The mainland is a country with a long history, so the importance and protection of cultural relics are great. To this end, the mainland has also set up many cultural relics museums to protect these historical "pasters", and there are special laws and regulations to combat the destruction of cultural relics, and serious violators will even be directly imprisoned.
But in 2014, in a small village in Jiangxi Province, when an archaeological team was exploring an ancient tomb with a history of more than 1,500 years, the accompanying experts looked at the precious "cultural relics" they had worked hard to find, and left in anger, as if they didn't care at all!
And what is even more puzzling is that the others present did not stop the experts when they saw them turn away, but only looked at each other and let the experts drop the two pieces of porcelain that had just been excavated from the ancient tomb.
What's going on here? Does this expert not know that cultural relics are a valuable asset of the country? Could it be that the other members of this archaeological squad are so unprofessional that they are left to their own devices? This is not the case, let's go back to the history of that year and explore the truth behind the matter.
Village construction, accidental discovery of ancient tombs
In 2014, the mainland vigorously promoted the integration of urban and rural areas and worked hard to transform the backward appearance of rural areas. A village called Lianggong Village in Ruichang City, Jiangxi Province, also responded positively to the call of the state and began to reclaim wasteland to build roads.
A local construction team was invited to lianggong village to work, and things were going very smoothly, but a staff member who drove an excavator inadvertently dug a large hole. So an ancient tomb that has been silent for nearly 1500 years has been exposed to the public eye.
At that time, the construction team was paving the way, and the staff member in charge of opening the excavator, Da Liu, was excavating the wasteland according to the construction requirements. Suddenly, Da Liu dug down with a shovel, but a large hole unexpectedly appeared in the ground.
Da Liu, who has a wealth of experience, saw at a glance that the ground collapse in front of the hole was not an ordinary construction, and he hurriedly got out of the car to check it out of the car for fear of safety accidents.
At this inspection, Da Liu immediately found that something was wrong - the big hole was deep and bottomless, and on its inner wall you could see many neat green bricks laid on it, faintly revealing a quaint atmosphere.
Da Liu immediately thought about it, could it be that he had dug up the ancient tomb himself? He did not dare to slack off in the slightest and immediately reported it to the head of the construction team. The head of the construction team was well aware of the importance of cultural relics to the study of national history, and quickly responded to the situation to the cultural relics department of Ruichang City.
After hearing the news, the relevant departments attached great importance to this matter and quickly set up a temporary archaeological team to verify the authenticity of this ancient tomb. The squad includes an experienced heritage identification expert and several good archaeologists, as well as a high-tech machine for identifying cultural relics, which is imperative.
As they thought, the opening of the cave was connected to an ancient tomb from 1500 years ago. After preliminary identification, the owner of the tomb is a nobleman of the Wei and Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties period, whether it is the structure of the ancient tomb or the cultural relics excavated from the ancient tomb, it has great historical value, which is conducive to examining the history of the Wei and Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties and further studying the customs of the time.
The accompanying experts said to the head of the construction team with an excited face, "You have made great contributions to the country this time."
Preliminary exploration, harvest burial artifacts
On the second day of the discovery of the tomb, the archaeological team rested overnight, and many archaeological equipment continued to arrive. After establishing the authenticity of the ancient tomb, the archaeological team officially went deeper from this cave entrance to explore and excavate this thousand-year-old tomb.
Through the hard work of all the members of the squad for thirteen days, they harvested nearly twenty pieces of porcelain, ancient coins and other burial artifacts from the ancient tomb, which can be described as a great harvest.
On the same day, the archaeological team first set up a cordon to prevent villagers from entering by mistake and damaging the cultural relics in the ancient tomb. With the permission of their superiors, the members of the archaeological team set out in full gear.
Due to the relatively large scale of the ancient tomb and the age of the tomb, a large amount of silt has accumulated in the tomb. The group carefully cleared out a route to maximize the integrity of the tomb.
A worker said half-jokingly: "Our trip is the second girl on the flower car - twisting and turning." Finally, after hours of hard work, a complete burial chamber was presented to the squad.
This burial chamber is made of green bricks, is about 5.3 meters long, about 1.7 meters wide, and about 1.5 meters high, and looks very spacious. Inside it, a faint walk of these dusty things. "It's porcelain!"
One of the archaeologists couldn't help but exhale. In ancient times, only the mainland had the technology to refine porcelain, and western countries could only use it by aristocratic families, and porcelain even had the reputation of "China's fifth greatest invention".
Therefore, the porcelain encountered on this trip can be regarded as a great harvest. The archaeological team resisted their excitement and began to disperse, continuing to search for other burial artifacts.
After more than ten days of busyness, looking at a bunch of seemingly inconspicuous "rags" in front of them, everyone showed a happy smile on their faces. The initial excavations resulted in nearly 20 pieces of precious porcelain and a large number of ancient coins. Jiangxi porcelain is very famous, and perhaps there are several pieces of national treasure-level porcelain in these cultural relics.
What makes all the archaeologists involved in the excavation even more excited is that these are burial artifacts, and there are more precious cultural relics hidden in the depths of the burial chamber, which also means that the most historical treasures have yet to be further excavated. The leader of the squad ordered a day of repairs, and tomorrow to launch a general attack, it is inevitable to find the last treasure.
Who knows that the next day, there is an unexpected storm in the sky, and in the middle of the night, it suddenly rained heavily in the local area. If no action is taken, then the water and silt will slowly fill the burial chamber, and it will be a trivial matter to clean it up again, in case the artifacts in the depths are destroyed by the water. So the original sleeping archaeological team was forced to start a rescue excavation of the tomb.
