Orange Persimmon Interactive reporter Cheng Xiaolong
On the morning of April 16, the important progress work conference of the major project "Wuwangdun" of "Archaeological China" was held in Huainan City, and the phased heavy excavation results of Wuwangdun No. 1 Tomb were released for the first time.
Wuwangdun cemetery, located in Huainan City, Anhui Province, Sanhe Town, Xuwa Village, north of Shungeng Mountain, west side of the north-south direction of Wabu Lake, west side of the north end of Wabu Lake is the location of the Chu capital Shouchun City.
The main tomb of Wuwangdun (No. 1 tomb) is the largest, highest level and most complex large-scale Chu king-level tomb that has been scientifically excavated so far.
Orange Persimmon Interactive learned that at present, archaeologists have extracted more than 1,000 numbered cultural relics such as lacquered wood and bronze, including bronze ritual vessels, household utensils, lacquered wood utensils, musical instruments, figurines and other precious cultural relics. The number and variety of lacquered wood are unprecedented.
The underground cultural relics more than 2,000 years ago can actually "breathe"!
After the artifact was unearthed, the environment in which it was located changed drastically, including humidity, light conditions, and air composition. These changes can easily lead to corrosion and even carbonization of cultural relics. This process is irreversible and can cause incalculable damage to the artifact.
So, with so many unearthed treasures, how did you overcome this big problem?
Today, Orange Persimmon Interactive has an exclusive interview with the behind-the-scenes protection team of the tomb of King Chu to decrypt the cultural relics "ICU" created by the team.
Who is he? The mysterious identity of the King of Chu in the tomb:
“毛遂自荐”与“偷梁换柱”......
In its heyday, the state of Chu spanned 11 provinces today. Zhang Yi, a figure in the Warring States Period, said: "Where the world is strong, it is not Qin but Chu, and it is not Chu but Qin." ”
The specifications of the main tomb of Wuwangdun found in this archaeological discovery are much higher than that of ordinary noble tombs, so who is the owner of Wuwangdun tomb?
Historical records record that at the end of the Warring States Period, in 241 BC, King Kaolie, the monarch of Chu State, moved the capital to today's Shou County, Anhui.
The state of Chu was ruled by four generations of kings, including King Kaolie, King You, King Wai, and Negative King, until it was destroyed by the State of Qin. The king of mourning was killed by the Bearer and reigned for just over two months. He was captured by the Qin army after his defeat.
After archaeological excavations, it can be confirmed that the No. 1 tomb of Wuwangdun is the highest-level tomb of the first level of the king of Chu.
Combined with historical records and other Chu tomb research results, archaeological experts speculate that the tomb owner of Wuwangdun may be Xiong Wan, the king of Kaoli of Chu.
It is said that he was the legitimate son-in-law of King Qin and the 39th King of Chu of Chu.
Beginning in 272 BC, Xiong Wan stayed away from his native state of Chu and became a hostage in a foreign country, the state of Qin.
King Qin Zhaoxiang fell in love with this shrewd young man, and made one of the major decisions that he didn't want to look back on in his life: marrying his daughter who was the pearl of his palm to Xiong Wan.
The famous "stealing beams and changing pillars" in history occurred in 263 BC -
The news that King Xiang of Chu Qingxiang was critically ill spread to distant Xianyang.
Huang Xie, the left disciple of the Chu State, used a stratagem to exchange clothes with Xiong Wan, successfully deceived the eyes and ears of the Qin State and the investigation, got out of Xianyang, and successfully escaped back to the Chu State. In the autumn of this year, the crown prince Xiong Wan inherited the throne of the king of Chu and named Huang Xie as the king of Chunshen.
Xiong Wan also has one more famous thing "Mao Sui self-recommendation": in 258 BC, Xiong Wan ascended the throne for 5 years, Qin surrounded Zhao capital Handan, Zhao made Pingyuan Jun ask for help in Chu, and Mao Sui recommended himself to follow.
Xiong Wan once left a ballad in the Qin State to express the boredom in his chest, "The Song of the Prince's Return"——
"The Dongting is in autumn, and the grass is declining. Go to the country of a thousand times and make the cloth of Xianyang. ”
Orange Persimmon Interactive learned that through nearly four years of continuous archaeological work, a series of new understandings have been made about the construction process, coffin structure and funeral system of Wuwangdun No. 1 Tomb.
Since March 7, 2024, the dismantling and extraction of coffin covers has begun, and by March 27, the four layers of coffin covers have all been safely extracted, with a total of 443 pieces and a total weight of about 153 tons.
Now it has entered the second stage of the excavation of the coffin, that is, the excavation and cleaning of the inside of the coffin.
The top of the coffin is covered with bamboo lily, and a large number of ink characters are found on the surface of the cover plate, and the text content on each board is different, the number is different, and most of the handwriting can be clearly identified through infrared equipment.
More than 100 sentences and nearly 1,000 words have been found and collected. These ink scripts are typical of the Chu script.
Combined with the textual content and the judgment of the archaeological situation, the content records the orientation and ordering of the coffin cover plate, the functional partition of the coffin chamber, etc., which is of great significance for the study of the construction process of the tombs of the Chu State, the official system, and the title of famous objects.
The No. 1 tomb of Wuwangdun is huge in scale and rich in connotation, and it should be the highest level of funeral system in Chu State.
At present, more than 1,000 numbered cultural relics such as lacquered wood and bronze have been extracted, including precious cultural relics such as bronze ritual vessels, household utensils, lacquered wood ware, musical instruments, and figurines.
Field excavation is the basic means and approach of archaeological research, but in practice, it is often affected by factors such as excavation environment, excavation time, technical equipment, excavation process, research methods, and sudden changes in the environment before and after archaeological excavation, which often leads to irreversible damage to unearthed cultural relics in a short period of time.
