Master Archaeologist

Chapter 91
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, in this good day to celebrate the Spring Festival, Chen Han, who had only been home for eleven days, returned to work with a backpack on his back.

Fortunately, it's not just those who engage in archaeology who don't have a holiday during the Spring Festival.

Even if it is the first day of the Lunar New Year, the high-speed rail will not stop running.

Compared with the public service industry, the archaeological industry, which has not encountered an overtime work during the Spring Festival for several years, is still insignificant.

It is on this special day that basically not many people take the high-speed rail.

When Chen Han stepped on the train G2540, which departed at [-]:[-] p.m., there were only three passengers in his compartment.

Including him, there are four people in total.

Well, except for Chen Han, the other three have no good looks.

Even two of them were constantly tapping on the screen of the laptop to communicate with each other.

It seems that they are all hard workers who are still busy with work on the first day of the new year.

Only Chen Han sat down by the window after getting in the car, the smile on his face was unstoppable.

Another tomb can be dug, yes!
For him, instead of spending the lonely and boring Spring Festival alone at home, he might as well take advantage of this festive day to spend it with his colleagues in the institute.

Going back to the Archaeological Institute feels like coming home.

The feeling inside the construction site is much better than that at home!

It's boring to be alone at home, I don't have any friends, and my girlfriends play with me.

It's not like everyone in the institute is talented, and they speak nicely, and I really like staying with everyone.

As for whether other colleagues in the institute want to go to work on this day when the whole country celebrates the Spring Festival, that is not something Chen Han considers.

Anyway, this year he is very happy to end the vacation early.

A few hours later, before it was completely dark, Chen Han arrived in Suizhou, Hubei.

On the first day of the new year, don't expect to be able to get a taxi or an online car-hailing service.

Fortunately, the Suizhou government had already made preparations. As soon as Chen Han left the station, he was taken to the parking lot by a civil servant from the city.

A bus dedicated to picking up personnel from the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences was waiting for him.

"Hey, Senior Brother Zhuang, Happy Chinese New Year!"

"Senior Sister Su, I haven't seen you in ten days, I miss you so much!"

"Xiao Wang, why do you have such a bitter face, please be happy during the Spring Festival!"

"Researcher Chen, I heard that you got engaged while you were on vacation? Congratulations!"

As soon as he got in the car, Chen Han found that they were all old acquaintances.

Basically, the thirty or so people who followed Kong Jianwen from Qinghai to Jingzhou were almost there.

He also exchanged pleasantries with several familiar colleagues.

It's just that the expressions on everyone's faces are not very "pleasant", only the smile on Chen Han's face is called brilliant.

"Cough cough."

Seeing that Chen Han had also arrived, Kong Jianwen, who was sitting in the first row, signaled him to find a place to sit down with his eyes, then stood up and said:
"Okay, except for the four colleagues who have something to do temporarily and can't come back today, everyone is here."

"Thank you for your hard work. On the important day of the first day of the new year, I have to rush back to work."

Kong Jianwen showed a bit of apology on his face.

This made everyone present embarrassed to put on unhappy expressions.

The bosses expressed condolences and apologized, and if everyone put on an air, it would be somewhat disrespectful to Director Kong.

Zhuang Yunpeng, who had lost his soul just now, looked like a walking corpse, and immediately revived with full blood, and shouted very doglegly: "No hard work!"

"My age is the age where I have to endure hardships and struggle! Teacher, please tell me what tasks you have!"

It's a pity that Kong Jianwen ignored him at all, but continued to explain calmly: "The reason why everyone's vacation was suddenly interrupted is to recall everyone."

"It's because something happened in Suizhou!"

Kong Jianwen explained slowly.

It turned out that the archaeological institute on the Suizhou side seemed to be lucky at the end of the year.

First, on December 12, villagers in Yejiashan unearthed fifteen bronze wares when leveling the land.

Later, the director of the Hubei Institute of Archaeology personally took people to the site to investigate and found that the fifteen bronzes came from two stolen tombs.

Immediately afterwards, the Hubei Institute carried out rescue excavations on these two tombs, and carried out exploration in the Yejiashan area.

This exploration has directly discovered a Western Zhou family cemetery, and it is even one of the highest and largest ancient tombs of the Western Zhou Dynasty in the Jianghan area and even the Yangtze River Basin!

According to the exploration results, the entire cemetery is 150 meters long and 100 meters wide, covering an area of ​​15000 square meters.

Among them, there are 10 large tombs, 5 medium tombs and 50 small tombs.

In fact, if things only go to this point, it has nothing to do with the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Although this Western Zhou cemetery is not small, the local area of ​​Suizhou and the archaeological force of the Hubei Institute are sufficient to complete the excavation and rescue work of this cemetery.

However, it is a coincidence that in March 2018, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, a joint archaeological team composed of Hubei Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Peking University School of Archeology and Museology, Suizhou Museum, Zeng, Du, and District Archaeological Teams Excavation work in Zaoshulin cemetery.

The Zaoshulin cemetery, also in Suizhou, belongs to the Yidigang tomb group. In 1979, two tombs of Marquis Zeng were excavated.

After that, the Suizhou archaeological team conducted a comprehensive exploration of this area, and discovered 86 tombs of Zeng Guo in the Spring and Autumn Period.

In the past few decades, Suizhou and even the Hubei Institute of Archeology have been making efforts to excavate this cemetery.

With great difficulty, the excavation approval was finally obtained in the name of finding the most complete feudal system of the Zhou Dynasty and constructing a bronze cultural ruler in the Jianghan area.

Beginning in March, archaeologists from the School of Archeology and Museology of Peking University will join most of the staff of the Hubei Institute of Archeology and start excavating at the Zaoshulin cemetery.

Now suddenly there is another Yejiashan tomb group, and it is a tomb group that has been stolen and urgently needs rescue excavation.

The archaeological forces in Hubei simply don't have time to deal with these two large tombs of Eastern and Western Zhou nobles at the same time!

Moreover, the matter that made them "lucky" is not over yet!

Immediately afterwards, on January 1, just next to the Zaoshulin cemetery, in the engineering construction area of ​​Wenfengta Community in Suizhou, the staff conducting preliminary exploration also discovered a large group of tombs
In fact, this also has a forerunner.

In 2009, Wenfengta Community once discovered a burial area from the late Spring and Autumn Period to the Eastern Han Dynasty.

Several tombs discovered at that time were stolen by tomb robbers. The Suizhou archaeological team conducted rescue excavations and unearthed some cultural relics.

This year, to be precise, at the end of 2018, the houses in the Wenfengta community were demolished due to real estate development.

Real estate developers are planning to build a new community in this area.

Given that there are criminal records underground, the Suizhou Archaeological Institute will naturally carry out large-scale archaeological exploration on the land to ensure that there are no large tombs underground.

As a result of this exploration, another tomb group of more than 66 tombs was discovered, and there were many large tombs among them, dating from the mid-Spring and Autumn period to the Warring States period.

Another aristocratic cemetery in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty
Yejiashan Tombs visited by tomb robbers.

The Hubei Institute of Archaeology applied for 30 years before it was finally approved as the jujube forest cemetery that can be actively excavated.

In addition, the real estate developers have bought the Wenfeng Pagoda cemetery, which is planned to build a high-rise building.

All of them are large-scale tombs of Eastern and Western Zhou nobles that need to be excavated urgently and cannot be delayed!

The Hubei Institute of Archaeology, and even the archaeologists at the Institute of Archeology and Museum of Peking University, are simply too busy!

There is no way, the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences can only come to the front line to save the scene.

(End of this chapter)