Shadow of the Tomb Raider: A Complete Record of the History of Tomb Raiders in China

Chapter 19 "If a worker wants to do a good job, he must first sharpen his tools": Tomb robbery tools exposed (1)
Aspects of Tomb Raiders

There has been a long history of robbing ancient tombs in our country. The earliest stolen tomb recorded in history is the tomb of Shang Tang, the first king of the Shang Dynasty, about 3600 years ago; Someone got a jade seal from an excavated ancient tomb with a cross engraved on it, but no one recognized it at that time.

On the one hand, the excavation of ancient tombs relies on human skills and experience; on the other hand, it relies on tools. The folk excavation tools in the old society were shovels, picks, shovels, axes, torches, candles, etc.Before the Ming Dynasty, tomb robbers did not have special tools for detection. The Ming Dynasty began to use iron cones. Its appearance made the robbers only target tombs with obvious marks on the ground (such as sealing soil and tombstones).Tomb robbers use special iron awls to explore the unmarked underground. Once they find an ancient tomb, they can dig a hole directly according to the metal smell brought up by the awl.Wang Shixing of the Ming Dynasty said in "Guang Zhi Yi": "Luoyang has deep water and soil resources, and the burial is four or five feet away from the spring." , copper, iron smell (taste), then excavate (digging)."

From the iron cone to the "Luoyang shovel", it is a leap forward for the northern tomb robbers to use underground detection tools.The north, especially Luoyang and Guanzhong, are located in the loess plateau area, where the water is deep and the soil is thick. The shovel clip of the "Luoyang shovel" is only 2 inches wide, forming a U-shaped semicircle. The upper part of the shovel is equipped with a long handle. With one click, it can go three or four inches deep, and with one lift, the ground stuck in the semicircular opening can be brought up intact.In this way, the tomb robbers continued to drill deep into the ground, and the tomb robbers analyzed the soil structure, color, density and various inclusions of the different soil layers extracted. If it is mellow soil that has been touched by later generations, there may be tombs or ancient buildings underground.If ceramics, iron, copper, gold, and wood are found in the inclusions, the nature and layout of the underground collection can be inferred.Experienced tomb robbers can judge the underground situation based on the different sounds of Luoyang shovels hitting the ground and the feeling of their hands. For example, the rammed walls are naturally very different from the hollow tombs and tomb passages.

The thing of robbing tombs and finding treasures has existed since ancient times, and it is especially fierce today. Its methods, technologies, and tools have evolved to be more modernized, intelligent, and grouped. Saws are used to transport communication vehicles, motorcycles, and mobile phones. Therefore, the fight against the robbery of ancient tombs and the sale of smuggled cultural relics is more complicated and arduous, and there is a long way to go!
Keep up with the times and become more sophisticated

Tomb robbers before liberation usually do it by one or two people, not too many, and the time is one night. They have their own special tools (digging equipment) and special one-piece clothing (mouse clothes, covered with various "equipment").

For excavation equipment before liberation, a part of the sharp plow blade was used as a "digger". The "three-piece package" was very similar to a propeller, and the rear part was closely connected to a spiral "drain" device.In this way, not only can the soil be excavated and discharged, but also the tomb bricks can be penetrated (screw principle, just increase the horizontal force, no need to press hard).

From the iron cone to the "Luoyang shovel", it is a leap forward for the northern tomb robbers to use underground detection tools.

Luoyang City, Henan Province has a long history of culture since ancient times. In history, it was the ancient capital of thirteen dynasties and has always been the political and cultural center of ancient China.Today, Luoyang's famous "Luoyang Three Treasures" are Longmen Grottoes, Baima Temple and "Luoyang Shovel". It is a tomb robber tool.Tomb robbery is indeed popular in Luoyang City, mainly due to the rich burial style in Luoyang since ancient times.Since ancient times, the dignitaries and dignitaries in Luoyang have paid attention to generous burials, and they often attach great importance to the construction of tombs. There are so many burials that there are so many ancient tombs in Luoyang.Tang Dynasty poet Wang Jian once described the dense tombs in Luoyang as follows:

There is little idle soil on the top of Beiman Mountain,
It is full of old tombs of Luoyang people.

