Master Archaeologist

Chapter 150 The Painted Stone Room
After getting in through the gap in the tomb door, Chen Han and Professor Li came to a narrow rectangular space.

The front room is not that big.

The strong flashlights carried by the two of them can completely illuminate the entire enclosed front room.

As soon as he came in, Professor Li subconsciously looked up at the ceiling.

The roof of the front room is covered by a whole stone slab, but the cover slab has been broken, and two cross-shaped cracks divide the slab into four pieces.

Moreover, two of them were misaligned up and down by an estimated ten centimeters. They looked precarious, and the gravel might collapse, which was very dangerous.

Professor Li said with a serious and nervous expression:

"This front room must immediately take measures to support the roof to support the capped stone slab, otherwise we will not be able to carry out safe excavation work in the future."

"Xiao Chen, measure the size of the front room."

Standing aside, Chen Han, who was in a protective form, quickly took out the tape measure from his pocket, walked carefully around the front room, and began to measure the length and width.

In this tomb of the Nanyue King, not only the roof and the door of the tomb are made of large stone slabs, but also the walls inside are also supported by stone slabs.

This is completely a stone tomb.

Compared with the shaft pit tombs he participated in the excavation before, they are indeed much more upscale.

Each stone slab is at least two meters in length and width, and the thickness is temporarily invisible, but it must not be thin, otherwise it will not be able to support the 20-meter fill.

"The front room is 3.1 meters long from north to south, 1.84 meters wide from east to west, and the height is at least two meters by visual inspection!"

"The tomb door we entered is on the south side, and the stone door of the main coffin chamber is on the north side. The left and right sides are connected to the east and west ear chambers."

"This is a typical tomb facing south."

As early as in primitive society, Chinese ancestors built village houses in the direction of facing south.

The palace is also built on the central axis of the tribal capital, and the north and south palace groups have to be symmetrical.

That is to say, the architectural form of the Forbidden City can be traced back to the ancient primitive tribes.

And from ancient times to modern times, basically this architectural style has not been broken down, and has been passed down.

Even now, when modern people buy a house, the house type facing south and north-south is the most popular and the most expensive.

Although the Nanyue Kingdom was a Baiyue country in the Western Han Dynasty, it was considered a barbarian country.

But the upper-level ruling class came from the Qin State, and naturally respected the cultural ritual and music system of Zhu Xia.

The private residence of the Nanyue king also faces south and north, with a symmetrical layout.

"The front room must be cleaned first, so as to make room for the next step to clean the two ear rooms."

While Chen Han was measuring the size of the front room, Professor Li was also constantly looking at the situation in the front room.

The floor of the front room was covered with a thick layer of accumulated soil.

It may be due to the fracture of the door shaft and the pressure of the soil and rock in the tomb passage.

The two tomb doors are already half open, the west one leans inward, and the east one leans slightly toward the room.

So the outside backfill can flow in through the open gap.

The accumulated soil near the entrance of the tomb is as high as half of the tomb door, and it is unloaded into the room in a slope shape. The further you go indoors, the lower the accumulated soil layer.

Going deep into the north side of the room, there are also some relatively large funerary objects, which were not buried by the accumulated soil and were exposed outside.

With a flashlight, you can tell that there are ritual vessels such as copper tripods and copper gui.

"According to the previous investigation by colleagues from the Guangzhou Institute of Archaeology, no obvious traces of robbery were found, and there was no trace of secondary backfilling in the filling of the tomb passage."

"The condition of the front room is also very good, and there is no sign of intrusion."

"Rare, very rare!"

Professor Li adjusted his glasses, feeling very excited.

As of 2018, none of the tombs of the emperors of the Western Han Dynasty have been excavated, and they are all properly protected by the Bureau of Cultural Relics.

Among the more than [-] tombs of princes and kings excavated, only the tombs of King Jing Liu Sheng and his wife of Zhongshan in Mancheng, Hebei, and the tombs of King Jibei in Shandong were not stolen.

