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In 1972, a batch of lacquerware was unearthed from the Mawangdui Han Tomb, and the archaeologists were attracted by one of the lacquerware, they surrounded this lacquerware, and one of the archaeologists gently lifted the top cover of the lacquerware, and at the moment of opening, the archaeologists were stunned, and inside was a bowl of lotus soup!
Due to the long time, the lotus soup has long deteriorated, and there is still a layer of unknown substance floating on it, but the lotus tablets on it are clearly visible, and just when the archaeologists are ready to explore it, the lotus slices directly disappear. Archaeologists are remorseful, after all, the millennium lotus soup is the only one in the world. At this time, the recorder on the side shouted: "It doesn't matter, I have recorded it all, and I just gave a close-up." ”
How exactly did experts excavate the mawangdui Han tomb? Why is there lotus soup left in the tomb? When unearthed, why did the lotus soup "disappear"?
Mawangdui was unexpectedly opened, and archaeologists rushed to the front line
Mawangdui Han Tomb is located in Changsha City, Hunan Province, Furong District, the eastern suburbs of Liuyang River nearby, the name of Mawangdui actually has a long history, because the local terrain is relatively flat, there are two mounds, the mound is not much different, and the middle is connected, the whole shape is like a saddle, the title of "horse" comes from this, and according to local historical records, the legend is that this is the tomb of the King of Chu, so it is also called "Wang Dui"
The Mawangdui Han Tomb is the family tomb of the Western Han Dynasty. Mawangdui Han Tomb has a history of thousands of years and has great research value, so how was such a Han tomb discovered?
In fact, in 1951, archaeologists have noticed this burial chamber, according to the investigation, they judged that this is most likely a Han Dynasty burial chamber, the next year they determined the age of this tomb, but they were not ready to excavate and develop this burial chamber, because the archaeological technology at that time was not mature, archaeologists can not guarantee that some cultural relics will be preserved intact, so they will list the Mawangdui Han Tomb as a provincial protected cultural relics, ready to wait until the mature time to develop it.
But the good times did not last long, and the Han tomb was accidentally opened. In 1971, the 366 Hospital in Hunan Province was preparing to build an underground hospital, and because of the terrain, after a comprehensive investigation, they were ready to build it near Mawangdui, and the construction personnel at that time did not know that there was a Han tomb near Mawangdui.
At that time, the construction staff was digging down the soil layer, at first everything was quite normal, the soil was also common to the construction personnel, and suddenly the construction staff of the hat felt that something was wrong, and he quietly muttered: "This soil has become so soft, is it someone who has turned it over?" No, it shouldn't. After saying that, he asked the co-workers next to him: "Hey, come and see this soil, is there something different?" ”
The worker next to him stood up: "What's different, isn't it all soil?" After saying that, he used a tool to pick up the soil. At this point the construction worker could only stop there: "Really? Am I hallucinating? After thinking about it, he honestly continued to dig.
At this time, a nearby construction worker, holding a steel bar in his right hand, felt a little tired, so he took out a box of cigarettes from his pants, he pulled out a stick and put it in his mouth, and his right hand randomly inserted the steel bar into the soil to prevent it from falling to the ground. He slowly took out the lighter, and when he pressed it, the flame suddenly burst into flames, and at once it ignited the flammable material next to it, and the entire air raid shelter tunnel burned up, fortunately, the fire was not large, and the construction personnel quickly extinguished the fire.
The construction worker coughed and ran out of the hole, he did not expect to put on a fire, the air raid shelter actually burned? He asked the co-workers next to him, "Have you offended the mountain god?" The co-workers were frightened and scolded the construction worker fiercely. It didn't end there. There are more and more rumors of "mountain gods", people are frightened by this phenomenon, and the construction progress has slowed down.
The leaders above also heard about this incident, they hurried to inquire, and the archaeologists of the Hunan Provincial Museum quickly came to the scene to check it out. This phenomenon is very common, the general fire pit tomb will be white paste mud and charcoal closed in a constant temperature environment, some items in the tomb will deteriorate, after deterioration will produce combustible objects, once encountered in the outside fire will occur burning phenomenon.
The museum quickly contacted the construction team leader and said that it was likely that there was a tomb underneath. After the discussion, the museum prepared to carry out rescue excavations in order to cooperate with the infrastructure construction and the protection of cultural relics. At the same time, the tomb under this air raid shelter was named Mawangdui No. 1 Tomb.
In this way, the Mawangdui Han Tomb finally reappeared after more than a thousand years. The Hunan Provincial Museum also sent a large number of workers here, and after a long period of investigation, the excavation work was officially launched in 1972.
