Just as the so-called Yang people are difficult to borrow the wealth of the dead, the tomb robbers do the opposite. At present, most of our understanding of tomb robbery comes from film and television dramas and novels, but the earliest acts of tomb robbery can be traced back to the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, and reached a climax in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
The establishment of the ritual music system in the early Zhou Dynasty allowed rulers to enjoy the sound of the world in a high position, and advocated enjoyment and luxury as the mainstream, and a large number of treasures would be used as funerary items when they were buried. When the Spring and Autumn period collapsed, the thick burial must have caused a large number of tomb robbers to sacrifice themselves to rob the tomb.
In modern times, the most famous tomb robber, known as the "grandfather" of the tomb robbery industry, dug 200 tombs in decades, made 500 million yuan by reselling cultural relics, and shouted before the execution: "I know the entrance to the Qin Tombs!" "This is the famous one - Yao Yuzhong."
The means of tomb robbery are superb
Yao Yuzhong was born in a family of tomb robbers, his ancestors are engaged in tomb robbery business, since he was a child his father will take Yao Yuzhong to investigate the ancient tomb, and tell him how to judge the tomb and look at the feng shui acupuncture points.
"Grave robbers don't say much, they hear, smell, recognize, and discern." This was what Yao Yuzhong's father told him, so Yao Yuzhong developed a cautious and reticent personality.
Yao Yuzhong is very persistent about the target, and after seeing the tomb, he will dig this point many times.
The experience of staying by his father's side and following the team to the tomb made Yao Yuzhong exercise a very human courage and technology, and over time Yao Yuzhong had his own insights into tomb robbery.
Father's generation before going to the tomb to go through more than ten days or even a month of stepping points and exploring the cave to determine the entrance to the tomb, sometimes digging a few meters down still found nothing, such inefficient work made Yao Yuzhong think that the old method is outdated, he began to develop his own tools that can more accurately locate the tomb, so "Zazi" was born.
As a tomb exploration tool, you only need to stab the thorn into the soil and then pull it out, and observe the color change of the tip to determine whether there is a tomb underneath.
This tool was more convenient and faster than the Luoyang shovel used by mainland archaeologists at that time. It was precisely with the new tools and rich experience of tomb robbery that Yao Yuzhong quickly stole the ruins of his hometown of Hongshan.
According to people in the industry, Yao Yuzhong went out to commit crimes more than 200 times between 2013 and 2014, compass, stargazing and positioning are common methods used when Yao Yuzhong robbed tombs, and Yao Yuzhong was honored by the tomb robbery gang with his amazing tomb robbery skills as "Zushiye" and "the first master outside the Guanwai".
Resale of cultural relics
Yao Yuzhong became addicted to gambling after making money by reselling cultural relics, and insiders can often see him rushing to take cultural relics to pawn shops or connect with people who know goods to resell cultural relics just after returning from the ancient tomb. Sometimes after getting millions, they put money into the casino before they have time to cover the heat.
As the saying goes: big gambles mistake the country, small bets mislead the family. In the later period, Yao Yuzhong gradually lost his mind when gambling, and he directly used cultural relics as a bet and mortgaged them on the gambling table.
If the gamble is lost, the cultural relics will be handed over to people, and sometimes the cultural relics worth tens of millions of dollars will also be flowed away as hundreds of thousands of gambling funds.
Tomb robbery gangs like Yao Yuzhong, who focus on funerary goods and valuable jewelry in ancient tombs, do not care at all about the integrity of ancient tombs and the value of cultural relics for understanding human history and culture.
The tombs they stole often destroyed things that had archaeological significance, which had a great impact on the archaeological work of the mainland. Many archaeologists have said: "A tomb robbery can cause irreversible damage to cultural relics." ”
As the old saying goes, I often walk by the river where there are shoes that don't get wet. In 2014, with gold wire glasses on his face, it seemed that Yao Yuzhong of Sven Wen walked into the police's field of vision, because at that time, the villagers found that he always went up the mountain for a walk in the morning and disappeared at night, so the abnormal behavior made the police catch Yao Yuzhong's horse's foot.
In May of the following year, the police announced that the largest tomb robbery case since the founding of New China had been solved, and a total of 225 suspects were arrested, of which Yao Yuzhong was the boss of the gang.
Yao Yuzhong's tomb robbery was suspected of amounting to 500 million yuan, which had the greatest impact on the destruction of cultural relics, so in 2017, the court pronounced Yao Yuzhong's death sentence with a two-year suspension of execution. In front of the final interrogation platform, Yao Yuzhong still said unashamedly: "I know the entrance to the Qin Tomb, give me two years and I will definitely empty it." ”
This should be the so-called "dog jumping the wall", his words are indeed very attractive, but everyone is equal before the law, if you commit a crime, you must accept the punishment of the law, and the law will not "open the back door" for anyone!
Qinling Tomb
Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum is well known, when Qin Shi Huang was emperor at the age of 13, it began to be built, and it was not completed until a year after his death, and the construction project of the whole 39 years can be imagined.
Covering an area of 56 square kilometers, the mausoleum occupies the northern foothills of Lishan Mountain, and the concubines, craftsmen, and soldiers are hugely 100,000 people, and tens of millions of gold and silver treasures are funerary products.
In the south, among the layers of Lishan Mountain, the mountains and forests are lush; in the north, it is bordered by the weishui river, which is winding and snake-like, and from these points of view, it is enough to imagine the attraction of Qinling to the tomb robbery gang.
However, the mainland has raised more than one level in the crackdown and control of tomb robbery, because the emergence of tomb robbery is often accompanied by the loss of Chinese cultural relics. In modern times, China has been robbed of many treasures by the great powers in the burning of the Yuanmingyuan, and many cultural relics have not yet returned to China.
Take the well-known zodiac head, the zodiac is scattered everywhere, some in foreign museums, some are used as private collections, and these beast capitals are symbols of Chinese civilization, and leaving them outside will cause great obstacles to the study of Chinese civilization.
When the ancient civilization is buried in the ground, bronze, celadon, robes and other civilizations are marked with prices, human greed is fueled in the heart, and the hand that reaches out to the evil gradually rampages, fortunately, in recent years, the strict control of tomb robbery has gradually faded out of the public eye, and everyone's awareness of cultural relics protection has gradually risen.
Tomb robbery as an illegal act, in the science of science should pay attention to its negative impact, especially in the increasingly developed Internet, film and television drama works should be closer to real life, more archaeological research and other positive publicity, to cultivate the next generation of young people's sense of responsibility for cultural inheritance.