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

Chapter 57 Murder Intent Hidden in the Darkness——Anti-Tomb Raider Technology (2)
The earliest record about "burial in a stone coffin" appeared in "Book of Rites Tan Gong Shang": Confucius lived in the Song Dynasty, and one day he saw Sima Hengyi (tuí) making a stone coffin for himself, and asked curiously, only to know that Heng魋 has been in production for three years and has not yet been completed.Confucius said with emotion: "If it's such a waste, it's better to die and rot earlier!"

"Historical Records" Volume [-] "Qin Shihuang Benji" also records that Qin Shihuang "buried Lishan Mountain and sent Beishan stones as coffins"; "Hanshu" volume [-] "Liu Xiangzhuan" also records that Emperor Xiaowen of the Han Dynasty had the wish of "Beishan stones as coffins" : One day Emperor Xiaowen of the Han Dynasty traveled to Baling, and he was full of emotion, saying: If a stone coffin is built in Beishan, it should be very strong, and later generations "wouldn't be able to move it."Emperor Wenwen of the Han Dynasty envisaged burial after death, and using stone as the coffin was the most effective way to prevent robbery.

Stone coffin, that is, a coffin made of stone slabs.The inner and outer coffins of the owner of the reservoir-type tomb are generally made of stone, at least the outermost outer coffin is made of thick stone slabs, and then one or more layers of coffins are made of high-quality wood and placed inside. A viscous jelly was painted to prevent water from seeping into the coffin and destroying the corpse and funerary objects.If it is well sealed, this kind of coffin has far better anti-corrosion and anti-theft effects on corpses than pure wooden coffins.

Emperor Wenwen of the Han Dynasty did not use a stone coffin for burial, but it is not uncommon in history to use a stone coffin. Numerous sarcophagi and coffins have been unearthed.

The use of stone coffins has indeed been used as a common anti-theft measure.The iron wall to prevent the invasion of tomb robbers may be more effective, easier to operate and more commonly used anti-theft means.

The iron wall we are talking about here is not really an iron wall made of iron, but an anti-theft measure made in the form of a stone gate closed with a top door stone. After it is made, it is like a copper wall and an iron wall.This method is relatively common and relatively simple. It is generally used in coupon tombs, especially in the tombs of emperors.

In the tomb of Zhao Qing of the Jin State in Taiyuan in the late Spring and Autumn period, a large stone weighing about 50 kilograms was placed every one meter deep at the four corners of the tomb wall; tight and compact gravel was piled up around the coffin chamber.There is also a layer of gravel about 1.2 meters thick piled up in the tomb.This anti-theft measure, let alone sneaky thieves, even when archaeologists excavate it, it is very labor-intensive and very difficult.Archaeologists predict that these gravels were filled on purpose to prevent theft.

It turns out that the finely divided rocks are very easy to collapse, and it is difficult for tomb robbers to dig holes in it. Even if they dig a hole by chance, they may die in the rocks if they are not careful.

