You should know that there is a saying in ancient China called "seeing death as life", which means that after death, people go to hades and have to continue to live. Therefore, after this, the ancients put this gold and silver jewelry and delicious, fun, a brain bag, all stuffed into the grave.
It is precisely because of their concept of seeing death as life that many ancient treasures, that is, cultural relics, have been passed on, and what we want to tell today is a story related to ancient tombs and funerary products.
Jingzhou
When people mention Jingzhou, the most likely thing they think of is often Liu Bei borrowing Jingzhou, and Guan Yu carelessly losing Jingzhou. But in the archaeological world, Jingzhou's fame is not here. Some archaeologists once made such a joke, saying that Jingzhou is a famous ancient city, where the ground does not know how many cultural relics are buried, as long as you dig casually, you may be able to dig up antiques and the like.
At the end of 2007, there was a construction site near Jingsha Avenue in the northern suburbs of Jingzhou City, which was under intense construction, when suddenly I heard someone shouting, come quickly, come quickly, there is a hole here, there seems to be something underneath, quickly report to the Cultural Relics Bureau.
Are you saying that this worker is also too coincidental? Just look at it and know that this is a tomb rather than an ordinary cave, you may not know, this Jingzhou in the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, was once the capital of the State of Chu, the most prosperous of the State of Chu, the most splendid stage of culture. In the northern suburbs of Jingzhou City, near the ruins of Achudu, there are countless chuguo tombs of all sizes, and the local people can be said to have witnessed the excavation of batches of cultural relics, so they have a strong sense of cultural relics protection when they see such a cave entrance, and they will immediately report to the local cultural relics bureau.
So the Cultural Relics Bureau listened, immediately sent an archaeological team to the scene to investigate, did not expect that the archaeological team survey is really a robbery hole, the scene was stolen tomb thieves dug a robbery hole. After the identification, Chang breathed a sigh of relief, because they found that the hole dug by the tomb robbers was not very deep, which meant that the tomb robbers had stopped before they touched the tomb.
Xiejiaqiao No. 1 Tomb
So they first followed the territorial naming principle of the archaeological site, and called the tomb in front of them Xiejiaqiao No. 1, and the archaeologists gave an unexpected judgment after studying the soil of the stolen cave, and the archaeological team believed that this Xiejiaqiao No. 1 tomb was not a common Chu tomb in Kyoto, but a Han Dynasty tomb.
Jingzhou is not the ruins of the capital of the Chu state, so how can there be a Han Dynasty? What's going on. It turned out that after the fall of the Chu State, Qin and the two Han dynasties had been active in Jingzhou, so it was not impossible for han tombs to appear, but whether this was a Han tomb or not, it would have to wait for the archaeological team to further confirm the tomb, and the archaeological excavation work continued.
When their excavation of the tomb reaches a depth of two meters, some of the steps above are gradually exposed to the air, continue to dig down, the situation of the entire ancient tomb has also come out, it is according to the number of steps of the layers, from top to bottom gradually shrink, you at first glance very much like a giant funnel, these steps are square, each step is very narrow, it is just enough for a person's foot, and then calculate the area, this ancient tomb is only about 24 square meters.
Experts tell us that such a small tomb, then if the ancient tomb is only slightly higher than the civilians, but in the Western Han Dynasty, the identity hierarchy of this tomb is not very clear, then if this is a Han tomb, who is his tomb owner? That aroused great interest among archaeologists.
Finally, archaeologists dug out a square thing in the bottom of the center, these things are very large, four meters long, more than three meters wide, that group of people may not know this thing, archaeologists are very familiar with it, is an extremely rare giant coffin, the so-called coffin, is set in the coffin outside the coffin inside, in addition to the coffin where the body is placed, the remaining extra space will generally be used to place other things.
At that time, the archaeologists were very excited when they saw this situation. Although this object is not large, such a large coffin is really rare. If you want to say that there are many funerary items in here, if they are all rare treasures, the value is immeasurable. Just when the archaeologists were very excited, they found a special feature of this coffin, and it was precisely because of this special place that the experts determined that this was a Han tomb.
It turns out that the bamboo mat on this cover is a typical feature of this attention, no matter whether the specifications of the tomb are large or small, it is indispensable to this link, to this extent, we can basically determine that it is a Han tomb, that is, a Western Han tomb. Now that the age of the tomb has been determined, the next thing for archaeologists to do is to open the coffin lid and see what kind of funerary products are in it, and who is the owner of this tomb?
