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How would you feel if one day someone found a coffin under your bed?
I'm afraid I will suddenly feel creepy and give birth to a cold sweat.
Then if you tell you that this coffin is not ordinary, it is red paint all over, and it looks as clean as new. Doesn't it feel like you're on a horror scene?
Yang Laohan, who lives in Taizhou, Zhejiang, encountered such a strange thing, although it was not under the bed, but also under his bedroom.
He had lived in that bedroom for more than 30 years, but now he couldn't stop being terrified.
Borrowing ten more guts from Old Man Yang, he didn't dare to sleep in that room anymore.
30 years of sleeping on a red coffin, does it have any effect on Yang Laohan? Why did the experts call people to evacuate as soon as they arrived at the scene?
Today we will explore this mysterious Taizhou red coffin.
First, the coffin under the bedroom
The roar of machinery kicks off a new day in the village, with workers moving in and out of the construction site.
But all this is not as happy as the two old men next to them, they are the proprietors who invite people to work here, and the smile on their faces can't be hidden.
The family's surname is Yang, and the old man's name is Yang Jitu.
It turned out that the eldest of their family was going to marry his daughter-in-law.
Rural people are concerned about these things, and the old couple are happy in their hearts when they hear that their eldest son is going to start a family.
But if you want to get married, you have to have a house, and the old couple reluctantly let their son and daughter-in-law shrink in the old house, and they are ready to renovate it.
Speaking of which, this old house has also lived in for more than 30 years, and was bought for more than 1,000 yuan in the 80s of last century.
This was also a very grand house at the time, but it is inevitably dilapidated more than thirty years later.
They have to hire someone to renovate it, I'm afraid it will cost a lot of money!
However, the old couple did not care, they hoped that their son and daughter-in-law could live a good life and give birth to a big fat boy next year.
Although the house is a little old, there are many things.
My son came back a few years ago and added a lot of new furniture with his savings from his part-time job.
Therefore, the old couple hired more than a dozen workers.
Because the house was too old and the renovation effect was probably not good, they discussed with the workers and decided to tear it down and rebuild it, so they asked the management site to borrow an excavator.
Yang Jitu and his wife sat on the mound, watching the old house of more than 30 years being torn down, and it was inevitable that they felt a little sad.
But when I think that the new house will be more magnificent in the future, I feel that it is worth it. When Old Man Yang was out of his mind, he suddenly heard the construction team exclaim - digging something!
The old couple quickly got up to check that something had come out of their bedroom, and the bucket of the excavator was hooked, and they did not dare to move.
Because, when the rubble was removed, what hooked the bucket turned out to be a "box" painted with red paint.
Half of this "box" was buried in the soil, and it was impossible to see clearly for a while, and the construction team thought that it was a treasure hidden by Yang Laohan at home, and did not dare to make a move, so they called him over.
Old man Yang was a little confused when he came, he had never hidden anything at home.
Moreover, how can the hidden things be buried so deep, deeper than the foundation, if not dug up, who can get it back?
After confirming that it was not a treasure, the construction team let go and cleaned the soil from the "box".
This is Old Man Yang coming up to take a look again, but his pupils are shocked with fright - what kind of red box is this? It's clearly a lipstick coffin!
Although there is a burial in this village, it is not interesting to bury the immortals in their own houses.
This is digging someone else's grave, which is a big taboo! What made Old Man Yang's legs even softer was how could this coffin be red?
It is rumored in the township that the red coffin is either a joy and mourning for those over 80 years old, or the red paint town that was wrongfully killed.
Which one is under his house?
Yang Lao Han once again thought of what happened in recent years, there were always people in the family who were sick, and they often had difficulties in doing things, and his heart was even more uncomfortable.
In panic, he called his two sons and asked the brothers to come back quickly.
The brothers who received the call did not dare to stop for a moment and returned to the village overnight.
After appeasing the old couple, the brothers discussed taking a look in person.
They arrived at the construction site and looked down.
A red coffin is still there, the paint is shiny, I am afraid it is not simple.
Immediately call the county and ask someone to deal with it.
