Master Archaeologist

Chapter 176 Extravagant Jade Burial
"You should record frequently, draw more pictures, take pictures, and write down all kinds of signs as much as possible, so as to provide a basis for future research!"

"The movements of the hands are lighter, more meticulous, and don't be frizzy!"

"Okay, let's not talk too much, let's start working!"

Following Professor Li's order, the joint archaeological team of the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Guangzhou Institute of Archeology officially started the cleaning of the main tomb of the Nanyue King's Tomb in Xianggang.

Yesterday afternoon, the lacquered wooden screen placed on the east wall had been cleaned.

It is said to be a screen, but it is actually four piles of pitch-black carbides.

The lacquered wood structure of the screen is completely gone, only the copper-clad corner components used to fix the corners of the cloak remain.

It was also by virtue of these copper-clad corners that I recognized it as a screen.

The so-called cleaning is actually to extract the four piles of screen corruption as a whole, and then put them into boxes, waiting for the follow-up cultural relic restoration workers to sort out and restore them.

The reason for tidying up the cloak is because the position of the cloak just blocks the tomb.

Although the main tomb is 4.84 meters long and 1.84 meters wide, it seems quite big.

But in fact, this size is just enough to hold a coffin.

The inner and outer coffins of the princes and kings are all four coffins and one coffin or three coffins and two coffins. Considering that the king of Nanyue has always been arrogant, it may be the seventh floor of the Son of Heaven.

So in fact, in the main tomb, there is really not much room for archaeologists to move about.

Clearing out the position of this screen is just enough for five or six archaeologists to settle down.

In fact, they stood in a row, replacing the original screen.

There were not many people, there were six people in total, namely Professor Li, Director Fu, Chen Han, Ling An, Zhuang Yunpeng, and Wang Weiqing.

Two archaeological institutes produced three people each.

Of course, the six of them were not the only ones involved in the archaeological work of the entire main tomb.

This time, the cleaning work of the main tomb will be divided into two shifts. After Chen Han and the others are done, Kong Jianwen will lead the team to continue cleaning.

"what"

As soon as the cleaning work started, Professor Li discovered something was wrong.

"There seems to be only one coffin and one coffin for the owner of the tomb?"

"It doesn't fit his identity!"

Although it is said that the coffin has decayed, there will still be obvious traces because it has been placed in the tomb for a long time.

Based on the traces left behind, it is roughly possible to restore the original appearance of the coffin.

It is precisely because of this that Professor Li felt very strange after carefully looking at and observing the coffin in the center of the tomb.

According to Zhou rituals, the coffins of princes are fivefold.

Most of the tombs of the princes and princes of the Western Han Dynasty unearthed before, all used five-layer coffins, without exception.

And this is not the system of the Western Han Dynasty, but Zhou Li!

Since the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, all the princes have been buried in this way.

But the owner of the tomb used one coffin and one coffin!
This is seriously inconsistent with his identity, only the lowest taxis would act like this!
With the arrogance-loving style of the Nanyue monarchs, shouldn't such low-level coffins be used?
Frowning, Professor Li couldn't figure it out.

Chen Han, Director Fu and others also looked up and down the coffin marks with strange eyes.

This set of coffins is huge.

The length and width of the coffin can be roughly deduced from the remaining part of the ash marks on the board and the positions of the six large copper heads that were originally nailed on the coffin board.

Although there is one coffin and one coffin, the coffin and coffin are very large, almost four meters wide and 1.8 meters long.

There is also a distance of almost two meters between the coffin and the coffin, and it is filled with funerary objects.

The outer coffin is two meters wide, and there are many Ming objects including car decorations.

The inner coffin is also two meters wide, visible to the naked eye, the most conspicuous are the pieces of jade, which seem to cover the body of the tomb owner.

In addition, there is a head box, which also contains a lot of funerary objects.

Among them is a high-legged jade cup that is very conspicuous, and it should be a daily necessities commonly used by the owner of the tomb during his lifetime.

There is a gap of about 20 centimeters between the coffin and the neatly arranged funerary objects in the coffin, which separates the coffin from the coffin.

Obviously, this should have been the wall panel between the inner and outer coffins.

Although the coffin has basically decayed, there are still some remnants of paint leather visible.

The first step for everyone to clean the coffin is to extract the lacquer leather.

These lacquered leathers are black on the outside and red on the inside, but there are only a dozen or so pieces left, but the archaeologists can already confirm that when the coffin was originally built, it should have been painted with black paint on the outside and red paint on the inside.

It conforms to the popular style in the early Western Han Dynasty.

In addition, the largest piece of patent leather is about the size of a palm. The patent leather itself has a black lacquer base, but there are flowing cloud patterns drawn in green, yellow, and vermilion.

This shows that the coffin should have been painted with painted patterns.

Although there is no way to see the appearance of this coffin now.

But it can be imagined that this coffin should be very beautiful when it was first built.

It is also a coffin and a coffin, but the coffin of the Nanyue King is much higher grade than Mr. Sui's, and the degree of exquisiteness is even more incomparable.

The situation inside the coffin is even more complicated.

The entire coffin can be roughly divided into four parts: the outer coffin, the head box, the foot box, and the inner coffin.

The most conspicuous of these is the location of the inner coffin.

Because the inner and outer coffins are all decayed, everyone can see the inner coffin clearly without opening the coffin.

The first thing that catches the eye are several pieces of very large jade bi.

These jade discs are exquisitely carved and stacked in the inner coffin.

Professor Li joked with a smile: "The jade garment has collapsed and flattened. It's more like a jade mat than a jade garment."

"Now the cultural relic restoration personnel are busy."

When the golden jade clothes were unearthed, it was naturally impossible to maintain the shape of a "person" like in the museum.

In fact, most of the golden jade clothes were scattered and out of shape when they were unearthed.

The "gold strands" in the middle have all broken long ago, unable to maintain the shape of the clothes.

Every piece of golden jade clothes requires cultural relic restoration personnel to "sewn" one by one again to restore its original appearance.

For this point, everyone is already prepared in their hearts.

So when I saw the hundreds of pieces of jade tiled in the inner coffin, I didn't feel disappointed.

"On the top of the jade clothes, from the abdomen to the legs, there are 10 jade walls arranged in an orderly manner, four large jade walls are in the middle and vertical, two large jade walls are placed on the left and right, forming a cross, and a small jade wall is placed at each corner. .”

Chen Han pointed to the pile of jade bis stacked on the jade clothes with a very emotional expression.

In the inner coffin, the most abundant thing is jade.

It's not just because the golden jade clothes are scattered into a pile of jade flakes.

Also because a lot of jade bi was placed in the inner coffin.

In addition to the jade discs stacked on the tomb owner's body to cover the face, there are dozens of jade discs and many jade huangs scattered in the inner coffin.

It can be said that the entire inner coffin is a world made of jade.

The jade pen that was put into the mouth of the deceased, the jade handle held in the hand, the jade mask covering the face, the jade clothes worn on the body, the head, chest, crotch and left and right arms are all covered with jade bi, and the surrounding areas of the head and chest are covered with jade. Covered with jade bi!
This whole set of burial jade ornaments together constituted the most respected burial system in the Western Han Dynasty.

Jade burial!
The reason why there is such a luxurious burial system is because the Han people believe that jade can make the body immortal and the soul eternal!

(End of this chapter)