Master Archaeologist

Chapter 48 Tomb No. 168
"Side length is 1.5 centimeters, height is 0.7 centimeters, and overall height is 1.4 centimeters."

"The tentative name of the seal is Si Bo's seal."

With the filing of Lin Ya's records, this Si Bo's seal became the last unearthed item from tomb M-105.

In the next few days, after the entire coffin was cleaned inside and out, no other funerary objects were found.

Only some rotting fabric was recovered, along with some bone fragments of the tomb owner.

On the other hand, the teeth of the owner of the tomb found during the cleaning on the first day were sent to a professional inspection agency for identification, and the age of death of the owner of the tomb was obtained.

The owner of the tomb is indeed very young as everyone guessed.

Judging from the age of the teeth, the owner of the tomb was between 16 and 18 years old, and it is a bit inappropriate to describe it as an untimely death.

However, judging from the size and shape of the tomb, the owner of the tomb should have been married during his lifetime, so even though construction was tight, a double tomb was dug out.

That is, his bride who may have just married did not remain a widow for him, and she must have remarried later.

So far, all the guesses of Chen Han and Kong Jianwen are basically on the right track.

The life experience of the owner of the tomb should be quite miserable.

As the last patriarch of the Lao Si family of Jingzhou nobles in the Western Han Dynasty.

Not only died young, but also left no descendants, so he was buried with the family sword.

What is even more regrettable is that Chen Han and the others read a lot of historical documents in Jingzhou, dating from the end of the Western Han Dynasty to the end of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

The six people searched for three days and three nights, but they couldn't find any records related to "Si Bo".

Although China's historical records are already the most detailed in the world.

But it is not realistic to find the records of every tomb owner.

This "Si Bo" was too young when he died, and he probably didn't have any official position. Although he was a minor nobleman, his inherited title is probably not that high.

It is unrealistic for such a person to leave his name in the history books.

Moreover, there were no county records in the Western Han Dynasty, so it was too difficult to find out the life of such a small nobleman in the Western Han Dynasty.

After spending three days without finding any information, Chen Han and the others quickly gave up the idea of ​​continuing to search for the life of the tomb owner.

Although after 2000 years, he left no trace.

But at least there is still a seal, a sword, to prove for him that he has been to this world.

Although the study of the tomb owner's life was abandoned, the report that should be written is still indispensable.

From the entire excavation process, to the introduction of each unearthed object, as well as taking pictures and sampling, as well as detailed research data...

"Brief Report on the Excavation of Han Dynasty Tomb No. 105, Phoenix Mountain, Jingzhou, Hubei Province"

Just writing this briefing will cost Chen Han and the others a lot of effort.

Chen Han and his team buried their heads in the excavation briefing and recording work.

Kong Jianwen, the leader of the team, has no time to continue to accompany them.

As the exploration of the Han Dynasty tombs on the Phoenix Mountain side became clearer and clearer.

In order to cooperate with the military's infrastructure projects, archaeologists from the Hubei Institute of Archeology and the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences started a large-scale archaeological excavation.

On the entire construction site around Phoenix Mountain, there are more than a dozen tombs that are in the process of being excavated.

And there are more than ten tombs waiting to be excavated at any time.

According to the discussion with the infrastructure team, at least 150 tombs in this group of more than 35 tombs need protective excavation.

There are hundreds of excavators hired from Jingzhou City, and the whole construction site is full of hard work and full of enthusiasm.

Naturally, Kong Jianwen couldn't be idle either.

After instructing Chen Han and the others to open the coffin, he immediately devoted himself to the excavation of other tombs at the Institute of Archaeology, Academy of Social Sciences.

In the southeast part of the central part of Fenghuang Mountain, there are three tombs next to each other, which are marked as Tomb No. 167, Tomb No. 168 and Tomb No. 169.

Among them, No. 167 and No. 169 are two relatively small vertical pit tombs. Judging from the scale, they should be just ordinary small tombs.

But number 168 is different.

According to the previous exploration findings, although this tomb is also a vertical pit tomb, it has a tomb passage!
Moreover, the length of the tomb from east to west is more than six meters, and its width from north to south is also more than 4.5 meters.

Six meters long and nearly five meters wide, this is not a small grave.

Tomb No. 105 excavated by Chen Han's team, the owner of the tomb is already a small nobleman, but the size of the tomb is only 3.9 meters long and 1.9 meters wide!
Tomb No. 168, discovered by the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences, is not much longer than Tomb No. 105, but its width has more than doubled.

The pit is wider, what does that mean?
The coffin representing the owner of the tomb is very large, so such a wide tomb pit is needed!

The coffin is wide, which shows that the owner of the tomb used multiple sets of coffins!

At least it must be more than one coffin and one outer coffin in Tomb No. 105. It is very likely that there are one coffin and two outer coffins, or two coffins and one outer coffin!
Of course, four coffins and one outer coffin or three coffins and two outer coffins are unlikely.

This is the specification of princes and princes, the tomb must be bigger.

But tomb No. 168 is already very valuable!

The owner of the tomb must be a middle-level and high-ranking aristocrat in the Western Han Dynasty!
The upper limit is the Marquis of Guannei, and the lower limit is at least the 10th rank of the [-]th rank!
Such a person was at least a county-level leader in the Western Han Dynasty, and might even be a high-ranking official at the level of two thousand stones!

At this level, it is possible to leave a name in history, and maybe there is a record of him in the "Han Shu"!

After Kong Jianwen finished opening Chen Han's coffin, he immediately led other people from the Academy of Social Sciences to start the formal excavation of tomb No. 168.

This tomb is not simple.

The first step of excavation is very troublesome.

Because the location of the tomb is very deep!
Although the archaeologists of the Academy of Social Sciences discovered five-color soils of different colors at a depth of less than three meters from the ground during the exploration of the cave.

But when the digging started, more than 20 workers and a dozen archaeologists, after digging the first three meters, found that there was still a layer of blue plaster under the ten centimeters of five-flower soil.

At first, everyone thought that this layer of blue plaster was not much, and it was probably just a layer of sealing soil on the tomb pit.

As a result, I dug more than two meters deep in one dig!

Adding up the front and back, I dug five meters deep, but didn't reach the tomb!

Chen Han and the others have compiled and written the excavation briefing, and entered it into the national special digital archaeological platform, and completed all the excavation work of the M-105 tomb.

On the side of tomb No. 168, the tomb chamber has not been dug yet!

So Chen Han and his team were also arrested by Kong Jianwen as coolies, and arranged to participate in the excavation work in Tomb No. 168.

With the addition of six young and strong new troops, the excavation progress has accelerated a lot again.

After digging down for more than two meters, when the total excavation depth reached 7.5 meters, some leaves, bamboo roots, and bamboo tubes began to appear in the rammed earth.

When the rammed earth dug out was no longer hard and thick blue plaster, but fine-textured blue plaster, everyone's sense of anticipation was raised.

This shows that it is finally time to dig into the tomb!
　The big one is coming.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)