Archaeology is a laborious and time-consuming task that requires a large number of staff, otherwise the tomb will be destroyed if you are not careful, and the number of archaeologists at that time was simply not enough. So they worked for a long time, and even Tomb No. 1 was not fully excavated. Later, they found another way and called out students from many local universities, and the students heard that they had come to discover Mawangdui and were willing to contribute to the country.
Mrs. Xin Chai was unearthed, and her body was immortal for thousands of years
In the first few months of work, archaeologists worked very hard, not only to carefully protect the tomb, but also to guard against the changeable weather. Three months later, archaeologists almost explored Tomb No. 1, and a huge coffin attracted the attention of many archaeologists, and later appeared in its entirety with the unremitting efforts of the workers.
After the wooden rafter on the outer layer of the coffin was opened, people were surprised to find that the innermost wooden coffin was surrounded by a large circle of pottery, bamboo, books and other burial items, which showed that the identity of the owner of the coffin was very noble, should belong to the category of princes and nobles, and should be a lady.
People were amazed at the integrity of the burial items, and experts explained that this was because the protective measures were very well done. There are four layers of protection outside the burial items, the sealing layer, the rammed soil layer, the protective layer, and the blocking layer (charcoal and white plaster mud). White plaster mud and charcoal have good antiseptic functions, and white plaster mud can also block water and gas inside and outside the tomb very well.
Then, on April 28, 1972, archaeologists opened the innermost coffin, and the archaeologists were shocked to see the body inside, because it looked very fresh and well preserved.
Later, it was found that this female corpse was Mrs. Xin Chai, mrs. Xin Chai was the wife of Cheng Xianglicang, in fact, the name Xin Chai was only tentative, and later archaeologists believed that this Xin Chai may also be a kind of blackcredit. Ancient writing habits are from top to bottom, from left to right, so this Xin Chai may be Xin Chai, plus the two words together are very similar to avoid this word, experts can not judge for a while. The facts, we can only see clearly after more cultural relics are unearthed.
Archaeologists found that mrs. Xin Chai's body is very well preserved, the whole body is moist, the skin is completely covered, and the hairs on the body are still there, the muscles still have a certain elasticity, and some joints can still be moved, which is the best preserved "wet corpse" so far.
Unlike mummies, which are artificially dried corpses, mummies were a common method of preserving corpses in ancient Egypt. They would apply sesame oil or other medicinal materials to the body of the deceased to prevent the body from decaying. The soaked corpse is then placed in an airtight tomb for a long-lasting purpose, a technique similar to modern artificial freezing.
When Mrs. Xin Chai's "wet corpse" was unearthed, it was soaked in a red solution and had twenty layers of silk clothes on her body.
When it was unearthed, because the staff did not have hope for this two-thousand-year-old corpse, the protection measures were not in place, so it had a certain impact on the corpse, and the skin and clothes were damaged to a certain extent. Later, when people took off the last layer of clothing, they found that the female corpse was unusually complete, but the damage was irreparable.
A week later, archaeologists injected the female corpse with preservatives, the skin, flesh, and blood vessel tissue bulged with the potion, and the color of the intercrosstal arteries was almost indistinguishable from that of the newly dead. The staff present were shocked, after all, this female corpse had been separated for thousands of years, and it could still be so vivid.
The female corpse was dissected and it was found that the cause of death of the female corpse may have been coronary heart disease caused by biliary colic. In fact, whether it is the body of Mrs. Xin Chai or her rich burial items, it has a deep research value for our archaeological work, and also reminds us that we need to be careful when working in archaeology, otherwise we will lose a lot of items with research significance.
But in archaeological work, there can always be a lot of accidents, these accidents are often unavoidable, just like this bowl of lotus soup, then let's take a look at the story of this bowl of lotus soup!
Thousand-year-old lotus soup, when it meets the light, it is destroyed
Mawangdui Han Tomb is known as "one of the world's top ten ancient tombs rare treasures", but also last year was selected as the national "top 100 archaeological discoveries in a hundred years", its importance can be seen, Mawangdui No. 1, NO. 2, No. 3 tomb excavated a wide variety of cultural relics, and a large number, after the statistics of a total of more than 3,000 pieces. Among them, the most precious should be a large number of silk fabrics belonging to Tomb No. 1, in addition to lacquerware, wooden jane, bamboo veils, musical instruments, pottery, etc., most of which are well preserved.
But there is no doubt that in the process of excavation, we still lost a lot of cultural relics, how to make a cultural relics completely preserved, has always been a big problem in the archaeological community, because these cultural relics in the depths of the underground, often in a sealed tomb, only in this environment, cultural relics can be preserved to this day.
