"Out of baby!" As soon as the migrant worker shouted out, he was slapped on the head by the foreman of the team:
"What do you shout, digging up treasure with you so ostentatious?" If you look closely, isn't this a dirty glass, what is the treasure? Throw it aside! ”
But in the Warring States Tombs, how could there be glasses more than 2200 years ago? This statement is not scientific, it is not so simple.
Based on the serious excavation situation, some people asked: Will it be the glass that the tomb robber discarded to drink tea during the excavation?
But this assumption was quickly rejected. The raw material and carbon 14 tests of the Beijing scientific research institute showed that the cup material was crystal rather than glass, and the age was clearly the late Warring States period. So, this is the late Warring States crystal cup.
Combined with the whole process of its discovery, it can be concluded that the above judgment is completely correct. It's just that the mystery of its life has not been clear, which is quite intriguing!
After the middle of October 1990, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, gradually became cool, and people would add more coats to prevent the cold air that suddenly moved south.
At the Shitang Village Brick and Tile Factory, not far from Hangzhou, migrant workers do not feel cold at all, and they dig up the earth every day just to burn thousands of bricks and tiles.
However, this day as usual routine digging, became a little unusual, inexplicable, a migrant worker digging soil, suddenly hit a toe, just in front of the thick soil wall, instantly into a 1 meter square round hole.
Migrant workers realize that they have dug up the tomb, and digging the tomb means that they may be rich. Because there are probably rare treasures in it.
At that time, people were not very open-minded, their sense of secrecy was relatively strong, and normal households, who worked hard to live their lives, would immediately report the situation in the face of this situation.
Previously, in this village, someone dug up a ceramic chime, secretly hid it, and then sold it to a cultural relics dealer, and after being reported, he was arrested and imprisoned. The person in charge of the brick and tile factory realized that the problem was special, and in order to avoid complications, he quickly reported it, and the cultural relics experts and the archaeological team quickly arrived at the scene.
It was preliminarily determined that this was a tomb, as well as a contiguous group of tombs. After expanding the excavation, it was found that there was a Warring States tomb here.
On the tomb site, continue to dig to 1 meter underground, the mud suddenly shot out a ray of light, after nearly 1 hour of meticulous treatment, a crystal clear "glass" appeared in its original appearance... This brings us to the scene at the beginning of this article.
The crystal cup is 15.4 cm high, 7.8 cm in diameter, 5.4 cm in diameter, with an open oblique wall, a round mouth and a round bottom, transparent throughout, amber color, individual flocculent crystals, and the shape is no different from that of modern glasses.
Apparently, it is made of a whole piece of crystal cored, chiseled, polished, polished.
Crystal and amber, jade, jadeite are gemstones, the composition is silica, Mohs hardness is high, about 6 to 7 degrees, so the general tools such as metal to make crystal, the role is effective.
So, how was this crystal cup made in the Warring States more than 2200 years ago?
One of the more reliable speculations is that the drill pipe process for making jade is used, and the use of emery polishing. At that time, jade production was very mature, and it was possible that the same process could be used in crystal. In addition, of course, it is not excluded that the process has been lost.
However, in the face of hard and crisp crystal, the core grinding more than ten centimeters deep, such a small cup mouth, the hand is difficult to reach in, the cup wall is beveled, the core, grinding, polishing difficulty can be imagined, must be more time-consuming and laborious, the technical difficulty increases, the cracks on the top should be produced during the production process.
Crystals so early in history are very rare, and even now, such a large piece of crystal with such a high purity is difficult to find, and the material itself is extremely valuable. Coupled with the crystal cup production process, the unique product, the largest in the early days, and the preservation is particularly well-preserved, it is destined to have an immeasurable value from the time it was discovered, and it can even be said to be a priceless treasure.
On January 18, 2002, the Late Warring States Crystal Cup, together with Simu Peng Da Fangding, Liangzhu Yuqun Wang, Sanxingdui Bronze Sacred Tree, Zenghou Yi Chimes, etc., was included in the first batch of 64 national treasures that were permanently banned from overseas exhibitions.