Ancient tombs found at the site
One day in April 2011, at a construction site in the eastern part of Lu'an City, Anhui Province, workers accidentally dug up a special color of dirt during construction.
The surrounding soil is mostly dark yellow, but the soil dug out by the workers has several different colors.
When the on-site management saw the situation, they "giggled" in their hearts, suspecting that they had dug up the ancient tomb, so they quickly stopped the construction and notified the local government.
The archaeological team of the Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics rushed to the scene and found that the excavated soil was colorful soil, which confirmed the existence of the ancient tomb.
At present, archaeological excavations are in full swing, and the archaeological team has found a number of exquisite burial artifacts in the funerary items.
But to everyone's surprise, the owner's coffin was in good condition, but his head was missing.
What the hell is going on here? Was it stolen?
What did the owner of the tomb die for?
Warring States Double Tomb
In 2011, the Chengdong Economic Development Zone plans to build an amusement park to attract more tourists. After many investigations and demonstrations, they decided to build this project into a comprehensive theme park integrating entertainment and fitness. The park is located in the northwest corner of the city, covering an area of more than 30,000 mu, with a total investment of about 1 billion yuan. But one day in April, when workers on the construction site were working as usual, they found the soil dug out today strange.
Most of the local soil is dark yellow in color, but workers have dug up more than one patch of dark yellow.
The workers looked around curiously, and the site managers were surprised to hear the news. It turned out that they had discovered a huge circular earth pit that had been dug up during construction. The workers were amazed: Is it true? They didn't believe it, but they didn't dare to do it easily. The managers were well informed, and if they hadn't seen or heard a lot of such things, they immediately realized that they might have dug up an ancient tomb.
Managers also quickly halted all work on the site and reported it to the local government. "This is the discovery of a Neolithic site in the Lu'an area of Anhui Province, which is another major cultural discovery in my county following the discovery of a new Paleolithic site in Huoshan County in June 2013." Liu Wei, a professor of archaeology at Anhui Agricultural University, told reporters. The Lu'an Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics soon received a notice from the local government and quickly sent a highly professional archaeological team to the scene.
When the archaeological team saw the excavated mud, they immediately determined that it was five-flowered soil, usually found in earth pit tombs, and confirmed the existence of ancient tombs under the site. As a result, the archaeologists began to conduct a detailed survey of the place. After some effort, A tomb with a deeper burial path was finally found. The archaeologists decided to excavate the tomb and then drill it. After further field investigation, the archaeological team was even more surprised to find that there was a large amount of five-flowered earth distributed on the site, which meant that the ancient tomb below was certainly not small.
The staff at the site have removed the roof of the tomb, and the archaeological team has found a robbery hole, but the unidentified group of people only walked 3 meters before stopping, if they walk a few more meters, they may find the main burial chamber.
Due to some degree of damage to the tomb, conservation excavations began rapidly.
After excavating the tomb below, the archaeological team found two burial chambers, just 10 meters apart. Judging from the shape of the tomb, the excavated relics and the content of the murals, they are a large earth pit wooden tomb in the late Han Dynasty. Both tombs are located on the slopes of the northern foothills of xiaoqinling, about 1 km southwest of the county seat of Lantian County, Shaanxi. One of the burial chambers is about 7 meters long and about 5 meters wide, the archaeological team initially named m566, and the other tomb is about 9 meters long and about 6 meters wide, initially named m585.
Archaeologists speculate that the tomb was supposed to be the burial site of a couple and further excavation is needed to verify whether this is the case. It is understood that the two ancient tombs located near Dongguan Village, Mapo Town, Fengxiang County, Baoji City, Shaanxi Province, belong to the large noble tombs of the late Western Han Dynasty. But before that, due to the wet soil, the tomb contains a lot of water that needs to be cleaned up before proper excavation can be carried out.
It took the team more than a month to first clean up the outer chamber and find a large number of funerary items.
It's just that most of them are covered in silt, and the archaeologists have to clean them little by little with soft brushes and watering cans, slowly revealing the brilliance of all the elaborately carved funerary items.
Archaeologists believe that from the excavated cultural relics, the tomb was built in the Warring States period, which has a history of more than 2,000 years.
