Tomb robbery is a social and cultural phenomenon with ancient roots. Neolithic archaeological data have already seen the remains of the phenomenon of conscious burial destruction. After the social changes of "bad manners and happy collapse" in the Spring and Autumn Period, the trend of thick burials rose, so tomb robbery became more and more popular.
The No. 1 tomb of Qin Gong in Fengxiang, Shaanxi Province, is the largest tomb in the pre-Qin period discovered so far, and it is also the largest tomb excavated by applied scientific archaeological methods in mainland China. There are 247 robbery holes found in this ancient tomb, of which 10 are directly into the coffin.
Tomb robbery tools
On the one hand, the excavation of ancient tombs depends on human technology and experience, and on the other hand, it relies on the operation of tools, and the tools used by the people in the old society were shovels, pickaxes, shovels, axes, torches, candles, etc.
Before the Ming Dynasty, tomb robbers did not have special tools to detect them, and the Ming Dynasty began to use iron cones, which made the diggers only target tombs with obvious signs on the ground (such as sealed soil and tombstones). Tomb robbers use special iron cones to explore the unmarked underground on the ground, and once they find the ancient tomb, according to the metal smell brought by the cone, they can choose the direction and dig directly to steal the hole.
Wang Shixing of the Ming Dynasty said in "Guangzhi Interpretation": "Luoyang has deep water and soil resources, and the burial is four or five zhang but not the spring. "But though the burial is as promised, the thief can still enter and smell it, and if there is a smell of gold, silver, copper, and iron, it will be sent (digging). ”
From the iron cone to the "Luoyang shovel", it is a leap forward in the use of underground detection tools by northern tomb robbers. In the north, especially Luoyang and Guanzhong, it is located in the loess plateau area, the water is deep and the soil is thick, and the shovel clamp of "Luoyang shovel" is only 2 inches wide, and it is wide into a U-shaped semicircle.
Long handle, every time this shovel is drilled into the ground, you can go three or four inches deep, and lift it up, you can put the ground stuck in the semi-circular mouth intact and bring it up.
The methods, technologies, and tools have evolved into more modern, intelligent, and collectivized, with military compasses and detectors for detection, detonators, explosives, and chainsaws for excavation, and automobiles, motorcycles, and mobile phones for transportation and communications, so the struggle to crack down on the theft and excavation of ancient tombs and the trafficking of smuggled cultural relics is more complicated and arduous, and the task is heavy and arduous!
Mr. Liu Hongfu, a scholar from Hunan Province, has been dealing with folk antique and cultural relics dealers for many years, and has taken the opportunity to understand and study the methods of tomb robbery in the surrounding areas of Changsha before the liberation.
Tomb robbing techniques
The technique of tomb robbery can be summarized as "looking", "smelling", "asking" and "cutting".
"Wang" is to look at qi and feng shui. The old tomb robbers are experienced and good at feng shui, so every time they go to a place, they must first inspect the terrain to see where the ancient tomb on the ground is located.
Feng Shui is used to guide the determination of unmarked tomb sites on the ground, and almost every shot is successful. It is said that during the Republic of China, a tomb robber surnamed Cai in Changsha was very good at feng shui. Once he went to Ningxiang County to visit relatives, and when he came to a place with a very good scenery, he pointed to a paddy field and said to his companions, there must be a big tomb under this field, and the treasures in the tomb will make you and me rich. None of the companions believed him, so he made a bet with them that if there was no tomb, he would lose a thousand dollars.
On the contrary, the treasures that came out of the tomb were seventy percent of their own. Everyone gambled a lot, then secretly asked dozens of villagers to excavate at night, to the middle of the night really excavated out the brick chamber tomb, the tomb wall painted the life picture of the deceased before his death, the tomb has a sword, a treasure tripod, a jade, lacquerware, a gold cake, an inkstone, a bamboo tube and other things. Later, they sold to American missionaries and got rich for a lot of dollars.