Cloaked in raincoats and flashlights, they braved heavy rain and cold winds to dig through the silt-covered burial chambers so that the most precious artifacts would not be lost. It wasn't until three or four o'clock in the morning that the archaeological team cleared the last layer of silt from the burial chamber. Heavy rains, while bringing silt, also loosened the soil and made it easier for artifacts to be excavated.
But what is puzzling is that as the silt is cleared, it is reasonable to say that the speed of finding cultural relics should be faster and faster. However, the group braved the rain for a long time and could not find the slightest shadow of cultural relics. You know, even if the cultural relics are damaged by rainwater, traces should be found, are those that have been excavated already the most precious cultural relics?
After a long time, in a small corner next to them, they finally found two overlapping upside-down porcelain plates. The crowd was overjoyed and sighed, "This rain is worth it."
Only after the experts cleaned up the sludge above and found its true face, the crowd could no longer laugh, and the experts were even more angry, so they casually placed the two pieces of porcelain on the ground and turned away.
It turned out that when experts carefully inspected the cultural relics, they found that there were several English letters written under the porcelain plate: China garden. This is a sign of Chinese manufacturing, just imagine why this modern product appears in the ancient tomb?
It is only possible that this burial chamber was discovered by tomb robbers before, who took away the most precious cultural relics, leaving only these burial items to hide their eyes and ears.
Thinking of the hardships he had endured for several days, the expert hated this group of tomb robbers in his heart and left the tomb in a huff.
At this time, another archaeologist also exclaimed, "That's the way it is!" ”。 Previously, when he first explored the tomb, he found a strange phenomenon, that is, he could not find the owner and epitaph of the tomb. At that time, he was still very puzzled, but now he thinks that the reason is very simple, these valuable things have been taken away by them.
At the same time, this also explains why the speed of excavation of cultural relics by archaeological teams has slowed down - the cultural relics in the depths have long been "preempted", and they are doomed to work in vain.
Such a situation undoubtedly poured a basin of cold water on the archaeological team, full of excitement and consumables to clean up the burial chamber, but the treasure was taken away in advance by the tomb robbers and disappeared. And they also left modern crafts on site, "insulting" archaeologists in this way. After a long time, the person in charge of the squad waved to everyone with a tired face: "We are one step late, you don't have to be too frustrated." ”
In fact, China's history has a long history, many historical records have yet to be examined, and the cultural relics that are witnessed by history are undoubtedly the best "evidence".
Each excavated artifact will give us a better understanding of the living habits, economic conditions and social customs of the ancients, and its importance is self-evident. So how did the mainland government deal with such a case of stealing precious cultural relics and having a bad impact?
Investigate to the end and strictly prevent tomb robbery
After discovering that this precious tomb with a history of more than 1500 years was stolen, the archaeological team immediately called the police to the Ruichang Municipal Government and asked the police to investigate thoroughly.
Soon, an action group was set up to investigate the matter, and they arranged for the police to monitor and control, visit the people, and search the scene to seek clues to the tomb robbery. We will never tolerate such acts of harming national interests in order to seek private interests!
According to the mainland's newly published law on the protection of cultural relics, those who steal ancient cultural sites and ancient tombs without the permission of the state shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years and fined in accordance with the law; in serious cases, they will even be sentenced to life imprisonment or death!
Unfortunately, despite the dispatch of a large number of police forces, no witnesses were found in the tomb robbery, and the two fake artifacts did not leave any usable clues under the erosion of time.
The tomb robbers did not know what they were doing, and even the specific time of the crime was not clear, and it was not easy to catch and bring them to justice. However, until 2021, the local government still has not given up the investigation, and will regularly arrange one or two police officers to visit the elderly.
Although the real culprit behind the scenes has not been found, the case has sounded the alarm bell for the local government, that is, as an ancient cultural city with rich historical heritage, Ruichang City needs to strengthen its vigilance and can no longer let the tomb robbers have a gap. To this end, the Ruichang Municipal Government has actively set up a county-level cultural relics protection unit.
As of January 13, 2022, Ruichang City has built 23 protection units, and it is believed that there will never be a situation where cultural relics are stolen and the relevant departments do not know the news.
In addition, the Ruichang Museum also held a series of temporary exhibitions such as "Han Dynasty Golden Jade Cloth Exhibition" and "China Marine Rare Creatures Exhibition", aiming to strengthen the public's attention to cultural relics and let them participate in the protection of cultural relics.
epilogue
In fact, through the tomb robbery case in Ruichang City, Jiangxi Province, we can also see that the impact of unauthorized tomb robbery and theft of cultural relics is very bad. Not only will the later professional archaeologists "hit the water empty with bamboo baskets", but also make the mainland's historical and cultural heritage less valuable wealth, this kind of behavior can be said to be for their own selfish harm to the country and the people!
However, this phenomenon has been repeatedly prohibited, in addition to the theft of ancient tombs in Ruichang City, Jiangxi Province, there are a large number of cases across the country, such as the 2013 Shanxi Forest Farm Tomb was excavated privately. These tomb robbers obtain their own interests by selling cultural relics, but they have brought damage to the interests of the state.
Fortunately, not only ruichang city is aware of the seriousness of the problem, in recent years, the governments of various parts of the mainland have also taken active measures to crack down on tomb robbery and cultural relics trafficking; at the same time, they have increased publicity efforts so that more and more people are also aware of the importance of protecting cultural relics and actively participate in reporting illegal acts.
It is believed that with the joint efforts of the state and the public, cultural relics will be more effectively protected. Perhaps in the near future, we will never hear from the tomb robbery again.
bibliography
[1] Public Cultural Tourism, Directory of Cultural Relics Protection Units at or above the County Level in Ruichang City[J].Ruichang People's Government Network, 2022.01
State Council. Regulations on the Implementation of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Cultural Relics Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage, 2003
[3] Jiangxi Millennium Tomb[J].Exploring History, 2017, 34-35.