If we open the tomb and don't have enough technology to preserve it, then the damage to the cultural relics is very large. For example, ceramics, its composition is very complex, there are acidic soil, alkaline soil, so the degree of influence they are affected is not the same, and the measures we should take are also different.
We can know that relics such as silk fabrics and books are the most easily destroyed, and may still be well preserved for a second, and they will be destroyed instantly at the moment they come into contact with the outside air. Many people are also whimsical, saying that archaeology can be done directly in a vacuum environment. Unfortunately, it is difficult to achieve at this stage. Perhaps in the future, scientists can find another way to develop a chemical agent that can play a role in protecting cultural relics.
There is also a category of objects that are more easily destroyed, and that is the most common funerary item in our daily lives - food. In ancient times, people took food as the sky, and people usually brought food to sacrifice during sacrifices, and in the Mawangdui Han Tomb, there were a large number of grain crops to accompany the burial, and there were some cooked food burial items.
For example, a large number of plant samples have been unearthed in Tomb No. 1, of which rice, wheat, barley, millet, millet, and soybeans have appeared in beans, and jujubes, pears, and bayberry have appeared in fruits; there are more types of Chinese medicinal materials, including peppercorns, Xinyi, and Du Heng, and experts are shocked that they also found some cannabis in them.
There are a total of 24 animal samples, of which dogs, rabbits, chickens, ducks, pigs, carp, crucian carp and so on are more common. There are also birds such as magpies and sparrows, and these funerary items are often accompanied by certain utensils.
In 1972, a complete set of lacquerware was unearthed at the Mawangdui Han Tomb, and the lacquerware of the Han Dynasty was generally used for diet. The unearthed set of lacquerware is a complete set of dining tools. Plates, cups, chopsticks are all in it.
At that time, the Mawangdui archaeologists were very careful when preserving this set of lacquerware, because this is a complete and extremely valuable set of lacquerware, which restores a whole appearance of the Han society during the meal, and has a very great effect on our investigation of the food culture of the Han Dynasty, and one of the lacquerwares attracted the interest of the archaeological staff.
Because it is not like other containers, it has a certain weight, so archaeologists have discussed for a long time: "Or we will open it now, after all, many years have passed, the contents must have been damaged, and the texture inside can be studied when opened." ”
But some archaeologists said: "We still have a better environment, and then open it, in case there is something precious in it, it is worth our study?" At this time, someone retorted to him: "This set of utensils is for food and drink at first glance, and most of the contents are filled with food and other things, is it not rotten after such a long time?" ”
In the end, they decided to open the lacquerware, and they called in the photographer and the recorder to record the actual situation in the lacquerware. At this time, an archaeologist with gloves went forward to open the lid, and at the moment of opening, everyone was shocked, this turned out to be a complete lotus soup, and the shape of the lotus flakes could be clearly seen.
However, in the next instant, the lotus slices in the lotus soup instantly turned into black matter floating in the water, so that a bowl of thousand-year-old lotus soup disappeared, all the archaeologists did not react, fortunately, the photographer on the side quickly recorded the lotus soup when the lid was opened.
Afterwards, the photographer said after discussing with the staff on the side: "Fortunately, I recorded this bowl of lotus soup at the first time, otherwise this bowl of lotus soup from a thousand years ago would be difficult to appear!" ”
The staff next to them heard it, deeply thought it was, after all, most people thought that this food-like item should disappear in the long river of history, but they did not expect that the closure of the Mawangdui Han Tomb was so good, even a bowl of lotus soup can be completely preserved, the staff sighed deeply: "Yes, this is something from a thousand years ago!" ”
After the lotus soup incident, archaeologists treated each artifact more carefully, and most of the excavated artifacts were well preserved. We know that cultural relics are a bridge connecting ancient and modern times, without cultural relics, we cannot cross the long river of time to a thousand years ago, understand the politics, economy, culture at that time, we should respect and protect these cultural relics that carry a thousand years of history!
The Mawangdui Han Tomb completely shows the spiritual and cultural outlook of the Han Dynasty, has great value, and has made great contributions to the mainland. The story that happened in the Mawangdui Han Tomb should also be worth recording, which provides a wealth of experience for our later archaeological work.
The story of this bowl of lotus soup that has traveled through thousands of years ends here, but the story of the tomb of Mawangdui Han has not stopped! Cultural relics have been buried underground for thousands of years, and it is very difficult to excavate, and it is even more difficult to explore the historical value and historical story behind them. Through the excavation of ancient tombs, the daily life of the ancestors is restored, which is the greatest significance of archaeology!
(The picture and text originate from the original author of the online copyright)
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