Master Archaeologist

Chapter 208 Where's My Coffin?

To excavate the main tomb, the first thing to do is to remove all the sheds above the main tomb.

In fact, because the tomb has been robbed many times, the shed wood used to seal the tomb is already riddled with holes.

At present, the preservation of the top shed wood is poor, some are decayed and collapsed, and some have disappeared.

According to the remaining conditions, it can be deduced that there should be 19 shed woods, which are laid side by side with staggered thickness.

The diameter of each shed is about 0.2 to 0.4 meters.

Whether it is thickness or length, it cannot be compared with the cypress of the nine-story demon tower.

Not to mention the wood.

Although it is impossible to tell what kind of wood these shed trees are for a while.

But to be sure, not expensive cypress.

Archaeologists may not be able to tell the difference from other woods, but cypress wood is absolutely sure.

Because cypress has been the burial wood of ancient emperors for a long time.

The standard wood used for yellow intestines!
After removing the sheds of the main tomb, which were not much left, and looking down from the top, the situation in the main tomb came into view.

The four walls of the main tomb are made of stone, and square logs are sandwiched between the stone layers.

I feel that it is a traditional custom of the Tuyuhun tribe to build tombs with stone layers and wood layers.

There are four layers of square wood on the east and west walls, and five layers of square wood on the north and south walls.The wall surface is relatively flat, with slight local collapse.

The east wall of the main tomb is where the corridor and the tomb gate connect, and the tomb gate is on the east wall.

It can also be seen from this point that this tomb is not the tomb of the Han people in the Central Plains.

Because there is no characteristic of facing south as in the Han civilization, the main tomb chamber faces south from the west, and there are aisles on the north and south sides connecting with the side chambers.

This is different from the Nanyue king's tomb, where the main tomb faces south and side chambers are built on the east and west sides.

However, in the tomb, there are some appearances that are obviously influenced by the culture of the Central Plains.

For example, on the four walls of the main tomb, Chen Han discovered that there should be wooden structures of dougong type.

Dougong, which is a key component of Huaxia wooden frame building structure.

Generally, only buildings in Chinese culture can build bucket arches.

Oh, and the country where the boy lived a good life has gone to Tang-style architecture.

Oh, and North Korea next door also learned the architectural style of the Ming Dynasty.

It should be said that only nations under the influence of Chinese culture have this kind of Dougong, which is unique to Chinese architecture.

And in the main tomb of the Tuyuhun royal tomb, there are actually wooden structures like dougong on the four walls.

This shows that their culture must have been influenced by the Tang Dynasty culture at that time.

It's normal to think about it.

The location of the Tuyuhun tribe was neighbors with Datang at that time.

Moreover, he was often beaten by the Tang Dynasty, and many territories were fought back and forth between Tang and Tubo.

During the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, Tubo was driven back to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

However, during the heyday of Tubo, the Anxi Protectorate of the Tang Dynasty, the entire Western Region and the Hexi Corridor were also taken by Tubo.

Between the two countries, love and hate have been intertwined for hundreds of years, and the cultures of each other have actually affected each other.

Datang also absorbed a lot of Tubo culture, and was very "Hu" in the production of gold and silverware.

Unfortunately, the dougong-like wooden structure in the main tomb was seriously damaged due to robbery.

Only the wooden structures on the east and west walls are relatively intact.

It consists of three parts: the lower column, the middle support and the upper jump beam.

It was also the discovery of these three-part structures that convinced the archaeological team that this thing is a Dougong, not a wooden structure made by Sha Tuyuhun himself.

The only two remaining columns acted as supporting sheds. It is estimated that when the main tomb was built, it was really built as a "house" for adults to live in when they were alive.

Only then can there be structures such as beams, columns, and bucket arches.

Although the remaining wooden structures such as jumping crossbars, backers, and columns are in poor condition, they are still relatively close to the present Han Dynasty because of their age.

Therefore, the red paint on the surface of the wooden structure is still preserved.

"Hey, there are murals!"

Jumping into the main tomb, Professor Ke, who was observing around the walls of the main tomb, calmed down after a few seconds of pleasant surprise, and sighed: "The walls of the main tomb are all painted with murals."

"But most of them have fallen off, and only some parts remain on the north and east walls."

"The contents of the murals are no longer recognizable, only some black colors and red lines can be seen."

After touching these remaining murals with his hand, and even sniffing them close to his nose, Professor Ke said affirmatively: "The ground layer of these murals should be two layers of white ash and grass-mixed mud."

The so-called ground layer is the base layer. Simply put, it is the base layer painted on the wall before the mural painting.

Similar to when a house is decorated, a layer of putty and cement should be applied first to cover the exposed bricks.

Then, use brushes and paints to paint on the smoothed and whitened walls, leaving a layer of paint.

Unfortunately, the paint layer has fallen off, and the ground layer is directly exposed on the four walls.

After carefully looking at the remaining murals on the wall, Professor Ke confirmed: "The construction techniques of the murals are similar to the murals of the Tang tombs in the Central Plains."

"This shows that Tuyuhun, or Tubo Kingdom, also had extensive and close exchanges with the Tang Dynasty in terms of painting, and did not form its own school."

It's normal to think about it.

Whether Tuyuhun or Tubo, they used to be nomads.

It's just that one is nomadic on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and the other is nomadic in Qinghai.

Wouldn't it be troublesome to expect nomads to have mural skills passed down from generation to generation?

In fact, in the entire cultural circle of East Asia, as long as there are murals, they are more or less influenced by the culture of the Central Plains of China.

Korea and Japan in the north, Vietnam and Thailand in the south all learned from the Central Plains civilization in terms of court paintings and murals.

Of course, during the Tang Dynasty, the mural painting skills of the Han people also incorporated many styles and techniques from the Western Regions.

Many of the murals in Mogao Grottoes are unique murals created by the fusion of Chinese and Western techniques.

After the Tang Dynasty, this kind of mural painting technique gradually ceased to flourish, and was replaced by the highly developed freehand ink painting in the Song and Ming dynasties.

you could put it that way.

The Han Dynasty was a new starting point for the development of Chinese murals, while the Tang Dynasty was the peak of the development of Chinese murals.

After the Tang Dynasty, the art form of mural painting gradually began to decline, and it was far less important than ink painting in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

In many tombs of the Tang Dynasty, the exquisite murals are breathtaking.

It is a pity that this tomb of Tuyuhun, which also used the mural construction techniques of the Tang Dynasty, did not leave exquisite murals.

However, most of the archaeologists don't have the time to care about these murals that are so dilapidated that they can't tell what was painted.

They are more focused on another thing.

"Where is my coffin?"

"Where did the big coffin go?"

(End of this chapter)