Riding the wind of rebirth

This strange feeling comes from the shape of this huge tomb, which is different from all the ancient tombs I have ever seen.

Judging from the amount of work that can be calculated from such a huge stone, this should be a project that could only be completed in an era when science and technology have developed to a certain level.

However, in that era, the boulders would generally be carved into regular shapes, and even reliefs and inscriptions would be engraved on them, so it was impossible to preserve the original shapes of these boulders.

So just like the Easter Island statues and Stonehenge, people feel that there is a generation gap in materials and craftsmanship.

It's like you go to a fancy restaurant and the waiter brings you a plate of boiled black potatoes and says it's the best dish they have.

"Where did these stones come from?" Liang Guangping was the first to discover this problem. Since the stones could not be processed, how were they transported? So he pointed to the big stone and then the dirt hill behind it: "This is basalt, which is different from the surrounding sandy rock layer weathered soil, and the geological structure is different."

"The paper says that these granites all come from Luoji Mountain, which is dozens of kilometers away from here."

"So far? How did they drag the boulder here from such a far distance?"

"I'm not sure about that, but it would have required a lot of manpower," Zhou Zhi said. "The people here were called Qiong people at the time, and the megalithic tombs here date back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Western Han Dynasty at the latest."

"During the Spring and Autumn Period, the Central Plains and even ancient Shu had already entered the mature Bronze Age, but the Qiong people in the Anning River Valley were still basically Neolithic, with only a small amount of foreign bronze artifacts."

"It can be seen from these stones that they are all original stones, but they are carefully selected. The stones selected are relatively flat on both sides and have a relatively uniform thickness, but there are no signs of processing."

Granite is a very hard stone in nature. Even in the Neolithic Age in China, ancient people preferred to use gravel for processing. It was not that they did not like granite, but it was really difficult to process.

For huge rocks like this, which weigh several or even dozens of tons, the possibility of processing them is even smaller.

Even without any processing, selecting these stones from the foot of Luoji Mountain and dragging them for dozens of kilometers using ropes and rollers is a huge project.

"Is it possible to use water power? At least it can save a lot of distance, right?" Liu Hongtao asked. "I think I've seen a documentary in which the Egyptians used the Nile River and canals to transport limestone."

"It's not that easy." Zhou Zhi said, "According to the technological level at that time, let's assume that they used a raft to transport the stones. According to the normal density of logs, 600 kilograms per cubic meter, the buoyancy generated is only 1,000 kilograms in weight."

"That is to say, for every 600 kilograms of wood, the maximum load is no more than 400 kilograms. Any more and it will sink."

"Then a 10-ton boulder would require a 15-ton raft to support it. To ensure that such a heavy raft does not fall apart, the area it is made of cannot be too large, and the draft is not shallow, so it may not be able to sail safely in the Anning River and the Meigu River."

"Another way is to process the wood into planks and build boats." Zhou Zhi continued, "But the manufacture of boats requires relatively high scientific and technological levels, and the splicing of planks requires relatively sophisticated tools. If the Qiong people were able to make canoes or bark rafts at the time, I think it might not be a big problem, but it would be really difficult to make a ship that could transport such huge stones."

"So it's better to go by land, right? Oh, the Qiong people should have horses, maybe even elephants!" "Yes, there were elephants in Henan during the Spring and Autumn Period, not to mention here? It seems that during the Han Dynasty, the leaders of the ethnic minorities in this area had elephant soldiers under their command?"

"Well, these are all guesses. We can be as bold as possible." Zhou Zhi said, "The archaeological team of Shu University did an experiment. With the help of rolling logs, more than 20 people can barely drag a five-ton boulder. If there are 100 collaborators, moving a stone of ten tons is not a problem."

"But the speed is as slow as you can imagine." Li Lu said, "Why would they drag it here from dozens of kilometers away?"

"From a sociological perspective, this is called group consciousness. In ancient society, all groups of people needed a common consciousness that allowed them to form a sense of identity, and this sense of identity was conducive to uniting the group and forming effective cohesion."

"This group consciousness was gradually formed over a long period of history, and eventually permeated into every aspect of our lives and became culture."

"There are many forms of this kind of group consciousness in primitive societies, two of the most common being ritual and worship."

"This phenomenon continued throughout the feudal dynasties in the East and continued until the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment in the West. It was an inevitable product of a period when social productivity was relatively low and social division of labor and cooperation was relatively extensive and simple."

"This is the first time I've discovered that your liberal arts are also quite interesting." Li Lu said with a smile: "For example, listening to you talk about these."

"Didn't Elbow say this was a tomb? It seems to be a group tomb? Then the part below..." Liang Guangping was ready to scare Li Lu.

"The area below has been investigated by the archaeological team. The current ground was filled and restored after the archaeological work was completed." Zhou Zhi comforted him, "So Lulu, you don't have to be afraid."

"I'm not afraid in the first place." Li Lu immediately became bolder and dared to argue.

"Grandpa Chi Ri, you must have participated in the joint investigation in 1975, right?" Zhou Zhi asked.

When Zhou Zhi was looking through the school's papers, he found that in the spring of 1975, the "Shu Province Anning River Basin Joint Archaeological Survey Team" formed by the History Department of Shu University, the Provincial Museum and the Autonomous Region Cultural Center came to the Anning River Valley. The biggest discovery they made was this pile of huge stones.

When the soil in the pit was cleared, some red pottery fragments and some scattered skeletons were found. After preliminary judgment, they were the skeletons of several human bodies.

Therefore, this is not the foundation of a building relic, but most likely a precious ancient tomb.

In archaeology, there are many types of tombs in China, but the main ones are brick and stone tombs, earth pit tombs, cremation tombs, cliff burials, and stone coffin burials. In addition to the Han Dynasty's popular practice of digging mountains for tombs, the Southwestern Yi people liked to dig caves in the rocks as a type of cliff tombs.

This kind of burial style, which uses large stones as the main carrier and covers the tomb with large stones as the top, seems to have only existed in Central Asia and some nomadic peoples in the north, but that was a very later period.

Most of the tombs were single burials, or at most joint burials. This type of large tomb with multiple burials is rare in Chinese history, and even in world history. (End of this chapter)