The tomb of Zhongshan King in the Warring States Period in Pingshan, Hebei has a total depth of 8.2 meters, the upper part is 3.1 meters rammed, and the lower part is 5.1 meters dug into the rock layer.The four walls of the tomb are piled with accumulated stones, which are built with large stones of different sizes and shapes along the four walls of the tomb until the top of the tomb is sealed.The voids between the stones are filled with pebbles.These stones were collected from various places in Zhongshan. Not only are they different in size and shape, but they are also different in quality.The average stone weighs more than 200 kilograms, and the heaviest one weighs more than 400 kilograms.Such stones of different weights, shapes, and stone textures are messy and bulky. It is difficult to build them in the tomb, but its anti-theft effect can also be imagined.In particular, the addition of easy-rolling pebbles among the stone materials increases the difficulty of robbing.When archaeologists excavated the tomb of King Zhongshan, the progress of the project was very difficult.We can imagine that when the tomb robbers excavate such a tomb, in addition to shrinking back, what magic weapon is there to pass through the stone!
The most famous tomb in history is the tomb of Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi and Empress Wu Zetian in Qianling.The Qianling Mausoleum is located on the main peak on the northern beam of today’s Qianxian County, Shaanxi Province. In December 1985, the Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee conducted a comprehensive survey of the Qianling Mausoleum, and the excavation of the Qianling Mausoleum did begin in 12. "Tang Huiyao" records: "The gate of Qianling Yuan Palace (underground palace) is closed with stones, and the stone seams are cast iron to solidify it." It shows that the entrance of Qianling Underground Palace is sealed with huge stones, not only that, but also watered with molten iron. , Seal the door of the tomb.Through years of excavations and investigations, archaeologists have basically figured out the condition of the Qianling Mausoleum.The Qianling tomb passage is 1966 meters long and 63.1 meters wide. On the long tomb passage, stone strips about 3.9 meters long and 1.25 meters wide are stacked in steps from the outside to the inside. The largest level can reach 0.5 floors. It is estimated that there are at least 39 stone bars.The stone bars are fixed with thin iron waists, each of which weighs 3000 to 5 kilograms, and then the tin and iron are melted at high temperature to cast gaps, so that more than 10 huge stones are integrated into one, forming an unbreakable behemoth.It is consistent with the "Xuanjue Shimen of Qianling Mausoleum, metallurgical solid gap" recorded in the literature.Known as the number one tomb robber in ancient and modern times, Wen Tao, the Jiedu envoy of the Five Dynasties period, once robbed all the tombs of Guanzhong emperors in the Tang Dynasty, taking all the treasures therein, but he was helpless with the Qianling Mausoleum. "New History of the Five Dynasties Wen Tao Biography" records: "Only the Qianling Mausoleum, the wind and rain cannot break out." The book "Archaeology" by Cheng Dachang, a scholar of the Song Dynasty, also narrates this matter: "Historical records Wen Tao generally sent Tang Mausoleum, and did it alone. The mausoleum should not be approached, and there is always wind and rain.” Although it is recorded in literature that Wen Tao’s attempt to steal and excavate the Qianling Mausoleum was due to the strong wind and rain, but we can imagine the role of the huge stone blocking the door at the only entrance to the tomb to prevent Wen Tao from entering. There is no substitute for it.

Can the combination of double swords sealing the door with a huge stone and pouring molten iron really ensure that the tomb is impregnable and safe for thousands of years?Facts have proved that no matter what anti-theft measures people adopt, it will be difficult to resist the persistent destruction of tomb robbers in the end.

When King Liu of Guangchuan in the Western Han Dynasty robbed and excavated the tomb of King Wei Xiang, although the door was sealed by molten iron, the persistent tomb robber spent three days and three nights cutting open the tomb door sealed by molten iron, and finally robbed the tomb of the tomb. treasure.

Such a story is recorded in "Youyang Miscellaneous Zu" written by Duan Chengshi in the Tang Dynasty, which tells another method to break the iron water seal door. "A certain man has been a guest of Duan Gong for two or three years, and he has been a robber for a long time. There is an ancient tomb nearby, ten miles to the west of the tomb. It is obliterated and unreadable. At the beginning, when I dug dozens of feet to the side, I met a stone gate, which was fixed with iron juice and poured with sheep dung for many days before it could be opened." This is the self-report of a tomb robber. The method adopted is to coat the molten iron with sheep dung juice. If this is the case for many days, the molten iron will dissolve and the door of the tomb will open naturally.

Whether it is a stone tomb wall, a huge stone to seal the door, or molten iron casting, it is all to strengthen the outer anti-theft function of the tomb, but in the end only a few tombs can escape the robbery, and the mausoleum of the Tang Qianling Mausoleum that is as stable as a rock is even rarer.

The effect of plugging quicksand is good

Blocking the tomb passage with boulders often discourages tomb robbers.

Saishi tombs are a common form of burial, and they have been popular since the Neolithic Age. Until the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Saishi tombs can still be seen. Some ethnic minorities in the north also feature Saishi tombs.Especially the large-scale plug stone tomb has excellent anti-theft effect.Tomb robbers at night generally do not enter the tomb chamber through the tomb passage, and rarely open the tomb chamber by uncovering the cover. Instead, they dig a hole in the sealing soil. It is impossible to move forward, and even if you try your best to remove the plug stone, you may be injured by the rolling stone from above.In the large stone tombs in the northern region, the tomb chambers are all made of stone, which is extremely strong; the stones in the southern tombs are purely for anti-theft, and the tomb walls of the earth pit tombs and the wooden coffin are filled with stones to deter grave robbers .

In Xuzhou Houlou Shanxi Han Tomb, the tomb passage adopts the shaft type.When the tomb passage is closed, three layers of stone slabs are sandwiched between the rammed earth, and the stone slabs are filled with gravel.This anti-theft method has indeed achieved the anti-theft effect of "stone coffin and iron wall".