However, when the Han tombs in Mancheng were discovered, the burial objects also showed traces of being moved, so the suspicion of being stolen cannot be completely ruled out, and it is possible that they have been harassed by robbers.

Now this tomb of the Nanyue king may be the only two remaining tombs of the princes and kings of the Western Han Dynasty that have not been robbed!
Yes, the king of Nanyue is also the king of the princes of the Western Han Dynasty!

Accepting the canonization of the central dynasty, and the heirs of all dynasties have been protons in Chang'an, which obviously means submitting to the central government.

Just when Professor Li and Chen Han were busy observing and recording the situation in the front room, an anxious voice came from the tomb door.

"Old Li, Xiao Chen, how is the situation inside?"

"Are you okay?"

This voice, at first glance, belonged to Kong Jianwen.

Professor Li quickly responded: "It's okay, the stone slab on the top of the head is a bit cracked, but everything else is fine!"

The slate is cracked, is that okay?
The other archaeologists who were only one door away from Professor Li and the others were dumbfounded.

Kong Jianwen shouted even more anxiously: "Old Li, come out quickly!"

"After preparing the supporting measures, let's go in!"

"Come out first and discuss the precautionary measures!"

Smacking his mouth shriveled, Professor Li looked around, and went back like this, a little too hastily.

Holding the flashlight, he pointed at the stone door leading directly to the main tomb in the north.

"Hey, there are painted stone walls!"

Chen Han, who was measuring the size in the corner, immediately shone the flashlight on the stone wall beside him, and also illuminated a painted painting.

They quickly looked around with flashlights.

Only then did I discover that the surrounding walls, the roof of the room, and the north and south stone gates were all decorated with cloud patterns painted in vermilion and ink.

The Han Dynasty was the peak period of mural painting.

In recent decades, a large number of murals of the Han Dynasty have been discovered in tombs all over my country, with extremely rich themes.

Compared with the exquisite murals unearthed in other regions, the painted murals in the Nanyue king's tomb are not so "high-end", just some cloud patterns composed of vermilion and ink.

This cloud pattern also shows the typical style and color of the Western Han Dynasty.

The two colors of vermilion and ink are mostly used, which is the same as the aesthetic atmosphere of the Western Han Dynasty at that time.

Just like those Western Han lacquerware, most of them are painted with red and black.

After admiring the murals, Chen Han said with a sigh: "Compared with the murals of Bu Qianqiu's tomb in a later period, the murals of the Nanyue King's tomb are still too simple."

The murals of Bu Qianqiu's tomb can be said to be the most famous Western Han tomb murals.

There are murals painted on the upper forehead, the top ridge, and the middle of the back wall gable inside the door of this tomb.

There are images of fairy prince Qiao, Nuwa, fairy Weng, fairy, Fuxi and Fang Xiangshi in the painting.

There are also colorful clouds, the moon, the sun, double dragons, owl sheep, rosefinch, white tiger, yellow snake, toad, rabbit and the picture of the tomb owner ascending to the fairy by the phoenix.

A large number of murals in the tomb are not only rich in content, but also include the sun, moon, stars, figures, flowers and birds.

And after years, it is still colorful and lifelike.

In particular, the figure murals are in various poses and with different expressions, some are amiable, some are hideous, and some are distraught, which can be called a masterpiece of murals in the Western Han Dynasty.

Similarly, it also shows that in the Western Han Dynasty, the art of painting has reached a very high level.

And this tomb of Bu Qianqiu is roughly dated in the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, and it should be decades later than the tomb of the Nanyue king.

It's a pity that the Nanyue king's tomb does not have such exquisite murals, but some cloud patterns.

But filling the four walls and the back of the door of the stone chamber is considered a big deal.

"Okay, the situation in the front room is almost done, let's go back and report, hurry up and make the emergency plan, and we can start cleaning the front room as soon as possible!"

　I am in Fujian, hoping to see the good news of the reunification of the motherland tomorrow.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)