There are many burials in old tombs,
There is nowhere to buy gold.

Because of this, the wind of tomb robbers in Luoyang has been prevalent since ancient times, and there are also capable tomb robbers in the past dynasties.Regarding the origin of Luoyang shovel, there is such a story circulating in Luoyang:
In Mapo Village, Mangshan Mountain, Luoyang, there was a farmer named Li Yazi, who had made a living by robbing tombs since he was a child. One day in the 12th year of the Republic of China (1923), he went to the market in Mengjin County, more than ten miles away.An acquaintance from Magou Village, Yanshi County is setting up a shed to sell fried buns.The two sides met to say hello, and he saw that this person was busy digging a small vertical hole in the ground with a short-handled shovel in the shape of a tube tile, so that it could be inserted into the shed posts.The man poked the ground with this shovel, and brought out a lot of soil when he lifted it up, which immediately triggered his "inspiration": this guy is lighter and more flexible than a shovel for digging holes, especially since he can carry the original soil, which is good for judging the difference between the underground stratum condition.So he found a piece of paper, attached it to a shovel clip and drew a large original pattern. After returning home, he immediately asked a blacksmith to make it according to the picture.Later, other tomb robbers followed suit, so they were widely "promoted".

Because the Luoyang shovel is used for excavating caves and collecting soil, its working principle is similar to the current oil exploration and geological sampling, so the body of the shovel is not flat but semi-cylindrical, similar to a tile-shaped cylinder, much like seven A common murder weapon in the 80s-pipe insertion.

The width of the shovel clip of "Luoyang shovel" is only 2 inches, and the width is U-shaped semicircle. Although the long-handled Luoyang shovel on the upper part of the shovel looks like a semicircle, its shape is neither round nor flat. The most important thing is to create the arc when forming. , It needs to be tapped carefully, if you are not careful, the shovel will not be able to carry the soil.Not only that, Luoyang shovel is more complicated in the production process. Usually, making a small shovel requires nearly [-] processes such as billet making, calcination, heat treatment, forming, and sharpening, so it can only be made by hand.If a good Luoyang shovel is finished, it can be driven into the ground more than ten meters, or even tens of meters deep, when it is installed with a tough wax wood pole and connected with a special rope. Will bring out a bucket of soil.In this way, the tomb robbers continued to drill deep into the ground, and the tomb robbers analyzed the soil structure, color, density and various inclusions of the different soil layers extracted. If it is mellow soil that has been touched by later generations, there may be tombs or ancient buildings underground.If ceramics, iron, copper, gold, and wood are found in the inclusions, the nature and layout of the underground collection can be inferred.Experienced tomb robbers can judge the underground situation based on the different sounds of Luoyang shovels hitting the ground and the feeling of their hands. For example, the rammed walls are naturally very different from the hollow tombs and tomb passages.

Similarly, the tombs dug are different, and the tools for tomb robbers are also different.The heavy shovel evolved from the Luoyang shovel used to explore Han tombs, the flat shovel (similar to Lu Zhishen’s crescent shovel) when digging Tang tombs, and the rolling fork when entering the Han tomb chamber (most of the Han tombs are tomb pits, most of which have collapsed) and skimmer.

After liberation, the department of cultural relics and archaeology improved it and used it to conduct a general survey and drill whether there are cultural relics underground, making contributions to the work of cultural relics and archaeology.However, in the tomb robbery frenzy across the country in recent years, it has been used by tomb robbers to go back to evil ways.

Tomb raider Luoyang shovel

The first step in tomb robbery is naturally how to find the tomb.There are usually sealing trees on the top of large tombs in ancient times, but with the passage of time and the erosion of the years, the sealing soil is gradually flattened, and the trees on the sealing soil are not the same as before.This is true for large tombs, but it is even more difficult to find ordinary small tombs.In this case, a simple and convenient tool for detecting the location of the tomb and the depth from the surface of the ground came into being. This is the Tomb Raider Luoyang Shovel.