"Look at the terrain" is very mysterious, people who don't know can't see it when they walk next to the tomb, and people who know the trick can see it from a few kilometers away. Some tomb robbers "like" to come out and "walk around" after snowfall, especially the kind of snow that has "very fine particles", which is related to "soil".
There are two types of soil: "cooked soil", "living soil" (also called "flower soil"), and "dead soil".
Experienced grave robbers can tell at a glance whether there are any tombs or not, and even what era of tombs they are.
When visiting the tomb, you can first use the bougie to explore, according to the feeling of the hand to "feel" whether there is a tomb; after the determination is determined, the shovel will be lowered, for example: a shovel down ten meters, there is, and then look at the depth and the shovel to bring out the things, the depth is also a sign, bring out the things with sawdust, cinnabar, pit ash, etc., this is the characteristic; then, use the mud shovel to make the shape of the tomb "square" out, that is, to set the coordinates.
Hit one on the left, hit ten meters and didn't hit, that is, "passed", and then turn back to the right and continue to hit, and so on, one by one the points are connected, it is the shape of the tomb more than ten meters underground. Then, according to the shape, depth, pit ash, wood (or stone, brick) of the tomb, these characteristics are combined to estimate the age of the tomb, the location of the tomb door, and so on.
"Smell" means to smell the smell. Before excavating, the tomb robber who practiced the olfactory function of the nose would open the surface soil of the tomb, take a pinch of tomb soil and put it under his nose to smell it violently, distinguish whether the tomb had been stolen from the smell of the earth, and judge the age according to the color of the soil. It is said that the best kung fu can use the nose to distinguish the subtle difference between the smell of the Han Dynasty tomb soil and the Tang Dynasty tomb soil, and the degree of accuracy is amazing.
Changsha was just liberated when an old tomb thief was shot, he sold all the cultural relics and national treasures stolen in his life to foreigners, this person is the "Wen family", specializing in robbing the tombs of the Han and Tang dynasties, and the unearthed artifacts can be accurately determined as long as they smell. A tomb robber brought some old lacquerware, saying it was from a princely tomb.
He leaned on the couch, picked up a piece of lacquerware while smoking opium, put it to his nose and sniffed it, and said with a smile: "Brother Ren, your lacquerware has been soaked in a urine pit, and the time to take it out should be about seven months." This person was shocked and said, "Offended!
"Ask" is to step on the point. Those who are good at this way often pretend to be feng shui masters or xiangshi, and travel all over the world, paying special attention to the places with beautiful scenery and high-ranking officials. They are generally eloquent and good at talking to the elderly.
"Cut" means to take the pulse. There are three meanings:
The first layer refers to how to find the location of the hole after the discovery of the ancient tomb, and enter the coffin at the shortest distance, which not only requires rich experience in tomb robbing, but also has a keen sense of observing things. Those who are good at this way often according to the direction of the terrain and the leyline, as quickly as the pulse of the coffin, and then dig a hole from the slope, go straight to the head and tail of the coffin in the tomb, steal the burial goods, the tomb of Zeng Guofan was used to steal and dig in this way a few years ago.
The second meaning refers to the removal of the treasures on the body of the deceased after the lid of the coffin is opened. Touch from the head, through the mouth to the anus, and finally to the feet. Touching treasures is like cutting the pulse of a patient, it should be meticulous and calm, pay attention to calmness and accuracy, and leave nothing missing.
The third layer of meaning refers to touching the unearthed cultural relics by hand, because there are countless cultural relics in the hands of the masters, so there is often no need to look at it with the eyes, as long as the items are slowly touched, that is, they know what the thing is worth. They often use this technique to bet with others on winning or losing, and often have a chance of winning.
Listen to the thunder and identify the cemetery
"Qing Barnyard Banknotes and Thieves" has "Jiao Si got rich by robbing tombs" discloses the skills of tomb robbing: "Jiao Si, a thief in Guangzhou drama, is also stationed, often near Baiyun Mountain, and takes tomb robbery as a business. There are dozens of disciples, and they have the skills of listening to the rain, the wind, the thunder, the color of the grass, and the mud marks.
