Jing'an in Jiangxi Province is a small, little-known border county.
It is located in northwestern China, surrounded by mountains on three sides and water on all sides.
On November 17, 2017, the symposium of the Symposium on the Tombs of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty was held in Lizhouao, Jiangxi.
The questions of the experts and scholars attending the meeting caused the media to wonder: "What happened, will it attract so many big names in the archaeological community?" ”
First published in 2007, it was named one of the "Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries".
A shocking archaeological discovery
Lijia Village, a very ordinary village.
Before the arrival of the archaeologists, the number of villagers here did not exceed 10.
It is located in Shuikou Township, Jing'an County, surrounded by mountains and pleasant scenery.
The first bay of the Pinyin River flows through here, providing stable drinking water for families on the shore.
As night falls, the stars shine on the riverbank, and the whole Lijia Village is like a piece of amber embedded in the lake.
In the early winter of each year, wild birds fly around, and the originally quiet shore wafts with a fruity aroma.
At the end of 2006, a major incident occurred in Lijia Village, breaking the calm here.
On December 28, Xu Changqing just returned from the archaeological site in Xiushui County and received a call from his superiors:
"Li Zhou'ao found the tomb and is ready!"
On January 6 of the following year, to Xu Changqing's surprise, archaeologists from the Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Li Zhou'ao, came to this unknown village, and at the same time, the county set up a special excavation leading group to fully cooperate with the archaeological work.
Where would Xu Changqing think at this time that in the next few days, a surprising discovery would shock the entire archaeological community!
Upon arrival at the destination, according to field archaeology rules, the researchers removed the weeds and trees in front of them, and then centered on the top of the front mound, dividing the mound into four equal parts from top to bottom, like "cutting watermelons".
It wasn't until January 24 that we discovered:
Early in the morning, shouts came from the archaeological site:
"Look, there's something in the soil!"
To the west of the excavation area, the workers found a large patch of laterite and black soil, which were in a straight line and very evenly distributed.
Seeing this, the experienced Xu Changqing grabbed the hoe in one hand and began to dig north along the straight line!
A few hours later, a spectacular sight came into view, a large tomb of about 160 square meters, just on the west side, 12 meters long, which was rare in the Jiangnan region of the pre-Qin period.
"Is it the tomb of the princes?"
Xu Changqing's first thought at this moment was that there was a famous vassal buried here!
With this surprise in mind, the team members sped up the speed of excavation.
As a result, when cleaning the middle of the fill, they found that something seemed to be pushing the bottom of the fill, hard and heavy to the touch, like a coffin.
Fearing destruction of the site, archaeologists had to dig out a small shovel little by little and slowly clear the dirt.
Xu Changqing took out a steel braze for testing and found a rare "underground coffin array" consisting of several rows of small coffins.
Instead, he sighed and sighed, "Pathetic. "What is it?"
It turns out that such a small coffin is impossible to use with a gorgeous large bronze, and more importantly, due to its small size and light weight, the body inside the coffin will encounter various problems.
But the next second Xu Changqing lit up hope: in any case, such a supervised tomb is really rare, and there may be unexpected surprises!
Excavations continue, and as the silt is dug out of the grave in droves, a series of strange coffins come into view.
It was so shocking that a cold sweat came out of the neck of the archaeologists at the scene.
"Who said that?"
"In what coffin is the owner of the tomb?"
"Why did he do that?"
Questions swirl around in everyone's head.
As the excavation drew to a close, another discovery shocked all those present:
In a pit of less than 160 square meters, 47 coffins are neatly arranged. This is the largest tomb robber tomb in the history of the mainland , the "Ganling Eight Jun", which is a gang of 8 people. They carry out archaeological excavations with modern high-tech equipment and advanced technology. The scale and the ferocity of its means can be said to be ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign.
Even more surprising is that the remains are covered with green crystals.
"Bronze?" Bronzes here? "What is it?"
The excavation team knew that there was important information behind the tomb and informed their superiors overnight.
Early the next morning, Professor Li Boqian of the Archaeology Department arrived at the scene dustily.
He fidgeted and began to move:
"This is another major discovery of the Bronze Civilization of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in southern China." "What is it?"
With the encouragement of Professor Li Boqian, the archaeological work continues.
On a rainy night, a startled voice came from the corner:
"I've found the gold!"
While cleaning the pottery rings outside the coffin, an archaeologist found some glittering objects.
They listened, walked up, and saw an artifact stuck in the mud, half of the body leaking out of the mud, carefully peeling off the mud, and a huge gold object of 3030 centimeters appeared in the daylight.
The existence of this gold artifact tells the world that this should be a very large group of tombs.
According to the past practice, the place where the gold artifact was found must be the main coffin, that is, the coffin of the owner of the tomb, and there must be more funerary items hidden inside!
But the question is, who is this funeral group?
According to the literature, during the Spring and Autumn Period, this land belonged to the State of Xu, which could not move between the State of Wu and the State of Chu due to its lack of strength, and experts speculated that "this tomb may be related to war!" ”
But just when everyone was expecting a surprise in the main coffin, something unexpected happened: with the help of the crane, the thick coffin lid was opened, but the bones inside had almost rotted to the point of decay, and worse, there was no sign of funerary goods!
"How can this be?"
Everyone present took a breath of cold air, "Could it be that this tomb has long been swept out of the house by tomb thieves?" "Is it?" "That's an ancient tomb!" How could it have been stolen by tomb robbers? "Do you know what it's for?" "What can I do?" "What is it?"
Just when everyone was wondering, good news came from the main coffin cleaning room:
In the coffin, archaeologists found a "dragon-shaped jade pendant", which is exquisitely carved, delicately textured, carved into a half-moon shape, with a small hole, like a rope, and its thickness is only 2-3 mm, which is a treasure!
