Master Archaeologist

Chapter 36 Come, go to Luoyang to shovel!
Three in the afternoon.

After determining the scope of exploration, Kong Jianwen immediately divided the archaeological team into five teams, each with 5-6 people, each assigned a small exploration area, and everyone started working.

Of course, Chen Han formed an exploration team with Su Sa, Zhuang Yunpeng, Zhang Jianbo, Lin Ya and Wang Weida.

The experience of working with them in the project group before was quite harmonious, and Kong Jianwen also hoped that these young people could get closer.

Wearing a big straw hat, wearing labor protection gloves, and carrying a bunch of metal sticks in their hands, Chen Han and the others followed Kong Jianwen's request and started exploration in the wasteland in the southeast corner of the construction site.

Doing on-site surveys is actually not as grand as the public thinks.

It's actually a very labor-intensive job.

Half squatting on the ground, Chen Han took out a shovel head from his backpack, picked two metal sticks at random, and began to assemble them.

Exploring shovel, the name of this tool may be a little unfamiliar to non-archaeologists.

But mentioning its other name, Luoyang Shovel, is like a thunderbolt.

The Luoyang shovel is an archaeological drilling tool with Chinese characteristics.

And what's interesting is that the earliest widespread use of this thing was tomb robbers.

This is something developed by ancient Chinese tomb robbers, but it is really useful, so it was quickly favored by Chinese archaeologists.

Up to now, learning to use Luoyang shovel to identify soil quality has become the basic skill of every archaeologist.

The Luoyang shovel actually has a very simple composition, just a shovel head and a round metal shovel body.

Moreover, the body of the shovel can be lengthened. Each metal rod is about one meter long, two metal rods are connected together to two meters, and three metal rods are three meters long.

The connection method is also very simple, just like twisting a screw, just connect and tighten.

As for the specific length to be connected, it is generally connected as needed according to the exploration requirements of the site.

Chen Han first connected two sections, and then installed a T-shaped Luoyang shovel, which was assembled within one or two minutes.

"How should I say, brothers and sisters come first?" Chen Han asked casually holding the Luoyang shovel.

The rest of the group looked at each other and shook their heads.

"Junior Brother Chen, come and make the first shovel." Su Sa smiled with narrowed eyes.

When the excavation work was carried out at the Lajia site, because the location of the site had already been determined, and the local archaeological institute had already laid out the exploration plan, Chen Han and the others basically did not need to carry out the exploration work.

Just go straight to the ground and dig.

But this time the Fenghuangshan Tombs are different, it is a project that mainly focuses on exploration.

Chen Han is a newcomer, really cute and new, everyone must give him more opportunities to practice.

He had nothing to be modest about. After nodding his head, he randomly chose a place where the soil seemed to be a little dry and cracked. Holding the shovel, he took a figure-of-eight step and struck down vertically.

The sharp shovel head sank into the soil at once, about 3-4 cm deep.

Immediately, Chen Han twisted the handle of the shovel, and then pulled it out forcefully, and a 3-4 cm cylindrical soil clod was brought out from the head of the shovel.

Lifting the head of the shovel and removing the clod from the shovel, Chen Han looked at it casually and said, "Well, it looks like a modern old-fashioned one."

Zhuang Yunpeng rolled his eyes, and said dumbfoundedly: "You are not talking nonsense, the soil layer three centimeters above the ground must be the modern soil layer, far away from the cultural layer."

Chen Han nodded with a serious expression, continued to follow the hole he made, and punched another shovel vertically downward, and a three-centimeter clod was pushed up again.

It was still a very ordinary gray silt, but Chen Han still solemnly placed it next to the soil clod from the previous shovel, and arranged it in order.

This is to distinguish the change of the soil layer, and also to have an intuitive judgment on the depth of the current laying.

Chen Han kept moving his hands, hitting down with one shovel after another.

Cylindrical clods were also dug up from the ground by him.

After the first five shovels, the unearthed soil layers were basically unchanged, and they were all gray silt soil.

But by the sixth shovel, the soil layer began to show some changes, and some red and yellow particles began to be mixed.

The other people who had been watching him digging the cave also looked more serious.

Zhuang Yunpeng looked at Chen Han's standard hole-drilling posture with great interest, and said expectantly: "You say, will we have a good start today, and find a tomb in the first hole?"

"Who knows~" Lin Ya shrugged: "Last year, Teacher Liu and I went to Xi'an for field exploration."

"You don't know, the underground cultural layer in Xi'an is called rich."

"With a shovel down, from the depth of two meters, it brought out pieces of porcelain, pottery, and jade one after another."

"It's just a pity that it is only for exploration and protection of tombs, but it cannot be excavated."

Lin Ya smashed her mouth, looking very regretful.

While they were chatting, the movements of Chen Han's hands did not slow down, and they were still digging steadily one shovel after another.

Soon, he hit nearly twenty shovels, but all of them were normal solid soil, and there was no sign of any flower soil.

The flower soil, that is, the natural soil has been excavated and backfilled for a second time, disrupting the original layers and color boundaries, and turning it into a soil layer that combines various soil layers.

Even if this kind of soil layer is old, it will not be mixed into one color, and it will still maintain the state when it was backfilled.

Generally speaking, if flower soil is found, it means that there have been traces of excavation and backfilling underneath, and there is a high probability that there are tombs.

Those tomb robbers came to find the tomb through this.

This is why Luoyang shovel is known as an essential tool for tomb robbers. Without Luoyang shovel, the first step of tomb robbery, "finding the tomb", cannot be carried out.

Even if there was a saying of geomantic treasure land in ancient times, the scope of a geomantic treasure land is very large.

There may indeed be very powerful tomb robbers. After reading ancient books, through some ancient geomantic theories, they can find some geomantic treasures that have a high probability of becoming the burial sites of ancient people.

But if there is no Luoyang shovel, it is basically impossible to find the specific location of the tomb by relying on Fengshui.

Unless he can directly dig the entire "Feng Shui Treasure Land" three feet into the ground and do a carpet cleaning.

It's just how could the grave robber dare to make such a big move!
Therefore, it has to be Luoyang shovel, the best partner of tomb robbers and archaeologists.

"Hoo, hoo, hoo."

After twenty or so shovels dug it out, even Chen Han, who is strong and strong, was a little tired and out of breath.

Archaeological exploration is really physical work, and the further you go down, the tighter the soil layer and the more laborious it is.

Zhuang Yunpeng hurriedly stepped forward to take the Luoyang shovel from Chen Han: "It's me instead, you rest first."

Tombs that are often three to seven or eight meters deep, or even more than ten meters deep, require at least one or two hundred shovels to find any traces and clues.

It is obviously impossible to drill the cave by one person alone.

Why do tomb robbers commit crimes in gangs? Isn't it because one person can't do this job? Otherwise, wouldn't it be nice to eat alone?

In this way, Chen Han and the others took turns, each with a dozen or so shovels, drilling down the hole deeper and deeper.

After hitting a depth of three or four meters, Chen Han, who had changed several rounds and played hole again, was still mechanically repeating the movements of dropping, twisting, and pulling out.

Until, Su Sa's exclamation broke his boring and repetitive movements.

"Hey, is this flower soil?"

(End of this chapter)