One day, out of the northern suburbs, when Zhuo Noon, thunder and lightning were handed over, Jiao instructed everyone to throw themselves into the Quartet to observe it, saying that although the thunder and lightning, the storm, not a little, there is something to hear, silently remember. Jiao Nai stood in the thunderstorm on the top of the mountain. Shaoqing, the rain and the clouds, a person in the east returns, when it is said to be a big thunder, faintly feel the floating under the feet, as if there is a sound in the ground. Jiao Xi said: "It's worth it." ……’。 ”
This Jiao Si is worthy of being a master of tomb robbing! He not only mastered the ability to distinguish the texture and color of the soil that ordinary tomb robbers would have, but also was good at using some natural phenomena to help him find the location of the grave. For example, "thunder and lightning", Jiao Si went out to rob the tomb during the thunderstorm, he asked the people who robbed the tomb with him to stand in four different directions, after the rain, the people in the east ran over and said that when the thunder just now, he heard a faint sound in the underground in which direction he wanted to respond. Jiao Si was very happy and said, "We found it!" There is a certain scientific truth in this. The underground where there is a tomb is empty, and when there is a lot of thunder, it is easy to form a resonance, and it sounds as if there is something underground that is in harmony with the thunder.
Modern tomb robbery not only relies on Luoyang shoveling, but also needs to master remote sensing and magnetic sensing technology.
Dig holes
Once you've figured out the location, the next thing to do is dig the hole. A powerful grave robber can dig a hole of more than 10 meters and there is no soil on the ground! What is incomprehensible is that even if the cemetery is surrounded by a plain, it is all very flat land, and there is no mound of earth in the surrounding area for hundreds of meters or miles. Therefore, it is impossible to pile up the soil outside, and the hole is so small that it has to be sealed when working, and no one can see it, such a superb technique is not something that ordinary people can do.
Grave robbers seal the hole when they are done. Some holes have only one mouth as big as a sewage manhole cover, and after opening, look down, straight down more than ten meters, and you can't see the bottom of the black ancient winter.
Enter the burial chamber
Generally speaking, the placement of objects in the tomb of any dynasty has its own rules. As soon as you see that the shape is a Han tomb, the Eastern Han Dynasty or the Western Han Dynasty, then you will know in your heart: where the coffin should be, where is the pottery in the burial items, where are the metal utensils, and what will be in the ear chambers on both sides...... Wait a minute. After I really went down, I went straight there and dug it up (Han tombs are generally collapsed and filled with soil, saying that they are tombs, but in fact they are all soil, and they are advancing in the soil, and everything is in the soil). Usually valuable funerary goods are placed in the coffin of the tomb owner, on his left shoulder and right foot.
There are also some tombs, such as the tombs of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the top of the tomb will be very thick, this is because most of the tombs at that time were built with seven vertical and seven horizontal, a total of 14 layers of blue bricks, more than two meters thick. This makes it necessary to avoid the roof of the tomb when digging a hole. Therefore, once the shovel touches the brick (the shovel will carry brick ash when it is lifted), then you have to find another place to hit it.
This "other place" may sometimes be close to the door of the tomb, sometimes it may be close to the back wall of the tomb, and it is all possible, depending on the shape and characteristics of the tomb itself. After looking at the shape, I thought that the coffin in this tomb may be close to the tomb door, so when the hole is made, it is close to the tomb door, and vice versa, it is close to the tomb wall.
A tomb, like a tank, has weaknesses despite its armor (tomb walls, burglar layers) and fortress (the tomb roof is thick). The weak point is the tomb wall, or the bottom of the tomb.
Some of the tomb robbers saw that the tomb was too sturdy to be managed on top or around it, so they dug a shaft and a horizontal shaft directly below the tomb. After reaching the bottom of the tomb, continue to open a shaft vertically downward, and then dig a small hole through the bottom of the tomb with a tool, and then enter the interior of the tomb through this small hole. In this way, the four walls and the top of the tomb were not damaged, but the tomb itself had been stolen and excavated.