There are not many historical books in that era, and only by excavating the ancient tombs of that era and studying the relics in the tombs can we understand the ancient books of that era.
There are many varieties of pottery products and lacquerware excavated from the Lu'an Shuang Tomb, among which the excavated pottery ding is very prominent, 2-3 times that of the pottery excavated in the Warring States period, and it is the first large-scale pottery excavated in western Anhui.
The archaeological team also found five bronze mirrors, one of which is 27 centimeters in diameter, has six deformed "mountain" characters, and has a beautiful design on the back.
This kind of mirror is one of the most popular copper mirrors in the Warring States period, and the four copper mirrors excavated from the Lu'an Double Tomb are all made of mountain characters.
The six "mountain" mirror patterns mainly appeared in the late Warring States period, and their ornamental layouts and techniques reflected the strong aesthetic height of the Chu people, which further confirmed the judgment of predecessors on such bronze mirrors, and also helped archaeologists determine that this was the Chu tomb in the late Warring States period.
The confirmation of the tomb age does not mean the end of the tomb age, but the identity of the tomb owner has yet to be determined.
Mr. and Mrs. Burying
After emptying the outer chamber, due to the relatively small size of the m566, the archaeological team started at m566 and opened two coffins.
When the remains of the first m566 m566 turn black, a shocking scene unfolds in front of the archaeological team, first of all, making people think of the owner of the coffin who died of poisoning. When the lid of the coffin was opened, it was found that the deceased had not died in a coma, but was lying on a huge wooden bed. The situation was that when the lid of the coffin was opened, there was nothing inside the coffin. What does this mean? In the M585 coffin that was later opened, the body of the owner of the tomb was relatively ordinary in color, but his head was missing.
The archaeological team has repeatedly confirmed that the coffin was previously sealed and there was no sign of tomb robbery. So they decided to carry the mysterious coffin out first to see what was going on. However, when they went to the cemetery, they found that there was nothing inside. Turns out, this is a person! It is difficult to say that when the owner of the tomb was buried, the head of the remains was missing?
With doubts, the archaeologists began to study further.
They found the owner of the M566 cemetery about 35 years old, with short and wide pelvic bones, slender collarbone and limb bones, apparently a woman, with a bronze mirror with four mountain characters.
The missing skull on the m585 is apparently male, aged between 35 and 39 years old, and the remains are spliced together to appear large. The tomb is located on a mountain beam in Lantian County, Shaanxi Province. According to archaeologists, this mountain is called "Daling Mountain", and there are two large earthen pits and wooden tombs on the mountain. One of them is a male tombstone. The owner of the tomb, a man and a woman, are also very close in age, and the couple's burial items appear in pairs.
Archaeologists found 10 replicas of imitation copper pottery in the burial chamber. Among them, 5 are excavated from tombs in the Warring States period, and the other 3 are burial utensils from tombs of the late Western Han Dynasty and early Eastern Han Dynasty. From these circumstances, we can conclude that the owners of these 8 tombs were not nobles but commoners. During the Warring States period and the Warring States period, this imitation copper pottery was very popular, but 10 of them did not conform to the etiquette system, because only the Tianzi could use the Nine Dings, while the princes could only use the Seven Dings.
However, considering that this is a husband and wife burial tomb, then the 10 tripods here have about 5 male and female tomb owners, that is, compared with the specifications of the Warring States period.
Confusingly, the archaeological team also found clay pots containing animal bones and soup water in the mausoleum. Archaeologists say this should be the soup that people made from animal bones at that time. They boiled the soup in pottery and took it out to eat, but there was no poisoning. What is the reason for this? It turns out that these soups have been heated! The tomb is well preserved, and the "bone soup" must have been shipped later, which means that the clay pots were buried with their owners.
Experienced archaeologists thought for a moment, wondering what these clay pots were for, some kind of ritual sacrifice.
Archaeologists have found that the animal bones belong to cows and pigs, and that the soup is not "bone broth."
While the two tomb owners were being buried, the director of the funeral home ordered the slaughter of a cow and a pig as sacrifices, which were then separated and buried in separate pots with their owners.
