Master Archaeologist

Chapter 49 Lifting Your Coffin Cover
"Hey, this tomb is so deep!"

"There are three types of filling soil for the tomb pit alone."

"A layer of five-flower soil, a layer of green plaster, and a layer of green plaster."

Zhuang Yunpeng stood at the bottom of a pit more than seven meters deep, holding a hoe in his waist, and complained out of breath.

In fact, the depth of seven or eight meters is the standard depth of the tombs of nobles in the Han Dynasty.

Generally, 7-10 meters is the tomb layer of the nobles of the Western Han Dynasty. The depth of the tombs deeper than 20 meters is the depth of the tombs of the princes and kings. As for the depth of more than [-] meters, that is the location of the emperor's tombs.

A tomb buried so shallow like the previous tomb M-105 is somewhat abnormal.

But this proved once again that the owner of the tomb named Si Bo was indeed buried hastily, and everything was prepared hastily.

"Okay, this has been dug for more than seven meters, and it has reached the third layer of filling. It should be able to dig to the tomb soon."

Chen Han, who was also working hard to fill the soil, wiped the fine sweat from his forehead, stared at the leaves turned out of the filling, and said in amazement: "These leaves and bamboo tubes buried in the filling are preserved. It's pretty good."

When the tomb is built and the owner of the tomb is buried, when people backfill, sometimes they will also fill the pit with leaves and grass roots on the ground.

So sometimes when archaeologists excavate tombs, they also dig up some leaves and grass roots that have been buried in the soil for thousands of years.

But most of them, when they were dug out, had already decayed, and even became "dried specimens".

This is still a good situation.

It usually only takes a few months for the fallen leaves to be buried in the soil, and they will be quickly decomposed. The degradation ability of nature is very strong.

But the leaves and bamboo dug out from the filling this time are in very good condition.

Not to mention rotting and decomposing, even when dug out, the leaves are still green, and the stems are also green, just like fresh leaves that just fell from the tree.

However, when these leaves were dug out from the fill and saw the light, they immediately dried up and turned yellow, and then quickly turned black, just like carbon blocks, and the whole process was very fast.

But such a scene, not only did not make the accompanying senior researchers feel regretful and regretful, but even more excited!

The occurrence of this kind of situation shows that the sealing of this tomb is very good. The leaves and bamboo in these sealing soils have been in an anaerobic state for a long time, so they can remain underground for thousands of years!

Then, if you think about it, if the sealed condition of Fengtu is so good, wouldn't the situation in the tomb be better?
Wouldn't the appearance of the burial objects preserved in the tomb be better? !
With such a tense and expectant mood, the speed of excavation in the hands of the big guys has been accelerated a lot.

Hard work pays off.

After digging down about ten centimeters thick green plaster soil layer, finally, a few pieces of hard planks appeared on the ground.

"Stop, stop!"

Kong Jianwen, who had been nervously observing the excavation situation, quickly stopped the workers.

When you reach this level, you can no longer work hard to perform miracles.

More than a dozen professionals from the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences, including Chen Han, took brushes and small square shovels and began to clean up carefully.

Chen Han gently brushed away the last layer of soil attached to the tomb, and immediately some yellowed and dry reeds appeared in front of his eyes.

"The coffin cover has been dug up! There is also a layer of reed mat on the cover, and the condition of preservation is not bad!"

In the tombs of the Western Han Dynasty, except for the emperors and princes who dug mountains and opened mausoleums.

Most of the other nobles and even ordinary people still use the vertical pit tombs that have been used since the Stone Age.

This kind of burial method usually involves digging a tomb vertically downwards, then putting the coffin and burial objects into the tomb, and then covering the coffin with a thick cover to seal the top of the tomb, and then it can be backfilled It's closed.

Simple, convenient and fast.

Therefore, it was relatively simple to excavate. As long as you dig vertically downward, you can directly dig to the cover directly above the tomb.

However, the tombs of the nobles in the Western Han Dynasty have been more particular. This tomb No. 168 not only has a tomb pit, but also a tomb passage for "constructors" to walk up and down.

Now it just happens to be a place to stay for archaeologists.

After clearing the tomb passage, the excavation of this tomb entered the most important link.

Next, as long as the cover is lifted, you can directly see the situation in the tomb.

After determining the position of the coffin cover of the tomb, Kong Jianwen was also unequivocal, and immediately contacted a small crane that was staying at the construction site.

This thing is specially prepared for opening the tomb.

After receiving the request, a wheeled crane drove to the excavation site of tomb No. 168 with a beep.

While waiting for the crane to arrive, Chen Han and the others were not idle and inspected the entire coffin cover.

However, the results of the survey were a bit unsatisfactory.

On the coffin, a total of six relatively thick wooden boards were covered, and the north and south were horizontally arranged on the coffin chamber.

Between the six cover plates, the seal is not tight, and some joints are relatively large, and the tightness is average.

And the tightness is average, which means that the coffin chamber is not completely isolated from oxygen.

Then, with the ups and downs of the coffin underground, it is very likely that the same situation as that of tomb M-105 will happen.

Groundwater seeped into the coffin chamber!
Once water enters the coffin and the airtightness is not tight enough, the situation inside the coffin will not be as good as everyone expected.

But no matter whether it is good or bad, you will never know the situation until you open it.

After the crane arrived, several bundles of hemp ropes were thrown to the bottom of the pit, and everyone began to tie hemp ropes on the cover and hung them on the lifting hook.

One piece after another, the coffin cover boards were slowly and steadily pulled up by the crane.

The outer coffin chamber is also gradually revealed in front of the archaeologists.

Sure enough, the worst guesses emerged.

The coffin chamber was filled with stagnant water, and even the stagnant water had submerged the inner coffin. What the naked eye could see was a puddle of black water.

"Hey, this is not a good situation." Professor Li sighed regretfully.

"Water means air. I'm afraid the harvest from this excavation will not be great."

Originally, everyone opened the outer coffin of the tomb with full of expectation, but what they saw made people's hearts sink.

In order to dig through the tomb, it took everyone two months of hard work to clear the nearly eight-meter-deep, five-meter-long earthwork.

As a result, what they saw was a vast ocean of black water, and no one could feel better.

Seeing this, although Chen Han was also a little disappointed, he cheered up and said, "Everyone, don't be too discouraged. If there is water in the coffin, water may not necessarily also enter the coffin."

Tomb M-105, which their team was in charge of, was flooded with water in the coffin and coffin. Didn't they also find a thousand-year-old bronze sword?

Things that are buried in the soil, before they are actually dug out, anything can happen.

It's still too early to draw conclusions.

Kong Jianwen also nodded, regrouped and said: "Xiao Chen is right, I haven't seen the coffin yet, so why be discouraged!"

"Get ready, go to the colleagues in the Jingzhou Institute to borrow a few water pumps, and drain the water in the coffin first!"

　Received the silver, a little excited, all night looking at the data and comments, writing a bit late, sorry~
　　I tried to shorten some unimportant processes as much as possible, otherwise it would take a long time to write about digging the seven or eight meter deep pit and clearing the tomb passage.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)