think about it carefully, because it was a pointed bottom that could not be placed at all, how to store water?
Experts are puzzled, once stumbled upon the site of the salt stove is full of helmets, so they immediately understood the role of helmets, it turned out to be boiled salt. First of all, the helmet is placed in the recess of the salt stove, just enough to be fixed, each salt stove can burn 20-30 helmets; then the filtered seawater is poured into the helmet, and the seawater in the helmet is boiled under the salt stove, while boiling while adding seawater, slowly boiling.
After the seawater is boiled, the water vaporizes and evaporates, forming white crystals in the helmet, and after the white crystals are completely solidified, the helmet is taken out and knocked out, and the white crystals are taken out, that is, the salt cake. This is the general process of boiling salt in ancient times, and the principle seems very simple and easy to understand today, but you have to know that being able to cook salt thousands of years ago was a great thing. It is worth mentioning that experts later had a doubt, since the salt was boiled in the helmet, why was there no trace of fire on the helmet?
Experts pondered this for a long time at first, and even suspected that the helmet was not boiled salt, and there was any other use. Later, when experts excavated the site, some curved mud blocks were excavated near the salt stove, and the mud blocks contained a large amount of grass and wood ash, and there were traces of fire on the convex surface, so it can be speculated that the arc mud blocks were indeed burned. Experts found that the curved mud block concave curvature is similar to the bottom curve of the helmet, so they tried to attach the curved mud block to the helmet, and the result was very consistent.
Experts suddenly realized that the original helmet is not strong, boiling salt is not directly burned, but on the outside of the helmet paste a layer of yellow mud containing grass and wood ash, so the paste on the grass mix mud is a good way to make up for the helmet is not resistant to fire burning, long time boiling salt is easy to crack this short board. Therefore, there are no traces of fire at the bottom of the excavated helmet, which shows that the wisdom of the ancients should not be underestimated. Perhaps, this trick is also the experience summed up by the ancient ancestors in the practice of boiling salt, which makes us have to admire.
The discovery of the boiled salt site in the Shuangwangcheng Reservoir has also rewritten the history of the development of China's salt industry, which has an important role and value for experts to study the origin of salt. Table salt is nature's best gift to mankind, but also the crystallization of the wisdom of the ancient ancestors, I hope that experts can find more and make our history more "flavorful".
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Wenlan Hairun Studio Editor-in-Chief Wen Xiucai, this article is written by: Special History Writer: Liu Lijiang's