Master Archaeologist

Chapter 100 Triggers a new mission!
Tomb No. M2 is busy clearing the soil of the tomb chamber.

Tomb No. M1 is also busy cleaning up the sand pile.

After more than half a month of hard work, the volume of the sand mound that had piled up into a mountain was reduced by nearly half.

Bronze chime bells, bronze tripods, bronze gongs, bronze pots, bronze daggers, bronze arrowheads, bronze chariots and horses, stone chimes, jade wares and other artifacts and fragments have all been cleaned and extracted from them one after another.

Some artifacts with relatively complete shapes have been sent to the temporary cultural relics preservation room to conduct research on the age and identity of the owner of the tomb.

Because Chen Han showed his limelight before in the field of ancient prose research, he was also invited by Professor Li to "guess characters by looking at pictures".

In the mobile board room next to the excavation site.

Chen Han was wandering around a big cauldron.

"Although the artifacts discovered so far are very exquisite, the overall number is not large, and the combination of types is not complete, which is not commensurate with the scale of the tomb!"

Chen Han pouted, and said with a sigh: "It seems that the theft of tomb M1 is very serious, and there are not many ritual objects left."

According to the specifications of this tomb, it should be a prince-level tomb.

According to China's funeral ritual vessel system, the princes should be buried with seven tripods and six gui (gui).

Ding and Gui are similar in appearance, except that one is a utensil for cooking food and the other is a utensil for holding food.

Both kinds of utensils have double ears. The difference is that the gui has a round mouth, two ears, and no legs, while the tripod has a large mouth. The three-legged ones are generally round, and the four-legged ones are generally square.

These two utensils are actually a set, one is used for cooking and the other is used to hold cooked things.

According to Chinese legends, Xia Yu took Jiu Mu's gold and cast Jiuding under Jingshan Mountain to symbolize Kyushu.

Since then, the tripod has developed from a common cooking utensil to a traditional national heavy utensil.

When the country was destroyed, the Ding was moved, the Xia Dynasty was destroyed, the Shang Dynasty prospered, the Jiuding was moved to Xing, and the Jiuding was moved to Luoyi, the capital of Zhou.From the Shang Dynasty to the Zhou Dynasty, the establishment of the capital or the establishment of a dynasty was called "Dingding".

Since then, "Nine Dings and Eight Guis" has become a symbol of the central government.

In the Spring and Autumn Period, Duke Zhuang of Chu once asked Gongsunman, the envoy of King Ding of Zhou, "the size and weight of the crown".

Therefore, for the nobles in the feudal period, the tripod represented their own rights, and they must be buried with them.

According to Zhou etiquette, nobles had strict regulations on the types and quantities of tripods and gui used.

The emperor uses nine tripods and eight cups, the princes have seven tripods and six cups, the doctor has five tripods and four cups, and the scholar has three tripods and two cups.

Although it is said that during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States period, the rites collapsed and the music deteriorated, but the rites collapsed and the music deteriorated upwards. When the nobles were buried, they sometimes exceeded the rules, but they certainly did not degrade themselves.

However, in the filling soil dug out of tomb No. M1, only two tripod vessels have been found so far, and not even a single gui vessel has been found.

The tripod and the gui are both large utensils, and it is impossible to miss them.

And it's hard to break into a heap of fragments whose shape you can't even recognize.

Therefore, there is only one possibility, that the seven tripods and six guis that were buried in the burial of this prince of tomb No. M1 were stolen by tomb robbers.

There are only two tripods left, and they are still two badly damaged tripods.

The tripods of the Zhou Dynasty can be divided into wok (huò) tripods, rising tripods and shame tripods.

The tripod that Chen Han is observing is a wok tripod.

Unfortunately, the tripod was severely damaged.

Wok Ding is a round tripod with two ears and three legs.

However, the cauldron in front of Chen Han only has one ear, part of the rim, two legs, and part of the round bottom.

But the only surviving tripod noodles are still very exquisite!
The lower abdomen supports round-hoofed animal-faced feet, the inner and outer sides of the attached ears are decorated with scorpion patterns, the neck and abdomen are each decorated with a wide circle of scorpion patterns, and the heel of the feet is decorated with embossed animal-mask patterns.