Today's Luoyang shovel has not only become a tool for tomb robbers in the northern Central Plains, but also widely used by archaeologists. However, this tool has only been produced for a short century.

According to old legends in Luoyang, during the period of the Republic of China, there was a tomb robber named Li Yazi in Mapo Village, Mangshan Mountain, Luoyang.Once, when Li Yazi went to the market in Mengjin County, he saw people on the side of the road digging holes with a short-handled shovel with a cylindrical head.When the shovel is inserted into the soil, it can penetrate nearly a foot in one stroke. When it is pulled out, a lot of soil is carried in the head of the shovel.This ordinary scene touched Li Yazi a lot. As a tomb robber, the problem of hard to find tombs has always troubled him, but this simple shovel can solve this problem easily. Just insert a similar shovel into the soil, Pull it out again to bring out the underground soil. By observing the soil color, you can judge whether there is a tomb there.Therefore, Li Yazi also built a cylindrical shovel, which is handy in tomb robbery, and the success rate of tomb robbery has greatly increased.Other tomb robbers in Luoyang also followed suit, and the activities of tomb robbers in Luoyang became more rampant.Because this kind of shovel was first invented and widely used by tomb robbers in Luoyang area, this emerging tomb robber weapon is called "Luoyang shovel".

The Luoyang shovel, also known as the exploration shovel, is about 30 cm long and 6 cm in diameter. It is semi-cylindrical in shape with a crescent-shaped cross-section. , and an iron ring is installed at the other end of the wooden pole. The purpose of the iron ring is to tie the rope and deepen the detection depth of the Luoyang shovel.When using, one person separates his feet, lifts the wooden pole and inserts the Luoyang shovel vertically into the soil. When he lifts it up, the semi-cylindrical shovel head carries the soil. The previous hole is inserted again, and so on, and the soil lifted up is the vertical soil sample for exploring this point.The tomb robbers determined the tomb by observing the soil samples.

The soil in places without burials is called raw soil, which is generally yellow in color, pure in color, without variegated colors, and relatively fine in texture.The color of the soil in places with tombs is generally mixed, such as yellow mixed with red and black. This kind of soil is called Wuhua soil.Because when building a tomb, a tomb is first dug on the ground, and after the burial, the previously dug soil is backfilled into the tomb.The color and texture of soil at different depths are different, and different layers of soil were mixed during the excavation process, so the color and texture of Wuhua soil are not as pure as raw soil.The special causes and characteristics of Wuhua soil make it the basis for judging tombs. Experienced tomb robbers can be sure that there must be ancient tombs as long as they find Wuhua soil.In addition, when some large ancient tombs are buried and filled with soil, the soil will be compacted to make the tomb more solid, so the texture of the rammed earth is very hard.If you touch rammed earth with a Luoyang shovel, if it is not an ancient architectural site, it must be a tomb.

The Luoyang shovel is simple and accurate to explore. Often when you shovel it down, you will hit burial objects or even human bones. Not only grave robbers love it for 10 minutes, but even professional archaeologists regard Luoyang shovel as an indispensable detection tool.In the process of archaeological investigation, Luoyang shovel can not only detect the location of the tomb, but also determine other types of relics, such as building sites, settlement sites, etc., and through intensive exploration, roughly determine the distribution range and depth of the relics.The scope of the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang was detected by using Luoyang shovel.Since the Luoyang shovel can be extended after the rope is tied, in the exploration of Qin Shihuang's cemetery, some relics were buried deeply, and the depth of the Luoyang shovel was more than 20 meters!

Iron Ax Candle Mouse Coat

If Luoyang shovels are well-trained "scouts" in the hands of tomb robbers, then iron axes and shovels are "heavy weapons" for defeating the enemy.After Luoyang shovel has determined the specific location of the tomb, it is necessary to dig a robbery hole, enter the tomb, and plunder the treasure.At this time, the iron ax and shovel came in handy.

(End of this chapter)