Master Archaeologist

Chapter 153 Official Tomb Raiders
Behind the tomb gate of the Nanyue King's tomb.

Chen Han was squatting on the ground, staring at the door lifter arranged behind the tomb door.

The door jack is a common anti-theft method in Han Dynasty tombs.

The tombs of the Western Han Dynasty, those above the level of princes and kings, are generally very grand, and they are all in the mountains or under the mountains. The mountains are the mausoleums, and they cannot be hidden at all.

Therefore, when building a large tomb, efforts will be made to prevent theft.

The tomb gate is obviously the most important line of defense.

The tomb door is generally the weakest entrance to the tomb, and it is also the most direct entrance, so the tomb door must be made of stone, not only hard, but also wide!
Most of the tomb doors of the Western Han Dynasty tombs are made of stone with a width of more than one meter, just to make the tomb robbers daunting and make them unable to push open the tomb door with brute force.

The weight of a tomb door can usually reach more than five or six tons!
This is not enough, behind the door of the tomb, a door lifter must be installed.

The so-called door pusher, to put it bluntly, is able to withstand the door and prevent people from outside from pushing it open.

But the design is very ingenious.

Generally, a stone groove is dug under the tomb door, and then a copper door lifter is placed.

This door jack is a rectangular wedge with a light front and a heavy rear.

Due to the lightness of the front and the weight of the rear, the rear end will fall to the ground, and the front end will be upturned to leave the ground.

When the door is closed, the front end of the door pusher is pressed down, and the heavy rear end will be raised high, pushing the door to death from the inside, forming a kind of "hidden latch", preventing people from pushing the door open from the outside.

In this way, if someone wants to push the tomb door open from the outside, he has to bear not only the weight of the tomb door, but also the door jack that is completely stuck against the tomb door.

It is very scientific and effectively prevents tomb robbers from entering the tomb.

Except for the tomb door, the walls of the tomb are made of huge stones weighing five or six tons. It is even more whimsical for grave robbers to bypass the tomb door.

However, such anti-theft is not really unsolvable.

As I said before, basically all the tombs of the princes and kings of the Han Dynasty that have been excavated have been harassed by tomb robbers.

Otherwise, it will not be rescued by archaeologists.

Most of these stolen tombs of princes and kings also have anti-theft measures such as door jacks.

When building tombs, a single stone weighing at least five or six tons is chiseled to build the tomb.

However, what should be stolen still has to be stolen, and there is no way to escape.

The most famous one should be the Guishan Han Tomb of Liu Zhu, king of Chu in the Western Han Dynasty.

The reason why it is famous is because this tomb is very special.

First of all, this tomb has two 56-meter-long passages in the north and south.

How neatly and precisely these two corridors were built, no matter how much technology surpassed that era.

Just one thing to talk about, that is, when the tomb was sealed, the two corridors were blocked with plug stones.

The blocking stones blocking the corridor are divided into upper and lower layers, with 13 pieces in each layer, and each piece weighs 6-7 tons.

And on the outermost blocking stone, Liu Zhu, King of Chu, also carved a "Book on Tomb Robbers", which was ridiculed by the archaeological circles as "Crying Poor Monument", or "There is no silver monument of 300 taels". .

Because, the inscription on the plug stone probably means that Liu Zhu said in his own tone: "I, the king of Chu, swear to heaven that no luxurious funeral objects such as gold, silver and jade will be placed in the tomb when I am buried. Please let me go." Tomb!"

Then, this section of the book to the tomb robbers has no effect.

The tomb of the King of Chu was still stolen.

Moreover, the excavation was very clean, with an area of ​​700 square meters, which is equivalent to the underground palace of seven Nanyue kings' tombs. When modern archaeologists excavated, only more than 100 funerary objects were unearthed.

You know, in the tomb of the Nanyue king excavated by Chen Han and his team, there are only [-] burial objects unearthed in a front room more than three meters long and two meters wide.
And Chu State was one of the best vassal states in the early and mid-Western Han Dynasty.

It is conceivable how many things were stolen in this tomb.

Moreover, this tomb is definitely not something that small tomb robbers can steal.

According to the careful exploration of archaeological experts at that time, it can be determined that there are no robbery holes in this tomb. The tomb robbers may only enter the tomb from the corridor and then steal treasures.

That is to say, the tomb thieves first remove all the blocking stones in the corridor, each of which weighs five or six tons, from the inside, and then steal the treasure.

After the treasure robbery was completed, the stones were stuffed back into the corridor.

This is obviously the handiwork of official tomb robbers.

Guishan Han Tomb is located in Xuzhou, Jiangsu.

Either Wang Mang did it back then, or Cao Cao did it later in the Three Kingdoms period.

Because it is recorded in the history books, the two of them were more loyal to stealing and digging the tombs of the princes and kings of the Western Han Dynasty, especially the tomb of the king of Chu.

The Tomb of the King of Chu at Shizishan, which is next door to Guishan Han Tomb, was stolen during Wang Mang's time.

And counting and counting, only they have the manpower and material resources to organize thousands of people to clear the blocked stones in the corridor.

So don't look at these princes and kings of the Western Han Dynasty, who bothered to study various anti-theft methods for their tombs.

However, under the piracy of official organizations, nothing worked.

Since it can be built, it can definitely be dug out.

This is why the tombs of the princes and kings of the Western Han Dynasty were basically all stolen and excavated.

In the troubled times at the end of the Han Dynasty, this thing can really supplement the finances of the princes from all walks of life!
The gold and silver treasures of a tomb can be conservatively estimated to support an army of [-] for two or three years!

Cao Cao, who had stolen many tombs of princes and kings, became suspicious in his later years and set up countless suspicious graves.

Even the later Wei and Jin Dynasties advocated thin burials, and stopped taking too much gold, silver and jewelry underground after death.

Lessons from the past, the teacher behind the car!

Of course, this also made it all the more difficult for the tomb of the Nanyue king to be found.

Sun Quan searched around, but couldn't find it. In the past 2000 years, countless tomb robbers tried to find it, but they couldn't find it.

But now it happened by accident.

For the modern archaeological community, it is a very lucky thing.

"Xiao Chen, what are you looking at?"

A burst of inquiry interrupted Chen Han's meditation.

Seeing him squatting motionless beside the door pusher for a long time, Kong Jianwen leaned over strangely.

"A door jack, what's there to study?"

"In the tombs of the princes and kings of the Western Han Dynasty that were rescued and excavated before, there are not twenty of these things, but there are more than ten?"

But Chen Han shook his head.

"Teacher, I'm not looking at the door jack."

"Look next to the door jack, is there something buried?"

Ok? !

Kong Jianwen looked at the position of the door ejector suspiciously, and examined it carefully.

Soon, he discovered that there was indeed a slight bump on the flat ground next to the door ejector.

The raised shape looks roughly oval.

In his heart, he praised Chen Han's careful observation, and Kong Jianwen quickly stretched out his hand and gently pulled it up.

A layer of clay was swept away by him, revealing a stone tool covered by clay.

"Is this a stone inkstone?"

(End of this chapter)