As we all know, the ancients "died as if they were alive", they believed that after death, people would go to another world and continue to enjoy everything before they died, so they attached great importance to their own tomb specifications and the number of funerary items. In ancient times, the dignitaries and nobles with high status were generally very rich in funerary goods after death, and the emperors and princes were innumerable, and it was precisely for this reason that the tomb robbery industry was born. Under the temptation of the amazing value of funerary products, tomb robbers have even formed a system, and even many official tomb robbers have appeared, in this context, the ancients were afraid of tomb theft after death, and they would set up hidden weapons in the tomb to prevent theft. Among the anti-theft measures in the tomb passage, we are familiar with the suspicious tomb, the hidden weapon of the mechanism, the sand and stone tomb, and the most poisonous is the mercury placed in the tomb. The large tombs with the best anti-theft measures are the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang and the Qianling Tomb of Wu Zetian, which have been well preserved after thousands of years, and today I want to tell you that the Eastern Zhou Tomb located in Changzhuang Village, Pingding Shanye County, Henan Province, set up five anti-theft organs, and the tomb excavation process makes archaeologists dumbfounded.
In April 2018, lightning flashed and thundered in Ye County, Pingdingshan City, Henan Province, heavy rain poured down, the water level of the gentle Burning Car River outside Changzhuang Village rose, and several tall mounds on the shore were in jeopardy. It turned out that in the 1985 cultural relics census, these sealed mounds were tombs of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and the local archaeologists who learned that the sealed soil was damaged immediately rushed to the scene and carried out an emergency blockade of the cemetery site. Changzhuang Tomb is 18 kilometers north of the county seat, belongs to the subsidiary remains of Yeyi Ancient City, with a total area of more than 200,000 square meters, approved by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Cultural Relics Department of Henan Province carried out rescue excavations of changzhuang tomb. When the archaeologists cleared the sealed soil, there were some large stones, and the more stones were dug, the more the whole tomb seemed to be composed of stones. Since then, strange things have happened, and in the cracks between the three layers of stone, there is still a lot of fine sand, and the four walls of the tomb are even mixed with rice milk. Boulders crush the burial chamber, quicksand fills the stone crevices, archaeologists say this is a typical rock quicksand tomb, which is specially designed to prevent tomb thieves.
The first is the silk pressing the grave stone; the second is more than 100 cubic meters of fluid sand; the third is the "cement" stone wall built around the tomb with ancient glutinous rice mixed with clay; the fourth is a 1-meter sandwich between the stone wall and the coffin constructed of sand and stone; the fifth is the anti-mat wrapped coffin. Such a heavy five-way mechanism can be said to have surrounded the entire stone and sand tomb into an "iron barrel", and such a strong and advanced anti-theft system has not escaped the hands of tomb robbers. In order to steal the treasures in the tomb, the rampant tomb robbers did everything they could, and even used explosives to avoid the mechanism, and finally used the robbery hole from the bottom of the tomb to avoid the mechanism. Archaeologists found two iron axes in the place where the coffin was placed in the burial chamber, and after cultural relics experts identified these two iron axes as Han Dynasty, archaeologists were a bit lost due to the theft of the tomb. In the process of carrying the boulders, archaeologists accidentally found shovels and hammers left by tomb robbers, which have been used for more than 2,000 years.
In view of the heavy anti-theft measures of the tomb, the archaeologists carefully excavated and unearthed some small gold leaf. Later, many gold leaf was unearthed, so what did the tomb owner do with this gold leaf? Why is the gold leaf so finely broken? According to previous archaeological experience, experts have judged that these gold leafs may have been used to decorate some kind of artifact. After cleaning the gold leaf, it was found that there was also a pattern on the gold leaf, and it could be seen that it was some hand-beaten lines, one of which was a phoenix. Underneath the gold leaf, archaeologists found ash marks, that is, marks of wood decay, so archaeologists deduced that the gold leaf was decorative lacquerware. Not only that, but the archaeologists also cleared out turquoise under the ash marks, and archaeologists said that if these lacquerware did not decay, they would definitely be valuable national treasures. Lacquerware belonged to the nobility during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and those who could use so many lacquerware proved that the status of the tomb owner was extremely high, and should belong to the high-ranking nobles. Although several pieces of jade have been unearthed in the tomb, nothing has been found to prove the identity of the owner of the tomb.
Later, when the archaeologists excavated the vicinity, they found neatly arranged horse bones, which experts said were likely to be carriage and horse pits. After cleaning the bones of the horse, there were four horse heads, but to the surprise of archaeologists, the horse's torso was never found. According to the Zhou Dynasty's riding class, "Tianzi driving six, princes driving five, Qing driving four, doctor three, shi two, and Shuren one", which proves that the owner of the tomb is at least a nobleman of the Qing level. Archaeologists have a strange phenomenon in cleaning the carriage and horse pit, and found 9 horse head bones, that is, there are a total of 13 horse heads buried in this carriage and horse pit. The owner of the tomb is not a Qing first-class nobleman but a son of heaven? Just when the archaeology was at an impasse, the archaeologists cleaned up and unearthed a bronze goe, which was identified as dating from the early Warring States period, and later unearthed a bronze spear. Archaeologists found a large number of bronze arrows in the place where bronze goats and bronze spears were found, one is a relatively wide winged winged hammer, and the other is a slender body composed of three straight edges. Through the excavation of bronze goblets, spears and hammers and other weapons, it is proved that the tomb owner is likely to be a general.
Since then, archaeologists have found a remnant of the city wall on a hill in the south of Ye County, and experts have consulted historical materials to find that this broken city wall spans 25 counties such as the current Ye County, Fangcheng, Wuyang, Biyang and Tongbai, and stretches for more than 500 kilometers. Archaeologists introduced that the broken city wall is about the same age as the owner of the Changzhuang Tomb in Yexian County, and along this line of thought, experts have found a historical information that the mountain where the broken city wall is located is the dividing line between the Chu State and the Central Plains. According to the Geographical Records of the Book ▪ of Han, during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Ye County was called Yeyi, and this Great Wall was one of the earliest great walls in Chinese history, that is, the "Great Wall of Chu". The "Great Wall of Chu" was called Fangcheng during the Spring and Autumn Period, and during the reign of King Wen of Chu, yeyi was occupied through the Fangcheng Pass, and Yeyi was an important town in the north of the Chu state, so who did the king of Chu send to guard Yeyi at that time? Experts consulted a large number of historical materials and found that the first governor sent by the King of Chu to Ye Yi was Ye Gong, who had the idiom "Ye Gong Good Dragon". In 524 BC, the King of Chu sealed Ye Gong Shen Zhuliang to govern Yeyi, and through the shape of the Changzhuang Tomb, experts deduced that the owner of the tomb was the chief of the yeyi, and it was not excluded that it was a certain generation of Yegong.