So, how to overcome this problem with thousands of cultural relics unearthed from Wuwangdun this time, and a large number of lacquered wood and bronze ware?
Wuwangdun has a cultural relics "ICU"
The behind-the-scenes team has appeared in the Capital Museum and the tomb of the Marquis of Haiding
The destruction of cultural relics is irreversible, and one event that has saddened contemporary archaeologists is the excavation of the Ming Ding Mausoleum in 1956.
Ming Ding Mausoleum, the royal mausoleum of Zhu Yijun, the thirteenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty, is located in Changping District, Beijing, and is one of the mausoleums of the Ming Dynasty Ming Tombs.
In 1956, there were nearly 500 years since the Wanli year of the Ming Dynasty. After thousands of cultural relics were unearthed, as soon as they came into contact with fresh air, they immediately oxidized and turned black, and most of them were destroyed, among which the most sighing is the dragon robe of Emperor Wanli.
The factors that cause damage to cultural relics at archaeological excavation sites are human factors, as well as environmental factors, such as light, temperature, humidity, and the oxidation of organisms and air, and the erosion of impurities.
For example, a cultural relic that has been buried underground for a long time, like a building ready to be demolished, looks intact from the outside, but in fact it is already filled with explosives, and the outside air is the fuse, which can cause an "explosion" just by waiting for contact.
Cultural relics due to their historicity determines that they are non-renewable, and the protection of cultural relics is particularly important, including the rescue and protection of cultural relics at the archaeological excavation site and the restoration and protection of laboratory cultural relics, such as the Warring States Silk Book unearthed from Mawangdui in Changsha, and the bamboo slips unearthed from the tomb of the Marquis of Haiyang in Jiangxi, which are non-renewable.
Orange Persimmon Interactive learned that this time, in order to protect a large number of cultural relics unearthed from the tomb of Wuwangdun, archaeologists invited a special equipment: "low-oxygen archaeological laboratory".
It is the same as the "ICU" of the hospital, but it does not save patients, but a large number of unearthed cultural relics.
The team behind this laboratory is a technology company in Tianjin: Senluo Co., Ltd.
Team members introduced to Orange Persimmon Interactive that this laboratory is similar to an "airtight" warehouse, and it has a set of supporting equipment that can produce nitrogen in a low-oxygen environment.
It can also be humidity control, and continuously fill the airtight warehouse with nitrogen, and discharge the original gas components in the warehouse, forming an airtight warehouse suitable for the storage environment of cultural relics.
It creates a space with constant humidity and oxygen content, which can be adjusted to 95% RH and oxygen content can be reduced to 0.2%.
With this set of equipment, the original storage environment of cultural relics in the underground can be restored.
This "ICU" can create a "stable, clean, low oxygen, constant humidity" micro-environment, create an environment conducive to the immediate protection of unearthed cultural relics in an airtight space, avoid sudden changes in the buried environment and the environment after excavation, and meet the needs of dehydration and shaping of wooden cultural relics such as unearthed lacquered wood and coffin covers.
This low-oxygen environment can also realize emergency, fast, and zero-chemical disinfection treatment of unearthed cultural relics, and has the functions of insecticide and mildew prevention.
The team members told the reporter of Orange Persimmon, "At present, we are in the archaeological laboratory of Wuwangdun, with a space of 50 cubic meters.
"It also has a very special design, one side is made of glass, and you can observe the preservation of cultural relics inside from the outside. In addition to solving the problem of safe preservation and storage of cultural relics, it also has the function of showing to the public. ”
Orange Persimmon Interactive learned that this "ICU" is only a few hundred meters away from the archaeological excavation site of Wuwangdun, and the unearthed cultural relics can be sent in for "treatment" as soon as possible.
After completing the reinforcement and extraction of fragile cultural relics such as coffin covers, bamboo mats, and lacquered woodware, the archaeological team of Wuwangdun will carry out more refined rescue and protection of cultural relics in this "ICU" laboratory.
So far, this "ICU" has shown its skills in the restoration and protection project of the Ming Dynasty painted coffin in the tomb of the Marquis of Haiyang and the Capital Museum.
In 2017, a painted coffin was excavated from a Ming Dynasty eunuch tomb in Shijingshan, Beijing.
While the archaeologists lamented the huge size and exquisite craftsmanship of the coffin, they also realized the critical situation -
Due to the sudden change of the environment, the coffin itself lost moisture quickly and unevenly, the structure was deformed, and the patent leather shrank, cracked, warped, and even fell off......
In the face of such a critical situation, the "cultural relics doctor" immediately carried out rescue protection and urgently organized an expert "consultation".
In the end, the "patient" was sent to the customized "ICU ward" of Senluo Co., Ltd.
After expert consultation, the direction of "treatment" is very clear: the "patient" has been buried in a dark and humid underground environment for a long time, and the moisture content of his own wood is too high, and he urgently needs to be dried and dehydrated.
With the blessing of the "ICU" and the careful care of the "cultural relics doctors", the Ming Dynasty vermilion lacquer painted gold lacquer coffin once again showed a peerless beauty and met us.
Orange Persimmon Interactive learned that in fact, in addition to this "ICU", the archaeological excavation of the tomb of King Wudun Chu also used a number of scientific and technological means.
For example, the thousands of ink characters on the cover plate are extracted by infrared imaging technology. The layout of the coffin chamber adopts the high resistivity method.
Zhang Zhiguo, the person in charge of the cultural relics protection of the Wuwangdun archaeological project, introduced: The archaeological excavation of the No. 1 tomb of Wuwangdun, especially the research and protection of lacquered wood, is the joint protection of multidisciplinary professionals......
Editor in charge: He Xin
Review: Wang Chenyu, Liu Hui