However, this method is generally less used, taking the masonry structure of the Ming tomb as an example: its back wall is the weakest, basically only two layers of bricks, so when digging a vertical hole, you can play along the back wall of the tomb, and it is not a matter of time to chisel the two-brick thick tomb wall. For the Ming tomb, almost all the ancient robbery caves are open to the back wall.
Before the liberation, many of the people who robbed the tombs of the Ming Dynasty were done by only one person, and they only had one night, wearing mouse clothes, using both hands and feet, digging holes, entering the tombs, taking things and leaving. It's not simple. At that time, a man could not make a shaft, so he left the tomb for a certain distance, and then dug down at a certain angle, diagonally downward, and touched the back wall of the tomb well, and then chiseled through and entered, and the calculation was very accurate.
It should be noted that the process of entering the tomb by the tomb robbers seriously disrupted the coexistence between the tomb structure and the remains, rather than cleaning it in the order of accumulation, revealing the tomb according to its original appearance, and accompanied by detailed scientific records, as archaeologists do. Therefore, this damage is irreversible, and it is this kind of excavation that has caused great damage to the cultural heritage of mankind in the face of the fragments that can never be recovered.
The ancient tomb is a very complex existence, an ancient tomb with a long history, which not only contains valuable historical knowledge, but also a lot of antiquities worth studying, and some ancient tombs will also preserve the body of the tomb owner. In ancient times, cremation was not practiced in the mainland, and there were not so many people in the past, and almost all of them were buried after people left, which led to a large number of ancient tombs buried underground in the mainland. The development of archaeology in the mainland has not been very long, the archaeological cause was first developed abroad, about the end of the 19th century, the development of archaeology in Europe has been very prosperous, and the continent has not even begun to start. Archaeology is not only the excavation of the tombs of the ancients, archaeology is the study of all ancient things, after Liang Qichao put forward the concept of archaeology, scholars in the mainland began to gradually pay attention to archaeology, because the history of our country is much older than Europe.
The discovery of oracle bone inscriptions and Dunhuang scripture caves has opened an archaeological precedent for archaeology in the mainland, and since then, the archaeological industry has gradually entered people's field of vision. Before the birth of archaeology, the mainland had already had a "Touching Gold School Captain" as early as the Han Dynasty, and the Touching Gold School Captain was now a notorious tomb robber. One thing that is very similar to the archaeological industry is that you need to enter other people's tombs and take other people's things. Therefore, many archaeologists are regarded as tomb robbers and misunderstood. In fact, there is a fundamental difference between archaeology and tomb robbing, tomb robbing is for money, and archaeology is for knowledge.
Archaeologists, tomb robbers, work very similarly, but definitely differently
Many people think that archaeologists are inferior to tomb robbers because they can quickly find ancient tombs and dig them up, stealing the artifacts inside. Why are tomb robbers able to dig up the tomb and steal the artifacts so quickly? Archaeologists are careful when excavating ancient tombs, so it often takes months or even years to excavate an ancient tomb, which is not the case with tomb robbers. They often used brutal methods such as blasting to find the entrance to the tomb and blast it open to steal artifacts. For archaeologists, the entire tomb is a treasure worth protecting, and careful excavation is a must.
Slightly smarter tomb robbers don't use explosives to find the entrance to the tomb, they have a way of finding the tomb. There is a famous ancient tomb on the mainland, in Changsha, called Mawangdui. When Mawangdui was excavating, the archaeological cause of the mainland had just started, so archaeologists encountered many problems. Before the founding of New China, Ren Quansheng was the most famous tomb robber in Changsha, but he washed his hands very early. Ren Quansheng revealed the "trick" of robbing the tomb in 4 words, and he said that it would never be passed on.