Regardless of the level of carving or the various exquisite patterns, it is not inferior to other tripods that have been unearthed.

The degree of sophistication can be called beautiful!

But the more exquisite it is, the more Chen Han feels sorry for the broken tripod.

More than that.

Another Shengding placed on the next table was also severely damaged.

Shengding is a three-legged tripod with a waist and a flat bottom, and two curved ears.

But only part of the mouth, abdomen, flat bottom, feet and some reptile appendages remain.

Both ears have been damaged, and all the accessories have fallen off.

It is only about half the height of the original tripod.

But the remaining ones are decorated with bas-relief panchi patterns along the surface, and relief panchi patterns on the neck, filled with fine triangular geometric patterns and punctuated patterns.

The waist is decorated with a slightly narrower small embossed panchi pattern belt, and the lower embossed circle is slightly wider with a panchi pattern belt.

The feet are carved with panchi patterns in shallow relief, the heels of the feet are embossed with inverted animal heads, the mouth is biting the belly of the tripod, the eyebrows are raised and the eyes are raised, and the nose is raised and horned.

On the waist and rim of the tripod, there are six identical monsters with hollowed-out panchi patterns, with their heads raised and waists raised, their tails raised and claws sharpened, in a crawling shape!
The animal head is embossed with a high nose and protruding eyes, double horns turned outward, and the mouth holds the outer edge of the tripod mouth.

From the surviving reliefs, it can be seen that the original whole vessel should be very exquisitely cast with superb craftsmanship!
It is estimated that these two tripods can be preserved because they were too damaged, so they were not stolen by tomb robbers.

This kind of dilapidated tripod should have been very difficult to sell in ancient times, especially after the Western Han Dynasty banned private coinage, this kind of tripod could not even be used for private melting of coins.

That's why the tomb robbers didn't steal it, and it can be regarded as leaving a little precious "legacy" to the archaeologists.

"It's a pity that these two tripods are not only badly damaged, but there are no inscriptions on the remaining tripod bodies!"

Chen Han rubbed his chin, checked back and forth carefully, but found no inscriptions on the two tripods.

Whether you recognize it or not, whether you understand it or not, let’s not talk about it.

At least there must be an inscription to recognize it!
Professor Li also regretted: "Yes, it is very likely that the part where the inscription is recorded has been damaged."

Generally, people who don't know much about archaeology, because the information they usually receive is what inscriptions were on this tripod, and what inscriptions were found on that tripod.

So it is natural to think that as long as the tripod is two weeks old, there will be inscriptions engraved on it.

Well, this impression is roughly correct.

Most of the bronze tripods in the two-week period will have inscriptions. There are not many inscriptions on ordinary tripods. Most of them record who the owner of the tripod is, when it was cast, and why it was cast.

A few of the more important tripods will have more inscriptions, perhaps recording a battle, perhaps recording the life of the tripod owner, or perhaps recording an important event.

For example, the treasure of the town hall of the National Museum: Li Gui.

The 4-line 33-character inscription cast on the bottom of the abdomen records the famous Battle of Muye during King Wu's defeat of Zhou.

Let the Battle of Makino change from a "legend" to a true history.

"Huh, that's not right!"

Just when Chen Han and Professor Li were frustrated.

Inadvertently glanced at Chen Han at the root of the tripod, and vaguely saw some engraved lines that didn't look like patterns.

He immediately stretched his head to get closer, and carefully tilted the tripod down.

A twisted, pictographic character Zhong Dingwen, more like a painting than a character, appeared in front of his eyes.

He didn't recognize the word for the first time.

It just feels a little indescribably familiar.

The inscriptions on the ritual vessels of the Zhou Dynasty that I had seen in class quickly flashed across Chen Han's mind.

"I remember!"

"This word appeared on ritual vessels in the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng unearthed in 78!"

"This is the word "Zeng" in Zhong Dingwen!"

Just when Chen Han exclaimed, the system that had been hidden for a long time suddenly popped out in his mind.

"Trigger task: solve the mystery of Zeng Sui!"

"Reward: Unknown."

(End of this chapter)