Master Archaeologist

Chapter 185 Academic Treasures of the Maritime Silk Road

"How about it, have you counted it all?"

"The count is clear, a total of 2291 pieces of jade."

"However, because the silk thread is easy to rot, this set of silk jade clothes was very scattered when it was unearthed."

"Repairing this set of jade clothes should be much more difficult than repairing the gold thread jade clothes in the Han tombs all over the city."

"In three to five years, I'm afraid there will be no way to repair it."

Chen Han and Professor Li reported on the extraction and cleaning of Yuyi.

Mancheng Han Tombs, also known as [Western Han Zhongshan King Jing Liu Sheng and Dou Ji couple's tomb].

In this tomb, two sets of golden jade clothes were unearthed.

Among them, Liu Sheng's jade clothes share 2498 pieces of jade, and the gold thread weighs 1100 grams.

Dou Wan's jade clothes share 2160 pieces of jade, and the gold thread weighs 700 grams.

The manpower and material resources required to make each set of golden jade clothes are astonishing.

In terms of the number of jade pieces, this set of jade clothes worn by the Nanyue king is similar to the jade clothes worn by the Han tombs in Mancheng.

However, not even a gram of gold wire was found.

After all, this is a set of silk jade clothing that deviates from the official jade clothing system of the Han Dynasty.

However, there was only one year between Liu Sheng's death and the demise of the Nanyue Kingdom.

Therefore, the owner of the tomb of the Nanyue King in Guangzhou naturally lived earlier than Liu Sheng.

Therefore, this set of jade clothes is also the earliest set of jade clothes discovered by Chinese archaeologists.

As an earlier Yuyi, it is normal that a unified system has not yet been formed.

Of course, this jade dress is even more precious.

"The tomb of the king of Nanyue has not been robbed and disturbed. The identity and name of the owner of the tomb can be tested. It is located on the border of the Han Empire. It is also a rare tomb of princes with different surnames during the Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty."

"With the addition of all these factors, the cultural relic value of this tomb is really too precious."

"It's no wonder that the local government wants to build a cultural base for the South Vietnam Kingdom."

"Just these dozens of jade biscuits are the best in the tombs of princes and emperors in the past."

There are really many jade bis in the Nanyue king's tomb.

Not only those inside the coffin, but also three pieces of jade bi and one jade ring were found in the middle of the west ear chamber of the Guangzhou Archaeological Institute, near the south wall.

Three pieces of jade bi were also found in the lacquered wooden box near the north wall.

Moreover, a lacquer box was found near the north wall in the middle, containing 43 pieces of jade sword decorations and 4 pieces of jade huang.

Although the foot box, head box and outer coffin had not been cleaned yet, Director Fu also saw jade cups, jade bi, jade boxes, jade belt hooks, etc. in the head box.

In the foot box, jade bi was also seen, and four large jade bi were very conspicuous in the four corners of the outer coffin.

Coupled with the jade pendant and jade plaque decoration of the inner coffin.

It can be seen that Zhao Hu, the king of Nanyue, really likes jade.

Because apart from the jade bi, there are obvious traces of use on other jade wares.

Apparently these jade wares were items that he was used to during his lifetime.

This is a relatively rare situation among the tombs of princes and kings that have been excavated.

Even in the tombs of other Western Han princes and kings, more exquisite lacquerware and a small amount of jade were unearthed.

Unlike Zhao Hu, basically all daily necessities are made of jade.

Jade bowls, cups, and pots are used for eating and drinking, and jade pendants, jade plaques, jade beads, and jade belt hooks are hung on the body.

Even the matching sword used must be made of jade to make the sword head and sword ornaments!

In comparison, the number of gold objects is very small.

Apart from the two gold seals, there are only a few gold objects used as decorations.

For example, some gold leaves inlaid on the cladding, and the gold hook jade dragon pendant, gold belt hook, and gold beads in the group jade pendant use gold as material.

These golds are just embellishments, used to set off the exquisiteness of the jade pendant, not as a single piece of gold.

This can also prove that Zhao Hu is indeed different from other princes and kings in the same period in the Western Han Dynasty.

Those princes and kings of the Han Dynasty in the inland love gold most. When they are buried, they will almost make all kinds of gold they have acquired in their life into utensils, and even directly make gold cakes to accompany them.

