In August 2020, the head of the Institute of Archaeology received a notice to go to Pitouling to excavate. There they found dozens of pre-Qin noble tombs, but there were no bones inside, the coffins were turned into ashes, and who was buried underneath?
In February 2014, in order to improve the water storage capacity of Jiulong Lake in Shenzhen, Pitouling will be under construction. According to the custom, archaeologists want to survey the place, but they did not expect that they would find a surprise under the dense vegetation.
They found cultural relics from two periods: black pottery tablets from the late Neolithic period, and some late Warring States tombs.
It should be known that Guangzhou's sense of existence in ancient times was very low, and the records of it in the history can only be traced back to 214 BC, when the Qin state had unified Lingnan and established Nanhai County to build Renhuo City.
As for what kind of appearance the Guangzhou land was like before that, and what kind of life the people lived, no one knows.
More importantly, there were few pre-Qin tombs here before, let alone the Warring States period.
However, archaeologists have cleared a large number of late Neolithic cellars, 19 late Warring States and 2 late Western Han Tombs here.
There are a lot of them, but the scale is not large, and only 66 cultural relics have been excavated. However, according to past experience, in the concentrated cemetery, the higher the rank of the tomb tends to be higher, and the central position of the hill has greater archaeological value.
The remains in the center of the hill are far more numerous and dense than the nearby sites. It shows that this place was originally a very popular place, and it was not a sparsely populated place as previous archaeological speculations said.
And the specifications of this tomb are also different from the previous ones, the last time the foot of the mountain was found are ordinary pit tombs, this time most of the discoveries are Chu people symbolizing the nobility of the "convex" tombs, as many as 30.
But Guangzhou was previously the territory of the Yue people, but in the form of Chu people's tombs, it seems that the culture of the Chu people at that time has penetrated, but how to infiltrate has yet to be examined, and it is more confusing to know which nobles are buried here.
The archaeologists continued to dig up the hill, and near the top of the hill, they found several tomb line, and realized that there was a higher-ranking tomb at the top of the hill, and what had been dug before was only the sealing soil of the burial surface.
I didn't expect this problem before, because the tombs excavated around it before were not sealed, and the time of sealing the mound was not right.
Legend has it that the appearance of fengtu is related to Confucius. It is recorded in the Book of Rites that Confucius lost his father at the age of 3 and wanted to sacrifice when he became an adult, but he could not find a tomb, and later found it through the memories of some local elderly people. In order to prevent such a situation from happening again, Confucius cultivated soil on his father's tomb, and since then he has had the idea of sealing the soil.
However, at that time, information was not developed, and this form was not popular. In the Chu state of the Warring States period, only the nobles were worthy of using tall feudal land. Hence the above-mentioned negligence.
The size of this large tomb at the top of the mountain is amazing, the remaining sealing soil alone is 1.1 meters thick, the area is unimaginable, 29.3 meters long from north to south, 23.4 meters wide from east to west, which is the first in the Lingnan region, the most complete preservation, and it is more curious about the identity of the owner of the tomb.
Surprises followed, and bad news followed. Archaeologists found that the two tombs actually had robbery holes.
Judging from the decaying wood, the "convex" shaped tomb should have two coffins and one coffin, and it is said that there will be many funerary items to be excavated, but the tomb robbers will hit the thief hole to the bottom of the burial chamber, and there are few funerary items left.
The large tomb at the top of the hill is also a coffin, which also failed to escape the fate of theft, and only 12 pieces of pottery and stone tools are left in the entire burial chamber. This also brings great difficulties to archaeological work.
The identity of the owner of the tomb has always been a mystery, not only because there are not many valuable items left in the tomb, but more importantly, because the south is mostly acidic soil, the air is warm and humid, the tomb is easily corroded, there are no bones inside, and the coffin is almost ashed, which also leaves a lot of mysteries and regrets for our archaeological work.
However, it can be analyzed that the number of "convex" tombs in Pitouling is likely to exceed 80, indicating that many nobles once lived here. At that time, the society had developed to the ancient kingdom era, and each relic may correspond to an ancient country.
The reason why Guangzhou is called the land of Baiyue is because there were many tribes here at the beginning, but it was later unified and Sinicized. Therefore, the development of archaeological work may help us solve the mystery of the predecessor of Baiyue, but the specific situation still needs to be explored.
Fortunately, less than 2,000 meters east of Pitouling last autumn, a large number of pre-Qin ruins, including 3 hills, were found, and they are well preserved, and are currently being excavated, which may be able to fill in the missing history for us. Looking forward to more good news.