But after they successfully opened it, they found that this Xiejiaqiao No. 1 tomb was really special. How to say it, we basically from the structure of this sub-plate, we can determine that this tomb is divided into five chambers. The official chamber is centered in the center, and then there are four side chambers in the southeast, southwest, and northwest, that is, there are five chambers, and such a tomb structure is actually divided into multiple rooms inside such a small tomb chamber. Not only is the area the largest, it can be said that among the Western Han Tombs in Jingzhou, his sub-chamber is also the largest.
Explore Tomb One
This made archaeologists think that this Xiejiaqiao No. 1 tomb may not be simple, so archaeologists can't wait to open this sub-room one by one to see what the situation inside is like.
But no one expected that after they opened it, they found that the contents of this coffin were really very unusual, and what was inside the coffin?
Take it off only to find that there is liquid on the surface, see this expert not to mention how excited, why, some officials may already know what the expert is thinking, that is, is it possible to unearth a well-preserved ancient corpse in this ancient tomb?
Lianyungang millennium female corpse
Let's first analyze it, there have been places to report that Jiangsu Lianyungang City has had a major discovery, here the head found that is strange, when the excavation of a total of four coffins, experts in turn opened the First No. 2 No. 3, after opening it found, and this Xiejiaqiao No. 1 tomb is all water, why?
Because Lianyungang is located on the seashore, the coffin has infiltrated groundwater, but no one thought that just when everyone was not hopeful, as soon as the fourth was opened, what appeared in front of everyone was a magical thousand-year-old female corpse. Why is there a separate thousand-year-old female corpse?
Experts deduce that the time of burial may be different, the female corpse may fall in an extremely cold winter, there are few bacteria, and it may not have eaten for many days before, which is not conducive to corruption, of course, and the immediate infiltration of seawater to prevent the reproduction of bacteria is also related, in short, the coincidence of many reasons has created a vacuum environment.
"Xin Chai" Lady
And the most famous we know is the Xin Chai found in 1972 in Mawangdui, Changsha, which is a world record, the body has been preserved for more than 2,000 years without decay, the form is intact, the skin remains elastic, some joints will even bend, and this Mrs. Xin Chai was also soaked in the coffin liquid when she was unearthed. Later, after identification, the liquid soaked by Mrs. Xin Chai had a high mercury content in it, which is what we often call mercury.
Mercury is not unfamiliar to everyone, not only can kill bacteria, but also play a good antiseptic effect, now this Xiejiaqiao No. 1 tomb also has a liquid, and can also see some cultural relics and lacquered wood floating, then the situation of this liquid will be similar to the coffin situation in Lianyungang? Or is it similar to this Lady Xin Chai of Mawangdui? This situation is still unclear, it is not easy to assert for the time being, but experts from the current situation, said that the lacquered wood ware soaked in the liquid, are as bright as new, so they still have great expectations for the excavation of an ancient corpse.
So the experts began to try to open the cover plate to continue to explore, and what is shown in front of them still makes the experts feel very happy, and the hope is getting bigger and bigger, the part of the sub-board is uncovered, and it is found that there are better preserved silk fabrics on it, the preservation of the situation is relatively good, we realize that this discovery is very important, because from the excavation of The First Tomb of Mashan in Jingzhou in 1982, it is the excavation of the Warring States Silk, known as the Warring States Silk Treasure House of Mashan No. 1 Tomb, There has been no large-scale discovery of ancient silk, and it seems that this scale is still relatively large.
A treasure trove of silk fabrics
There may be small partners still do not know, the mashan no. 1 tomb mentioned by experts was excavated in 1982, but the scale of the Mashan No. 1 tomb is also very small, but there is a complete set of instruments and other silk products wrapped around the owner of the tomb, known as the ancient Chinese silk fabric treasure house, is a number of town museum treasures in the Jingzhou Museum.
Now experts have found well-preserved silk fabrics in the no. 1 tomb of Xiejiaqiao. This means that the silk fabrics in the tomb are more than 2,000 years old, so why can the silk from more than 2,000 years ago still be preserved? It seems that this Xiejiaqiao No. 1 tomb is indeed not simple.
So the experts were ready to uncover the last layer of the sub-board to see if there were any ancient corpses inside, but when they tried to uncover the silk fabrics on it, an unexpected thing happened...
This article is original by Ai Kanshi, welcome to pay attention, take you to see the follow-up story.