But in Zhao Hu's tomb, there are no symbols of wealth such as gold cakes and horseshoes.

The symbol of his wealth is these countless jade articles!

Not to mention silverware.

Didn't find out at all.

At least Chen Han and the others didn't see any silverware in the inner coffin.

Among the funerary objects in the west ear room, there are no utensils made of silver.

No silverware was found in the exposed parts of the head box and foot box.

There may be, but definitely not many, at most three or five.

There are quite a few bronze and iron wares.

But they are all weapons.

In the outer coffin, most of the funerary objects are weapons made of bronze and iron, ranging from spears and halberds to swords and arrowheads.

But these things are not within the scope of Chen Han's work.

It took them a whole day just to clean up the jade pieces in the inner coffin, as well as those jade discs, seals and other things.

The next day, the archaeological team handed over shifts. Kong Jianwen led Lin Ya and three researchers from the Guangzhou Institute of Archeology to take over the cleaning of the main tomb, and began to clean the outer coffin, head and foot boxes.

Let's not talk about the weapons stuffed in the outer coffin.

These weapons are typical standard weapons from the end of the Warring States Period to the Qin and Han Dynasties. There are a large number of them, and they are not unusual.

But the cleaning of the foot box and head box gave Kong Jianwen and the others a lot of surprises.

First of all, the silverware that Chen Han and Professor Li had been thinking about before was finally found.

It is a silver box, unearthed in the foot box.

The reason why is a surprise.

It is because the style of this silver box is not a traditional Chinese gold and silverware, it has obvious exotic style and characteristics!
This is a petal pattern silver box.

The so-called "petal pattern" simply means that the body of the vessel looks like a peeled mangosteen, or an unpeeled Sakyamuni.

The small box is filled with a bunch of "petal by petal" patterns, which looks like the skin of Sakyamuni fruit.

This kind of petal pattern silver box has also been found in some Han Dynasty tombs before.

Not only silver, but also copper.

However, among the silver boxes with petal patterns unearthed so far, the number on each silver box is different.

For example, there are 17 petal-shaped silver boxes unearthed from the AH Chaohu Han Tomb.

There are 17 petal-shaped silver boxes unearthed from the Han Dynasty Tomb in Linzi, Shandong.

There are 24 petal-patterned silver boxes unearthed from Han tombs in Dayunshan, Jiangsu.

The petal pattern silver box unearthed from the Nanyue king's tomb has 26 petal patterns.

In the academic circles, it is generally believed that this is a silverware style from Persia, rather than an artifact developed in China.

The reason is that this silver box is very similar to the petal pattern silver bowl produced in Persia in terms of appearance and characteristics.

Moreover, this kind of silver box only appeared in the tombs of the Han Dynasty.

And this kind of silver box with petal pattern did not form a uniform style.

Unlike other lacquered wood or bronze wares of the Han Dynasty, they all have a uniform style and are made in batches.

The number of petal patterns on the petal-patterned silver boxes is different on different unearthed silver boxes. This is obviously not produced by a workshop, and it may only have sporadically flowed in from other places.

Finally, after the Han Dynasty, this kind of silver box with petal pattern disappeared quickly, and no real objects appeared again.

This shows that this kind of silver box may have been brought to the Han Empire from the distant Middle East by merchants on the Silk Road, and sold to the high-ranking nobles of the Han Dynasty.

The petal-patterned silver box that appeared in the Nanyue king's tomb is also the earliest archaeologically discovered one.

Even when Zhao Hu, the king of Nanyue, passed away, the Silk Road was not yet smooth.

Although Zhang Qian had already dug through the Western Regions at that time, the Western Regions were still under the control of the Huns at that time. Zhang Qian arrived in the Western Regions only by sneaking around.

For the time being, merchants in the Western Regions have not been able to conduct large-scale trade with the Han Dynasty.

The real smooth flow of trade did not start until Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty in his later years, and the Silk Road really prospered only during the time of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty.

In other words, the petal-patterned silver box that appeared in Zhao Hu's tomb may have been imported from the Indian Ocean to Panyu by sea instead of the Silk Road!

For scholars studying the Maritime Silk Road, this is simply an academic treasure!
(End of this chapter)