Master Archaeologist

Chapter 219 What's the Situation in the Side Room?

This Xinxuewei No. 1 tomb has four side chambers, numbered as North 2, North 1, South 2, and South [-] chambers.

It can be seen from the numbering that the four side rooms are located on the north and south sides of the main room, and are symmetrically distributed.

The shape of the side chambers is roughly the same. It is a wood and stone structure. The plane is rectangular from east to west, and the size is similar.

The length of the four side chambers is more than three meters, no more than 3.5 meters, the width is 2.4 to 2.5 meters, and the depth is uniformly 2.9 meters deep.

At least, the height of the chamber of this tomb is not bad, nearly three meters.

This is much better than the tomb of the Nanyue king that Chen Han and the others participated in the excavation. At least in the tomb, there is no need to worry about knocking your head on the roof of the tomb with a slight jump.

But now the sheds on the two side rooms to the north have been removed.

There are 11 sheds in the side room, and the thick and thin heads are staggered and placed side by side. The gaps between the sheds are filled with stones, which is the roof of the side room.

The four walls of the side walls are made of stacked stones, the walls are flat, and square wood is sandwiched between the stone walls. There are three layers in total, and each layer is on the same plane. It is made in the same way as the four walls of the main tomb.

This is also a major feature of the Tuyuhun tomb.

That is to say, Tuyuhun used a lot of wood instead of stone when building tombs.

Maybe wood has some important meaning in Tuyuhun culture.

At least the Tubo Kingdom does not have this culture.

Considering that the birthplace of Tubo is the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and wood is a scarce resource on the plateau, obviously it would not be extravagant to use it to build tombs for the dead.

The side chamber and the main tomb are connected by an aisle, and the aisle is close to the partition wall of the adjacent side chamber, facing each other from north to south.

The length of the aisle is a little more than 1.6 meters, the width is only one meter, and the height is also very short, only 1.5 to 1.6 meters, which is completely inconsistent with the height of the side room.

Such a short aisle, for modern people, if they want to pass through, they have to bow their heads to barely pass.

Even in the Tang Dynasty, this height should not be considered high.

When he walked through the aisle to the North 1 side room with his head down, Kong Jianwen asked suspiciously: "Is it possible that the average height of the Tuyuhun people is only 1.5 meters to 1.6 meters?"

"Very likely." Professor Ke echoed: "The height of nomads in the grasslands is generally not high."

"The average height of modern Mongolian adult males is 168cm, which is still a situation with good nutrition in modern times."

"According to Song Dynasty Zhao Gong's records in "Mongolian Tatar Records": Most Tatars are not very long, the longest is only five feet two or three, and they are not fat."

"That is to say, the Mongols in the Song Dynasty were not tall, the tallest was only five feet two and three, and there were no obese people."

"During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, one foot equals 31.68 cm today, and five feet two three equals 165 cm. This is still the tallest person."

"This shows that the average height of the Mongols in the Song Dynasty is estimated to be between 155-160."

"This point can also be corroborated by the Mongols' favorite war horse, the Mongolian Horse."

"Horses were a powerful weapon in ancient warfare. The Mongols relied on Mongolian horses to conquer Eurasia, but the biggest feature of Mongolian horses is their short stature, with an average shoulder height of 120cm to 135cm and a weight of 270kg to 370kg."

"So from the perspective of the horses, the Mongols cannot be tall, otherwise the horses will be exhausted to death first."

"The Xianbei is an ancient nomadic people who rose up on the Mongolian plateau after the Huns. Their ancestors were the Donghu people who were defeated by the Huns."

"Considering that Xianbei made its fortune earlier than Mongolia, and the living conditions are not as good as Mongolia."

"It is estimated that the average height of Xianbei adults is between 150 and 160."

"It's about the same height as this passage."

"In this way, this passage does not affect the passage of the craftsmen who built the tomb and the subsequent servants who carried the funerary objects."

The average height of ancient people is really not high.

Regardless of the height of the ancient Japanese, they have been widely ridiculed by the Chinese.

But in fact, human beings all over the world were not so tall in ancient times, not just the Japanese who were short.

In East Asia, among the nomadic peoples in the north, the height of adult males is only a little over 1.5 meters, and those above 1.6 meters are already at the level of tribal warriors.

In the West, before the Industrial Revolution, the average height of Chinese and Europeans was about the same, between 162 and 165.

It's just that after the European Industrial Revolution, the improvement of living standards has also increased.

So in fact, at least before the 18th century, the height of Chinese people was considered the best in the world.

Even compared with the Romans of the same age, the height, figure, and degree of muscularity are about the same.

Only in modern times, because of the unique diet structure of Europeans and some genetic advantages, the height and body shape of Europeans began to widen the gap with Asians.

As archaeologists who often hang around in underground tombs.

They are most sensitive to the height of the ancients.

Not only because the bones of ancient people unearthed in the tomb can measure the height.

I thought that the earlier the ancient tombs were, the lower the building height would be.

Especially the aisles.

Due to various factors such as engineering volume and load-bearing, the aisles of ancient tombs were basically built slightly higher than the height, or simply the same as the height.

It is just enough to accommodate craftsmen to enter and exit normally during construction.

Therefore, when shuttled back and forth in the aisles of these ancient tombs, archaeologists can best feel how much the height of the ancients is different from that of modern people.

Generally, the height of the aisle is between 1.7 meters and 1.8 meters, which is already a very high aisle. Sometimes the roof of the side room is more than one meter high, at most two meters.

Therefore, everyone was so surprised when they discovered that the height of the tomb of the Tuyuhun royal family was 2.9 meters.

It's just that I didn't expect that the aisle was still so short, less than 1.6 meters.

Big and tall people like Chen Han and Zhuang Yunpeng barely passed the aisle and entered the side room with their chests lowered and their heads bent.

When passing through the aisle, they also found traces of door frames and thresholds on both sides and bottom of the aisle.

It's a pity that due to the serious damage, the shape is no longer clear.

This also cast a dark cloud over the situation in the side room.

The aisles are all damaged, how is the situation in the side room okay?

Sure enough, as soon as Chen Han and Zhuang Yunpeng entered the room on the north side, the first thing they saw was a wooden bed.

The plane of this wooden bed is rectangular, located inside the columns on the four walls of the tomb, 3 meters long from east to west, 2 meters wide from north to south, and about half a meter above the ground of the tomb.

However, the original wooden planks on the wooden bed were seriously damaged due to robbery, and only a part of the southwest corner remained.

The coffin that was supposed to be placed on the wooden bed was nowhere to be seen.

"Sure enough, it was stolen." Chen Han sighed.

"Old Chen, look quickly, there are a lot of silk fabrics and leather in the tomb!" Zhuang Yunpeng slapped Chen Han on the shoulder fiercely, and shouted excitedly.

(End of this chapter)