Image source: Internet
The secret inside the Lee Chau Pass
Looking at the "dragon-shaped jade pendant" in his hand, the experts were overwhelmed.
"What the hell is the owner of this mausoleum doing?"
"What about the other 46 corpses?"
After classification, the researchers found that 28 of the bodies were relatively intact.
From east to west, 46 coffins are neatly arranged, except for the main coffin, all of which are a sarcophagus.
These coffins are also particularly interesting, as they are arranged in a semicircle above and below, looking like they have been split in half by a whole piece of wood and then hollowed out with axes and chisels to make exquisite coffins.
Li Zhou'ao has also become the earliest excavation age, the largest number of buried coffins, the most unique structure of the "one pit and multiple coffins" tomb group, which can be said to be a major event in the archaeological community!
In the process of cleaning the coffin, the researchers made a new discovery: the coffin was filled with "melon seeds", of which hundreds were dug up.
For this reason, experts speculate that they should die when the melons ripen in the summer.
Their deaths coincide so consistently that they occur simultaneously.
Tests on the bones of the corpse also showed that the bones were not abused and showed no signs of fractures.
A week later, Jilin University shared the survey:
The bones in the graves were of young women between the ages of 15 and 25 who were "naked" at the time of their deaths.
Of the 46 coffins, the G25 coffin has the most complete body, and the young girl's posture lying in the coffin is strange: her left leg is placed on the right side, as if she were sleeping.
Because they were not abused in their lives, he said, most scholars prefer "martyrdom."
So the question is, how did these teenage girls die? Why did they choose suicide? What factors influenced the behavior and outcome of the girls in this incident? We obtained first-hand information through a sample survey of several secondary schools in a certain area. As the investigation progressed, the mystery was solved one by one.
Experts extracted a single green crystal from the remains of 11 bodies.
The substance is diamond-shaped, ranging in color from dark to light, and can be found on the knees, skulls and even teeth of young girls, and after testing, this green substance has been proved to be a "ferric phosphate substance".
There, experts made a theoretical analysis of the death of the teenage girl:
On that day, the girls were called to eat together, and there were many delicious fruits and melons in the food, but how could they guess that someone had poisoned the meal, and soon the girls were poisoned, and the girls were buried here in large numbers.
That moment was more than two thousand years old, and in the course of a long chemical reaction, the poison had solidified into crystals.
As for why the girls were "naked", it turned out to be a misunderstanding.
Their remains were originally wrapped in fabrics "as thin as the wings of a cicada," and after thousands of years of natural change, they had long since stuck to the bones, too fragile to be crushed at all.
The researchers carefully removed silk fabrics from the bones, soaked them in water, and washed them over and over again to retrieve the "priceless."
With the help of advanced spectroscopic instruments, we can see these textiles in their true colors again!
Amazingly, there are 240 threads per square meter of textile, and each thread is less than 0.1 mm in diameter. The density and craftsmanship of these silk threads, not to mention two thousand years ago, is also rare today!
Because it is too bizarre, the experts here can't help but think of the silk unearthed from the "Mawangdui Han Tomb", but the density of silk warp threads found in the Mawangdui tomb is only more than 100 years, and it should be known that the Mawangdui is more than 500 years old than the Lizhouao, which has to make everyone present hold their breath!
Has Xu Guo's textile industry developed to such an unimaginable extent?
Just when Xu Changqing was puzzled, a new news came from the front: what was unearthed, the top was a good thing!
According to statistics, more than 300 pieces of textiles excavated from the tomb of Li Zhou'ao, the number and age of the past, have refreshed the knowledge of the archaeological community, and even the famous Mashan Chu tomb in Jingzhou was excavated more than 200 years later.
To cherish these hard-earned wealth.
In 2009, the China Silk Museum and the Suzhou Silk Museum listed textiles unearthed by Li Zhou'ao as the subject of research, and announced the Compass Program implemented by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage to inherit skills and promote civilization.
Thanks to the efforts of many experts, the hunting pattern of more than 2500 years ago has been perfectly copied.
Hunting print
In addition to textiles, a number of precious cultural relics were also found in the Lizhou Concave Burial Ground: 144 bamboo and wood cultural relics, 12 lacquerware cultural relics, 13 jade artifacts and 30 bronze artifacts.
These ornaments are exquisite in appearance and pure in texture, and they are all rare.
"With so many funerary items, it is very likely that there are high-level cities and palaces hidden here."
As experts expected, dozens of cultural sites were found within a ten-mile radius of Lizhou'ao, some of which were very important at the time, and Xu Guo, which was ignored by the archaeological community, once again entered the public eye.
According to historical records, Xu Guo once created a splendid civilization, but it was left behind in the later hegemonic struggle and was eventually annexed!
However, the unearthed silk fabrics tell posterity that the silk weaving industry in Xuguo was once very developed.
As for the young skeleton, according to experts, although well-dressed, it is not aristocratic, only because Xu Guo's textile technology is ahead of the times, so it has the illusion of "not wearing anything"!
Scholars speculate that the owner of the mausoleum may have been a textile official of the State of Xu, who was responsible for providing silk fabrics to the monarch during his lifetime.
It has been more than a decade since the tomb of Li Zhouzi was discovered, but to this day, the identity of the owner of the tomb of Li Zhouzi is still controversial.
But one thing is certain: The tomb of Li Zhou'ao is a standard funerary tomb, and the rest of the truth will have to wait.
Now Li Zhou'ao has returned to calm, but according to the local elders, there is still a slip of the tongue.
"Mountains cover the tomb, gold and silver do not eat lazy to do"
Perhaps there is a bigger secret hidden underground.