Master Archaeologist

Chapter 200 Hot Water Tombs
In 2019, it was peaceful and relaxed.

After returning from Lingnan, Chen Han and Zhuang Yunpeng began to write a long report.

It took them three months to sort out the 270-page "Excavation Report on the Tomb of the Monarch of Nanyue in Guangzhou".

Among them, nearly two-thirds of the pages are hand-painted pictures of cultural relics based on photos of cultural relics.

There are really too many things unearthed in Zhao Hu's tomb, and it is really tiring to draw.

The six people worked together and painted for three months, and only then did they draw seven or eight.

Even Chen Han, who temporarily escaped from this mission in the first month and cooperated with Wei Sisi to record a series of videos on Zeng Guo's archaeological science popularization, joined in the work of writing the report.

God is sorry, Chen Han is very passionate about all aspects of archaeology, but the only thing he hates is this boring drawing.

So far, he still can't figure out why it needs to be hand-painted when there are already photographs of cultural relics taken as illustrations!

They are engaged in archaeology, not to learn painting!
To be fair, systematic archeology was born a little later than cameras.

What did the ancestors who did archaeology think? When the camera is not in use, the archaeologists must hand-paint cultural relics!
While complaining, Chen Han worked hard to draw a picture.

Finally, at the end of March when the spring blossoms, the excavation report was completed.

"When you marry, don't marry an archaeologist. You go to the construction site and stay in an empty house. After going there for half a year, you can only cry a thousand lines. When you come back, you have to sort out the materials and report. I am busy every day."

"I have a deep understanding of this crooked poem that ridicules our archaeologists."

Lying on the desk in the office of the Institute of Archaeology, Academy of Social Sciences, Chen Han felt weak, feeling that his body had been hollowed out.

The right hand holding the pen and drawing doesn't feel like his own hand anymore.

"It's fun to dig a hole for a while, but it's a thousand lines of tears when you make a report."

"The more cultural relics you dig, the more you have to paint. Sure enough, happiness and pain are conserved. As much happiness as you get, you have to endure as much pain!"

Zhuang Yunpeng next to him was also weak, but he didn't forget to complain.

The number of cultural relics unearthed from the previous Fenghuangshan Han Tombs, Lajia Ruins, and Zeng State Tombs are not as large as those in the Nanyue State Tombs.

Moreover, in the previous few projects, many archaeologists participated in the excavation work, which was equally distributed to everyone, and the amount of drawing required was not large.

But for the project of Nanyue National Tomb, only students from the Academy of Social Sciences led by Kong Jianwen and Professor Li, and researchers from the Guangzhou Institute of Archeology participated in the excavation.

As a result, many cultural relics were unearthed.

The workload of writing the report immediately increased.

How happy it is to dig, how painful it is to write a report!
"Okay, stop howling!"

"Something happened!"

Kong Jianwen walked into the office with small steps, holding a pair of documents.

"Over there in Qinghai, something big has happened!"

"The hot water tombs have been stolen!"

"The local police just cracked the case a few days ago, and the number of cultural relics involved has reached 646!"

"This case has been designated as the "3 Stolen Case of Hot Water Tombs", and the circumstances are very bad!"

"With the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, our Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Archeology and Qinghai Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology will form a joint archaeological team to conduct archaeological excavations on the stolen tomb numbered "2020 Xuewei No. [-] Tomb"!"

As soon as they heard that they were alive, Chen Han and Zhuang Yunpeng, who were still like dead bodies, immediately became full of vitality.

Hot water tomb group, they are familiar with this!
This tomb group is located in Dulan, Qinghai, Chahanwusu Town, Reshui Township about 10 kilometers southeast, it is a Tuyuhun tomb group!
The time of the tombs is roughly in the early Tang Dynasty, about 1500 years ago.

Tuyuhun was a regime established by nomadic peoples in the Northwest from the Western Jin Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty.

Its sphere of influence is roughly in today's Qilian Mountains, the valley of the upper Yellow River in Qinghai, and the Liangzhou area.

The tombs are located on the north and south banks of the Chahan Wusu River, on the gentle slopes at the foot of the mountain and on the alluvial fan platform with a deep loess layer, at an altitude of 3400 to 3500 meters.

This tomb group was discovered in 1982, because when it was discovered, the tomb group had been stolen seriously, so archaeological work was carried out on it.

Among the stolen tombs excavated at that time, the most famous one was "Xuewei Tomb No. [-]"!
Xuewei No. 33 tomb has a raised tomb of 11 meters high, as high as an 55-story building, 37 meters long from east to west, and [-] meters wide from north to south, equivalent to half the size of a football field.

The shape of the tomb is also very strange. Looking from a distance, the whole shape seems to be a "gold" character, so the experts of the archaeological team also called it the "Oriental Pyramid".

The scene inside the Xuewei No. [-] tomb is even more shocking. In the middle of the tomb is a wooden tower made of thousands of logs and sandstones. The wood is still cypress.

As we all know, this species of cypress is very rare, because it takes more than 200 years for a cypress with a thick mouth to grow, and it takes thousands of years for a cypress to grow into an embrace.

The cypress wood in this tomb has a diameter of 60 centimeters at its thickest and 15 centimeters at its thinnest.Its preciousness can be seen.

It even uses more cypress wood than the yellow intestines of the Han Dynasty, and it is more expensive!

This unique funeral system, which is completely different from the style of the Central Plains, aroused the serious curiosity of the archaeological department, and then carried out archaeological excavations on it.

However, the tomb has a total of nine floors, and when the third floor was excavated, the archaeological work stopped.

Because with the technology of the year, there is no way to continue digging down, and digging down again may cause the tomb to collapse, and all the archaeologists will be buried below.

For safety reasons and to protect the tomb, in the end only the top three floors of the tomb were excavated, and then the tomb was sealed for protection.

In 1996, the Shuhui Tombs were announced as a national key cultural relics protection unit.

However, although it has been listed as a national key cultural relic protection unit, the Shuhui Tombs are still frequently visited by tomb robbers.

Chahanwusu is too desolate, surrounded by wasteland, so few people usually come here.

Although the country has special protection personnel stationed there, the range of the tombs is very large. If each tomb is to be well protected, at least hundreds of people are required to be stationed and guarded all the year round.

This is obviously unrealistic.

Therefore, this group of tombs gave tomb robbers an opportunity.

In the past 500 years, this tomb group has been frequently harassed by tomb robbers, but when it was discovered by the country in 1982, this tomb group still had very rich cultural relics, and many tombs were not stolen.

However, from 1982 to 2019, there were still many tomb robbers who were not afraid of death and came here to rob tombs.

For more than 30 years, around this tomb group, at least [-] or [-] groups of tomb robbers have been arrested.

On average, one criminal gang is caught every year.

However, the situation of being stolen this time is the worst!
Actually stole more than 600 cultural relics in one go!
This is definitely not something that small gangs can do.

Fortunately, the tomb robbers were finally arrested and brought to justice, and most of the cultural relics were recovered.

However, since another large tomb in the Shuhui tomb group has been robbed, it is natural to dispatch an archaeological team to carry out rescue and excavation work on the robbed large tomb!

(End of this chapter)