One day in the winter of 1965, archaeologists were cleaning tomb No. 1 at the excavation site of the Wangshan Chu Tomb Group in Jiangling County, Jingzhou City, Hubei Province. Suddenly, the Yue Wang's Gou Jian sword was discovered, and it was inserted in the sheath of the black lacquer sword with a length of 55.6 cm, a width of 4.6 cm, a handle length of 8.4 cm, and a weight of 875 grams. When the archaeologists pulled it out, the cold light was suddenly compelling, the sword body was purple and yellow, there was no rust, and its brightness and color were as if it had been newly cast.
After more than two thousand years of burial in the ground, the Yue King's sword was still extremely sharp. In order to test the sharpness, the archaeologists experimented with more than 20 layers of copy paper, and the result was that the sword broke from the middle with a "bang". Some people may say that this sword was unearthed in a relatively shabby cemetery, how can it be determined that it is the Yue King who gouges the sword?
This is because the sword has eight characters bird seal text, "Qiwang Dove Shallow, Self-Use Chain". The so-called bird seal script is an early form of Chinese characters, which is named because of the bird shape in the characters. After the interpretation of famous archaeologists such as Guo Moruo and Xia Nai, it is believed that the meaning of these eight bird seals is, "Yue Wang's practice, self-action sword." ”
Everyone knows what these eight words mean, and it makes this sword rise to an unprecedented height. The body of the Yue Wang's sword is covered with slightly black diamond-shaped ornaments, the front of the sword grid is made of blue glass, the back of the sword grid is inlaid with turquoise to form a beautiful pattern, and near the handle, there are two lines of eight bird seal characters inlaid with gold wire. The hilt of the sword is wrapped in a silk rope, and the head of the sword is rolled up into a hoop, and the inner cast is an extremely fine 11 concentric circles.
The Yue Kingdom is located in Zhejiang, but this sword was found in the cemetery of the nobles of the Chu State in Hubei Province, and the distance between the two places was more than a thousand miles. At present, there are two possibilities: First, the dowry is said. It is said that the Yue King Gou Jian once married his daughter to king Chu Zhao as a concubine, and as a result, she was brought into the cemetery as a funerary product; second, the booty said. When the Chu state sent troops to Yue Guo, it captured this sword and brought it back to the Chu state, and eventually became a funerary product.
The most critical question is, how can it not be rusted after being buried in the ground for more than 2,000 years? The experts used X-fluorescence to illuminate the sword without loss, shouting in disbelief, how is this possible? The main component of the yue wang gou jian sword body is copper alloy, with a copper content of about 80%-83%, a tin content of about 16%-17%, and a small amount of lead and iron; the blade part is 80.3% copper and 18.8% tin. How the craftsmen of two thousand years ago grasped this proportion, neither sharp nor easy to break, is still a mystery.
The composition of ancient bronzes on the mainland is mainly the alloy of copper and tin, for example, in the "Zhou Li Kao Gong Ji", there is a record of "four points of its gold (copper), and the tin is one, which is called the Qi of the Ge Ji; the three points of its gold and the tin are one, which is called the Qi of the Great Blade". As mentioned earlier, the main component of the Yue Wang's Gou Jian Sword is copper, which is an inactive metal.
In addition to the fact that the material of the sword itself is not easy to rust, there is also an important reason that the location where the Yue King's sword is buried is relatively an enclosed space. Hubei Jiangling Wangshan No. 1 Chu Tomb is a two coffins, layer by layer, surrounded by a fine texture of white clay, this soil compactness is very good, so that the air inside the coffin is thin. Under various circumstances, the Yue King's sword was buried in the ground for more than two thousand years, and it was still extremely sharp.
Reference: "Unveiling the Sword of the Yue King"