On September 24, 2021, the Central Propaganda Department organized a meeting of Chinese and foreign journalists on "taking root in the frontline of culture and literature and inheriting the flame of civilization", Yanni, as one of the party members in the field of cultural relics museums, spoke at the meeting, and she described her beloved archaeological cause in two sentences: "The old paper pile is touched, and youth is written in the field." ”
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This article was published in the magazine China Women
Yanni and her female archaeological team have participated in the archaeological work of many major sites in Chongqing, and completed more than 30 archaeological investigation and excavation tasks with high quality, of which the Pingshang Ruins Project in Zhongxian County, which was responsible for in 2017, was also awarded the "Six Major Archaeological Discoveries in Chongqing".
Yanni The leader of the women's archaeological team of the Chongqing Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, one of the top ten figures who moved Chongqing, the women's archaeological team was awarded the National March 8th Red Flag Collective
Like a blind guess box, archaeology has a kind of adventure thrill
Yan Ni is an authentic Chongqing girl, with cheerful speech and sharp behavior. In middle school, Yanni liked history, but she felt that pure study of history should be accompanied by literature, which was boring and tedious. Later, she read the novel "The Fog of the Ancient Gorge" by Mr. Tong Enzheng, an archaeologist and science fiction writer, and archaeology suddenly became a very desirable thing for her. "At that time, I didn't understand the meaning of archaeology, and I felt that archaeology was like an adventure, exciting, romantic, and could run around and see different regions."
When she took the college entrance examination, she chose archaeology major, and after entering the school, she found that this was "the cold door in the cold door": there were only 17 students in the class, and most of them were transfer students from other majors, and her initiative to apply for the archaeology major made everyone feel incredible. In her junior year, she interned at a mountain archaeological site in Fengjie, Chongqing, where she lived in a local farmer's home. At that time, the mountain was not open to traffic, and every time you entered the mountain, you had to take a boat and then climb the mountain on foot. There is a shortage of water in the mountains, so you can't take a bath, so you can only go down the mountain every day to carry buckets of water and simply scrub it. The farmhouses in the mountains are simple, and sometimes it rains heavily outside and light rains inside the houses. Yanni knew: it turned out that archaeology was not only not romantic, but also very hard.
Archaeology is a theoretical discipline, but also a practical discipline, "you have to go to the field, the more you see things, the more perfect the theory, the more accurately interpret the connotation of the site, so as to complete the dialogue with the ancients." Archaeology is a job that needs to be quiet and sit still, and it "doesn't match" Yanni's personality, but she still likes it, "because archaeology is like guessing a blind box, there is a kind of expectation of discovery." For this reason she changed, became from the outside to the inside. She still remembers a sentence that her teacher said back then: I would rather sit on the cold bench for ten years than write an article half empty. "If you want to do learning, you have to sink down first."
In 2006, YanNi, a master's degree graduate, joined the Chongqing Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, when the Preparatory Work for Archaeological Excavations was being carried out in Chongqing's Liangjiang New Area, one of which was identified two years ago in the winter. In winter, the grass and trees are sparse, but the vegetation is lush in the spring and summer of the next year, coupled with urban planning and construction, the terrain and landform are constantly changing, and the excavation points can no longer be found, and can only be found according to the GPS positioning data at that time. And Chongqing is a mountain city, because of the air pressure, GPS often errors, if you press the GPS, you can not find the way to go. Obviously, I felt that the point I was looking for was nearby, but I kept going around in circles, and finally confirmed that the point was under a slope. But the slope was steep and overgrown with weeds, "no way, I had to grab the grass while crouching and rubbing down." "At the end of the day, the clothes were dirty, the hair was messy, and the hands were pricked. Yanni once again experienced the difficulty of archaeology.
A girl scout who fights a hard battle
Yanni (first from the left) led the women's archaeological team to complete the archaeological excavation task with high quality
Chongqing is located in the land of Bashu, the country of Tianfu, from ancient times to the present has always been densely populated, economically developed, Paleolithic, Neolithic, Shang Zhou, Liang han, Tang and Song Dynasties and other periods have cultural relics here. Chongqing is mostly mountainous, the terrain is complex, and archaeological excavations are relatively difficult, "for example, in the plains, you can clearly detect underground tomb sites with a probe shovel, but not in the mountains of Chongqing." ”
With her love for archaeology, Yanni persevered, and with a solid professional foundation, she has undertaken the archaeological excavation work of many projects and obtained the qualification certification of archaeological professional leader. In 2012, the Chongqing Cultural Heritage Research Institute set up a "women's archaeological team", with Yan Ni as the team leader. After that, she led the women's archaeological team to fight in one archaeological site after another, such as the Fuling Canal Xikou Site, the Wanshun Tomb Group in Wanzhou, and the Xikou Tomb Group, and was beaten into a "girl army" that "can fight a hard battle".
In 2017, Yan Ni led a women's archaeological team to be responsible for the excavation of the fading zone of the Pingshang site in Zhongxian County. The fading zone is located in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, and the water storage period is from September to May of the following year, and the water level can reach a maximum of 1.75 meters or more, and excavation work can only be carried out when the water level is below 1.5 meters. Due to rain that year, excavations, which were scheduled to begin in May, were delayed until the end of June.