In fact, this trick sounds very ordinary, that is, "look, smell, ask, cut". Looking, is to find the location of the ancient tomb by observation, generally the vegetation above the ancient tomb is not very lush, and to observe the surrounding landscape, most of the "feng shui treasure land" have ancient tombs. Smelling is very common, and ancient tombs often have the smell of green plaster mud, or a special "aroma". Ask, it is to estimate whether there is an ancient tomb by the surrounding residents or rumors. Cut, is to look around carefully after discovering the ancient tomb. However, this trick has to be practiced by experienced people, and ordinary people can't find the tomb through this method.
So he taught these to the archaeologists, but the archaeologists still couldn't dig the Mawangdui smoothly. With the help of Tufuzi, Mrs. Xin Chai's coffin was taken out, and this is the world-famous "incorruptible female wet corpse". If Tufuzi hadn't asked for help at that time, Mrs. Xin Chai might have been buried in the ground forever. After these Tufuzi joined the archaeological team, the archaeological work will be smoother, and when the knowledge is used in the right way, it will be appreciated by people, but it is still very difficult to make the best use of people's talents.
In the land of China, there are countless ancient tombs, because of the ancient tomb culture, so there are many valuable treasures in them. These places are also often raided by tomb robbers. Many people must have this question, why do tomb robbers always find ancient tombs, but archaeologists always only enter rescue excavations after the tombs have been excavated?
In countless film and television works, tomb robbers have almost been deified. They can also resolve all kinds of strange things that haunt them one by one, zongzi, bloody corpses, etc., but in fact, there is no such thing in the tomb. But there is still a skill in finding ancient tombs. For example, Yao Yuzhong, the biggest tomb robber in the mainland, is very accurate in finding ancient tombs. He is very proficient in Feng Shui and the like. The tomb robbers of that time had almost put him in a godlike position. Feng Shui is a kind of folk belief in it, and it was also very believed in ancient times. The ancients believed that their tombs in a good location would be able to bless future generations, so there were generally ancient tombs in Feng Shui treasure lands. Especially in places with better feng shui, the more likely it is to bury dignitaries.
Another reason is that tomb robbers are generally from rural areas, and there are many similar legends in rural areas, so they also know more about these. It's not hard to find. Even if you are not a professional tomb robber, you may have the idea of finding a place to start digging on a whim, and it is not necessary to dig up the tomb.
There are 100,000 tomb robbers on the mainland, but there are only 10,000 archaeological experts, and these tomb robbers do not include those who have improvised intentions. They are more casual about tomb robbing, and what they can take away is their own, and it's a pity that they can't take it and destroy it. So in many cases it will not be noticed. Many artifacts are often destroyed. Archaeologists have at least four years of education and a good understanding of culture and history. In addition, it is necessary to know how to protect cultural relics, so the nature of the work of archaeologists and tomb robbers is completely different in comparison.
In fact, our archaeologists are no worse than tomb robbers, but the important point that we did not discover the ancient tombs first was because of a policy at the time. The tomb of the Wanli Emperor was opened with considerable effort by our archaeologists. It took a month just to find the entrance to the underground palace. In the end, I made a hole in the wall to get in. But after the excavation, something strange happened. At that time, most of the people involved in archaeology had encountered problems at home. Some went to a psychiatric hospital, while others died of illness for no reason. Even Guo Moruo's family has changed, his wife hanged herself in Beijing. But this statement is still not objective enough, because the reason why his wife hanged herself is likely to be knowing that her sister used to be Guo Moruo's lover, and she ended up depressed because of Guo Moruo's abandonment.
But after the tomb of the Wanli Emperor was excavated, there were some changes in our policy. At that time, they did not find anything of value after dealing with the tomb of Emperor Wanli, so they applied to excavate Zhu Di's tomb. But it was rejected. The above statement is that good things cannot be done by us all, and must be left to those who come after us to do. Archaeologists were then forbidden to excavate undiscovered tombs, and only salvage excavations were found by accident.
In fact, technically speaking, archaeologists already have remote sensing simulation detection and other technologies, and it is very simple to excavate ancient tombs. In this way, one is destruction, the other is rescue, and it is clear whose skills are greater at a glance.