Then, over time, the meat and offal of the animals in the jar decayed and disappeared, and due to the damp local soil, the stagnant water slowly filled the jar, forming the "bone broth" that we see in the jar thousands of years later.
Inside the coffin of the male tomb owner, the archaeological team also found a layer of textiles that archaeologists believe to be "tapestries." This kind of imitation living room room drapery coffin coffin cover was very popular in the pre-Qin classics two weeks period.
It's just that textiles are difficult to preserve, and archaeologists have rarely seen such a complete desolation in previous archaeology.
After careful cleaning and maintenance, the original dilapidated dark tapestry gradually took on its original appearance, and the diamond-shaped pattern on it is still vividly remembered, highlighting the lofty status of the owner of the tomb and has become a rare treasure in the world.
In addition, an inspection of the outer chamber of the Archaeological Team revealed a large number of weapons and protective gear, including bronze swords, bronze goss and pieces of armor. Among this batch of cultural relics, there is a bronze sword that is particularly eye-catching: it is the famous "heavy weapon of the country" among ancient Chinese bronzes, dating back more than 2,200 years, and was excavated in the ruins of Dasigou in Gaolan County, Lanzhou City, Gansu Province. The blade was rusty, and the original color of the sheath was almost invisible, but for more than two thousand years, the sharpness of the sheath had not diminished, and it was still shining today.
Seeing this, archaeologists can basically be sure that the owner of this male tomb should be the general of the Chu State at the end of the Warring States period.
Why didn't he have a head in his coffin? Why did the remains of the hostess turn black?
Confusing identity
It took archaeologists some time to figure out how they died.
Using advanced equipment, they conducted an in-depth analysis of the bones of the man's tomb owner and found 5 marks caused by sharp objects on his vertebrae, mainly on the ridge joints under his head, with two deeper wounds.
Archaeologists speculate that the man's male tomb owner was beheaded and died.
Deeper scratches were also found on the bones of his right arm, which should have been cut across with sharp weapons. From the observation of the tomb by archaeologists, it is known that both of the cuts were caused by the deceased himself. However, according to the analysis of relevant data, these slashes are not really killings. It is a suicidal act. Crucially, the wound showed no signs of healing, and it is likely that the man died of beheading shortly after being injured here.
Combined with the above research, archaeologists speculate that the owner of the tomb was a senior general of the Chu state who was killed in a fierce battle after a brief encounter with the enemy that could have led to his capture and wounding.
The enemy cut off his head and then returned with his head to pay his respects, and his body was brought back to his family by the Chu soldiers and buried in this tomb, which is why more than two thousand years later, when the tomb was opened, his head was missing.
As for how the woman died, archaeologists initially thought she had been poisoned because her bones were black and had come to bury the man. However, after further research, it was found that the female corpse may contain a large number of minerals and trace elements and other components, which have a certain protective effect on the human body. Therefore, the female corpse was not poisoned to death, but was poisoned because it was rich in minerals. But subsequent findings upended that judgment.
The funerary items in the tomb of the female tomb owner are more exquisite, which must have reflected a great dignity at that time. It can be seen from the burial utensils that the female tomb owner lived a very frugal life before she died, and even did not have daily necessities. Therefore, the owner of the female tomb is likely to be a child of a poor family. Her life is shocking. The archaeological team also found a humanoid bronze lamp in her grave, suggesting that the woman was more likely to be the owner of the tomb than the man, and that she could not have been buried for her husband.
Since then, archaeologists have examined her body and found that she was not poisoned. She was poisoned! How is this possible? She died too early, less than 40 years old. Why did she die? The bones had been soaked in the water for a long time and turned black, and her clothes slowly disintegrated in the water, and the chemical reaction of the bones made them appear.
So far, archaeologists have only found the owners of the two tombs, and as to who they are, they don't know yet, because they have too little information and don't know their ages.
However, it is undeniable that the emergence of double tombs in the Warring States period provided a wealth of information for scholars who studied the history of this period, and people once again saw the mastery of this era.
As for who the owners of these two tombs are, we can only hope to find ancient tombs and cultural relics in the future.