The Pingshang site is a group of tombs of about 1,000 square meters. From the end of June to the beginning of September, the excavation of the tomb complex must be completed in just two months. In that year, there was more rain in the upstream, and the reservoir area had to store water in advance, and the construction period was compressed by 10 days. Watching the water level in the reservoir area gradually rise, the tomb surface has not yet been cleaned up, and the artifacts in the tomb have been exposed, if you do not complete the cleaning before the water level rises, the entire tomb group will sink to the bottom. Yan Ni led everyone to work day and night, putting the excavated soil into sacks, and then building the sacks high layer by layer, "just like fighting floods, forming a 'dyke'." "Everyone is racing against time," and the final day of work was done with a flashlight. ”
The whole excavation process was full of hardships. Chongqing is known as the "furnace", and July and August are the hot summer season. Yanni remembers that it only rained for 4 days in August that year, and the rest were sunny and sunny days, and the temperature was as high as 39 ° C every day. "At that time, I was expecting rain and afraid of rain." It rains coolly and you can rest, because there is no Sunday for field work, and rainy days are rest days. But if it does rain, the construction period will be tightened again, and the tomb cleaning work will not be delayed.
The reservoir area is humid, high temperature and humidity, and the mountain is like a big steamer. The sun poison in Chongqing is hot at seven o'clock in the morning and does not set until seven o'clock in the evening. The girls, dressed in long clothes and trousers, squatted on the ground every day to clean up the tomb, and after a while they were soaked, and then stood up, rested, and continued. At the end of the day, the clothes were wet and dry. Yanni is sensitive skin, a piece of red, a piece of white, at first she thought she had a white epilepsy, quickly took a day off to go to the hospital to see a doctor, the doctor said that it was sunburned. "Later, I applied sunscreen hard, people are afraid of tanning, I am afraid of sunburn." But no matter how to protect the sun, the hand can not hide, "because the hand has to work, so our hands are darker than the average person." ”
It is gratifying that the excavation of the Pingshang site has yielded a lot of results, not only the cultural relics of the Three Periods of Shang and Zhou, the Han Dynasty, the Tang and Song Dynasties, but also the complete excavation of 240 funerary items, which became the "Six Major Archaeological Discoveries in Chongqing" in 2017.
Knowing Shi Mingzhi, searching for ancient mysteries is passed on from generation to generation
In March 2021, Yan Ni led the women's archaeological team to the Fuling Xiaotianxi Tomb Group. This tomb group has been excavated many times before, due to frequent human activities, tomb damage is serious, many remaining tombs are only 30 to 40 centimeters, exploration is extremely difficult, "a probe shovel down accidentally may be pierced, this tomb will be abandoned." "The Odaxi Tomb Group is a tomb of the Warring States period, buried for a long time, there is almost no difference in the soil quality inside and outside the tomb, only by the naked eye can not distinguish, can only be scraped little by little, with experience to find "clues."
The tomb group is located on the edge of the Wu River, and the locals jokingly tell Yanni: We have two major specialties, one is the wind, the other is the wind. Sure enough, the construction site was windy every day, a wind is a day, when the wind is fierce, the awning of the construction site can not hold up at all, directly rolled into the sky, with the wind in the air whirling, people also blowing east and west.
During the hunting wind, Yanni and the women's archaeological team completed the excavation of the Oda creek tomb group as they wished, and achieved important results: human bones were excavated in three burial chambers, and ancient human DNA samples were collected from human bones. DNA is a carrier of genetic information, and the successful extraction of ancient human DNA samples helps to study the evolution and migration process of humans, which is an important part of modern archaeology. "In general, ancient DNA samples are difficult to preserve in human bones, and we have been lucky to have them."
For Yanni, archaeology is more bitter and more enjoyable, "Most of the archaeological areas are in remote mountainous areas, the scenery in the mountains is really beautiful, and the air is really fresh." "Everywhere the archaeological team went, they could see different cultures, people, topography, etc.," which are important accumulations of experience. "Archaeology is random, before the burial chamber is revealed, it is not known what kind of secrets are buried underground, and once the burial chamber is opened, a mystery is revealed, and more mysteries will be generated: Who is the owner of the tomb? Why buried here? Why are there these funerary items? "In short, the process of brain supplementation is particularly interesting."
As the leader of the women's archaeological team, Yanni said that archaeological women are not inferior to men, but also have the unique meticulousness and sensitivity of women. In the traditional impression, archaeology is cold and obscure, "In fact, archaeology is not tall, it is on the ground, like 'I repair cultural relics in the Forbidden City', 'national treasures' and so on are very close to the public." "In Yanni's view, archaeology is not an expedition, not a tomb robbery note, not a ghost blowing lights, but a scientific research method, which is to complete the dialogue with the ancients in the process of searching for ancient mysteries." Knowing history and knowing the aspirations, if a nation does not understand the past, how can it move towards the future? ”
General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to archaeological work, and once stressed: "Archaeological work is an important work to display and build the treasures of the history of the Chinese nation and Chinese civilization." "In the new year, Yanni and the women's archaeological team are full of confidence." We are very proud that we shoulder the mission of learning from history and creating the future, telling Chinese stories well with cultural relics, inheriting the glorious history of Chinese civilization, and creating a brilliant future of Chinese civilization."