The relevant staff member who received the call was a materialist, and only felt that even if it was a tomb, he had to ask an archaeological expert to come over.
When the experts arrived, the sun was hanging high.
Yang Laohan's house is a different look, and the people in the village gather there to see the liveliness. The experts did not rush, knowing that they were just curious, and went down to the ground in front of them.
Experts judge from the surrounding environment that this may be an ancient tomb, more than 800 years ago.
Now that it has been excavated, it can only be salvage excavation.
After working for a long time, the coffin showed its true face.
It was originally a coffin made of cypress wood, and it is not a strange thing to look bright.
Cypress wood is tough and resistant to water and rot, and ancestors made antiseptic on cypress, and the natural state is better.
Second, quickly evacuate!
The experts probed the basic situation of the tomb again and found that there was a slight amount of stagnant water, but I was afraid that the water in the coffin would be more serious.
In order to protect the artifacts and to find out who the tomb owner really was, the experts decided to open the coffin.
Judging that there was standing water in the coffin, the experts decided to drill a small hole in the bottom of the coffin to clean the water. When the small eye drilled open and the stagnant water in the coffin flowed out, the expert's face immediately changed.
It's not that blood comes out or something, but something shiny in it that comes out along the stagnant water - mercury!
This is not good, the ancients often used mercury to embalm coffins and corpses, which is highly toxic.
Looking up at the onlookers on the three layers inside and three layers outside, the experts immediately felt that one head and two big, this had to be evacuated quickly!
After some tossing, the people around were almost evacuated, and the experts also decided to leave first, let the coffin be left overnight, let the toxic gas run away first, and come back tomorrow to open the coffin.
Back in the tomb the next day, the expert encountered another problem, this coffin looked tight, and where to start opening the coffin became another problem.
After looking around the coffin, I finally looked at a small slit next to it, which opened along this.
As soon as the coffin opened, the experts were excited.
Because, this is the only Southern Song tomb coffin that has not been stolen so far.
It turned out that while working around the coffin, the relevant personnel were also quickly cleaning the tomb and confirmed that it was a husband and wife tomb.
In the process of cleaning up the excavations, they found an epitaph, which was rubbed and studied.
And after comparing with the "Genealogy of the Zhao Family of Huangyan Xiqiao", the name of the tomb owner was confirmed - Zhao Bopeng, the seventh grandson of Zhao Kuangyin, the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty.
This is the only tomb that has not been cared for by the stolen tomb thieves, and the contents are complete and intact.
The tomb owner's burial chamber is a little simple, and it is not obvious that it is a royal tomb, but the specifications of the funerary goods are indeed quite high, and there are many gold, silver, jade, and crystal silk.
And, each piece looks like a great texture.
In order to avoid secondary damage, the coffin and other items were quickly sent to the laboratory for further research, some of which are worth mentioning.
There is a crystal bi in it, which is really rare, and it must be regarded as a "luxury" today.
Its texture is pure and smooth without a trace of impurities.
Its inner hole is pierced with a very delicate ribbon, and the pattern on the top is still clearly visible.
This crystal bi has been verified by experts as one of the accessories around the waist of the ancients, and it is an accessory used to avoid the light silk clothing flying freely when walking.
In addition, there is also a piece of jade that is also extremely precious, engraved with the words "Emperor Yu of the Great Tang Dynasty".
Experts believe that this is not an object of the Southern Song Dynasty, but from the Southern Tang, and its original owner may have been Li Yu, the founding emperor of the Southern Tang Dynasty.
In addition to the gold and silver jade objects that accompanied the funeral, the silk fabric also opened the eyes of experts.
There are many kinds of clothing inside, and there are various fancy styles.
There are all kinds of clothes, hats, shoes and socks, and the fabric materials are divided into silk, luo, yarn, squirrel, silk, silk, embroidery, etc., and the colors include Lianque wearing flowers, cloud crane lotus flowers and other types.
In order to ensure the preservation of these funerary silk fabrics, this archaeological work also used the "Tianyan Laboratory" developed by Zhejiang University for the China National Silk Museum for the first time, and recorded the whole process.
