China has a very glorious history in the past, in the era of small-scale peasant economy domination, the people mainly rely on the land to live, and China, which has a large land and a wealth of resources, has great advantages in this regard.
With the support of the agricultural economy, China developed into a great power in ancient times, with strong military and economic strength. During the Tang Dynasty, China's development reached its peak, and the prosperous social economy and brilliant artistic culture of that period were enjoyed by future generations, and we can also see the description of the Tang Dynasty in many related literary works.
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However, what is surprising is that there are countless literary works in the Tang Dynasty, but few cultural relics that can reflect the royal family in the Prosperous Tang Dynasty have survived, and most of them are various utensils common to the people.
However, even if it is a folk ordinary utensil, we can also see the superb level of craftsmen at that time, presumably the gold and silver utensils used by the royal family at that time must have been more exquisite. Under the expectation of all people, the gold and silver utensils used by the Tang Dynasty royal family finally reappeared in an ordinary afternoon.
On the afternoon of October 5, 1970, a farmer in Hejiacun Commune in the southern suburbs of Xi'an dug out a jar while laying the foundation, and the locals in Xi'an knew that it was common to dig out cultural relics under the ground, so the farmer immediately threw away his hoe and carefully took out the jar with his hands. As soon as the lid was lifted, he was stunned, the jar was filled with gold, and the dazzling light almost stung people's eyes.
The farmer was kind and simple, and his first reaction after digging out the cultural relics was to inform the leaders of the village, who quickly contacted the head of the provincial museum, and soon six experts came to the place where the cultural relics were excavated to inspect.
As an expert, experts were stunned when they saw the contents of the crock pot, which was stuffed with gold and silver utensils, as well as various gemstones, and its value was self-evident, and the four pieces of "red gold leaf" that had not been built weighed 11 pounds.
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The experts quickly protected the site and then began excavations nearby, and soon after they dug up a similar jar in the north, which was also filled with precious gold and silver utensils, and also dug out a small silver box containing an agate cup that later became the "treasure of the town hall" of the Shaanxi Museum.
This excavation work can be described as a full harvest, roughly estimated that there are more than 1,000 pieces of excavated cultural relics, of which gold and silver utensils are the most, a total of more than 700 pieces, crystal jade is relatively small, but there are also more than a dozen pieces, precious agate utensils have three pieces, such a rich cultural relics excavation can be said to be unprecedented.
The leaders of the provincial museum attach great importance to the excavation work, in order to ensure that there is no mistake, after consultation, everyone decided not to announce the results of the excavation to the public, and wait for the museum to be sorted out before it is made public. But no one expected that even if they were so careful, the accident would still happen.
At that time, the first jar contained four pieces of "red gold leaf" weighing a total of 11 kilograms, but after half a year, the weight of gold leaf was 3 pounds less!
The first weighing time of the 4 pieces of gold leaf was soaked in the jar, when the staff was also waiting for the dry water before weighing, half a year later because of the need to compile the relevant report, the expert weighed the four pieces of gold leaf again, but found that two of the red gold leaf was 2.22 pounds less weight. Before I could figure out what was going on, the weight of the gold leaf changed again during the second weigh-up, this time 240 grams less.
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When this happened, everyone's first reaction was to think that someone had moved their hands and feet on the gold leaf, but the museum attached great importance to this batch of cultural relics, and the guards took turns on duty, and they would not give those who had a heart to take advantage of the opportunity.
In order to find out the reason for the matter, the experts decided to check the other two pieces of gold leaf, and this investigation found that the other two pieces of gold leaf were actually 63.7 grams less.
In order to find out the situation, the relevant person in charge of the museum contacted the physics and chemistry experts at Northwestern University, hoping that they could answer everyone's questions.
After the experts in the relevant fields got together to discuss, they quickly came to the conclusion that these pieces of gold leaf had been soaked in water before they were unearthed, and the texture of gold was relatively soft, so during the steeping process over the years, some water penetrated into the inside of the gold, and these waters could not be completely evaporated in a short time, so the weight actually included the weight of water when weighing.
With the passage of time, the moisture in the gold leaf is gradually evaporated, and the weight of the gold leaf becomes lighter, which is a normal phenomenon, and the gold leaf itself has not become less or less.