The silk cultural relics unearthed from Zhao Bopeng's tomb can be divided into two categories: funeral clothing and corpse clothing, which have been aged and damaged because they have been immersed in the coffin for a long time, and have been restored after a series of technical rescue.
The handling of corpse clothing is even more difficult.
Because silk is a protein, almost every piece of clothing is glued to the skin tissue.
In order to ensure the smooth development of the work, the relevant staff first disinfected the corpse to kill harmful microorganisms, which has achieved the effect of mold prevention.
After that, the original costumes of the corpses were scanned in high definition, 3D recording, and CR scanned.
When uncovering the costumes on the bodies, the staff could only carefully peel them off little by little with bamboo sticks.
Later, after statistics, a total of 19 complete corpse costumes were obtained, which should be the ceremonial costumes of Zhao Bolan in the funeral.
Among them, the corpse wore a total of 8 clothes, 8 pairs of pants, a pair of shoes and socks, and a handkerchief in his hand.
Experts put the unearthed clothes together and found that these wide variety of clothes have one characteristic - they are all low-key, elegant, and without extravagance.
Experts believe that this is related to the popular clothing culture of the Southern Song Dynasty, which pays attention to the elegance of scribes.
And Zhao Bopeng's "wardrobe" also gives us full access to his personality, simple and low-key, and is a well-deserved "literati and elegant man".
The silk artifacts unearthed in Zhao Boweng's tomb are of great research value, especially one of the four meridians, which archaeologists believe is a continuation of the clothing called Yueluo.
These discoveries can promote our research on the clothing culture of the Southern Song Dynasty, and those superb handicraft skills and clothing patterns are of great significance to historical research.
For example, this can allow us to see a more complete historical trajectory of the development of Zhejiang silk, and can also provide empirical evidence for the trade of the Maritime Silk Road.
Of course, after this ancient tomb was excavated, Yang Laohan's family may not be able to live, and the government gave them another piece of land to build a new building.
The family also accepted happily, and the eldest son's marriage was held as scheduled.
3. The significance of the revision of historical materials
In addition to epitaphs, genealogies and other corroborations, Zhao Bopeng's identity is also recorded in the "History of Song".
The royal clan has a pedigree and is controlled by Zongzheng.
In the "History of Song, Table and Lineage", it is recorded that the seventh grandson of the three Zhao Kuangyin brothers is indeed the "Bo" character, which is mutually verified by Zhao Bopeng's name.
He was a contemporary of Emperor Xiaozong of Song (赵眘, formerly known as Zhao Bojun).
Combined with the "History of Song" and the "Genealogy of the Zhao Clan of Huangyan Xiqiao", Zhao Boyang should have been born in the twenty-fifth year of Shaoxing (1155 AD) of Emperor Gaozong of Song, served as the deputy county magistrate of Changzhou County (now Suzhou City) in Pingjiang Prefecture, and died in the ninth year of Jiading (1216 AD) of the Song Ning Dynasty (1216 AD), at the age of 62.
There are official positions, and there are many court officials in the family, so Zhao Boyang has a high social status, which explains why his funeral goods are so rich.
However, it is interesting that the "History of Song" records that he had three sons - Zhao Shizheng, Zhao Shigen, and Zhao Shigong.
This is slightly different from the epitaph, and the surnames of the three sons of Shangshu are Shi Chi, Shi Geng, and Shi Gong.
Among them, 畊 is a variant of cultivation.
If the rubbing is correct, perhaps we can make a revision of the "History of Song, Table and Lineage".
Epilogue:
Yang Lao Han dug out a red coffin under the bedroom where he slept for 30 years, and he suspected that his son was in the way, and asked his son to come back to take a look.
Unexpectedly, as soon as his son came back, he notified the county that the construction site became an archaeological site.
If it weren't for Yang Laohan's decision to overturn and rebuild, I'm afraid we would never have seen these exquisite silk fabrics in our lifetime.
Zhao Bopeng's tomb is known as the "crown of Song clothing", and his clothing enhances our understanding of Southern Song costumes and makes us more complete about history.
The significance of archaeology is here, starting from various clues, exploring a piece of history, and seeing the sorrows and joys of the ancients.