The tomb of the Changyi King of the Western Han Dynasty is located in Hongtu Mountain, Juye, Shandong. The tomb passageway is covered with ashlar, covering the tomb chamber and the tomb passageway.Two stone walls were built inside the tomb passage, and there is also a stone wall to seal the door near the tomb door. The three stone walls are each about one meter thick, which can be described as copper walls and iron walls.

The Qianling Mausoleum, where Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi and Wu Zetian were buried together, is the most successful mausoleum that combines stone and quicksand.The Qianling Mausoleum is different from the general imperial mausoleums in that it is a mausoleum based on a mountain, that is to say, the tomb passages and corridors are dug from the mountainside, and the front, middle and rear tombs (or mysterious palaces and underground palaces) are built in the belly of the mountain. "Old Tang Book Yan Shansi Biography" contains: "The gate of the Qianling Mausoleum is blocked by stones, and the gaps in the stones are fixed by cast iron." In 1960, local farmers blasted stones on the mountain and accidentally blasted the passage of Qianling Mausoleum. A wide opening, but not close to the door of the tomb.After hearing the news, Shaanxi archaeologists cleaned up and drilled the surrounding areas.The result of the investigation is that the tomb passages and corridors of the Qianling Mausoleum were indeed sealed with stone strips, and the stone strips were fastened with crutch-shaped iron bolts, the front, rear, left and right were reinforced, and molten iron was poured into the gaps.This is true for the continuous corridors that are tens of meters long, which can be described as impenetrable.

Qianling Mausoleum is the strongest tomb with the best anti-theft measures among the Tang mausoleums. In the long period of 705 years from 1960 AD to 1255, the top of Liangshan where Qianling Mausoleum is located has never been seen by tomb robbers.Wen Tao, the governor of Yaozhou of the Five Dynasties mentioned in Chapter 12 of the book who robbed the Eighteen Tombs of Guanzhong in Tang Dynasty, was a great tomb robber with an official title.He led his soldiers to excavate more than a dozen Tang tombs and made a fortune.But when this group of people came to Qianling to rob and excavate, it was recorded in the history books that "the wind and rain cannot break", and it was attributed to the appearance of astronomical signs that stopped the piracy.In fact, as a warlord, how could he be afraid of any astronomical omens?The real reason is that the anti-theft method is effective, that is, the tomb is "blocked by sand".According to historical records, when the Qianling Mausoleum was being built, every time a cart of soil was dug, a cart of sand was pulled from ten miles away and backfilled into the tomb.As a result, the mainland in the tomb no longer exists, and it is all filled with quicksand.If the soil is filled, the soil can be bonded to each other as soon as it is damp, which is convenient for digging a hole and digging a tunnel to enter.The sand is loose and dry, not easy to bond, and cannot make holes.There is no way to get in unless all the sand inside is dug out.Most tomb robbers usually spend a short time digging and stealing treasures, and they don't dig the quicksand inside for a long time.Therefore, even a highly skilled thief cannot enter the tomb after digging in vain, and then abandons it.

Wen Tao failed to steal the excavation. After the rebellious Huang Chao at the end of the Tang Dynasty broke through Chang'an, he led a group of people to dig Qianling to make a fortune. It is said that 40 people hacked and chiseled the ground for a month, but finally failed, so they had to Abandoned it and withdrew from the mausoleum in disgrace.

During the period of the Republic of China, Sun Lianzhong, a general of the Kuomintang, led a group of people to bury pots and make food around Qianling Mausoleum and set up a camp. Using high explosives as a pretense for military exercises, the three layers of rock above the Qianling Mausoleum were blown away.But Sun Lianzhong was not as lucky as Sun Dianying. With the sound of an explosion, a cloud of black smoke rose into the air, twisting in the air in an upright shape.A gust of wind hit, and the sky was dark for a moment, and the sun and the moon were dark.Then a tornado whizzed by, and the 7 officers and soldiers from Shanxi and 12 from Henan who were the first to attack the scene were sucked into the sky by the huge wind and waves, and circled in the sky several times in the wind and waves. Then they were thrown heavily into the wilderness 20 miles away, each of them vomited blood, and died of exhaustion.Seeing this scene, Sun Lianzhong was shocked, and hurriedly asked a local yin and yang gentleman to make a divination, and the divination was "the master is very fierce".Sun's counselor also said that Wen Tao had published allusions about the Tang Tomb in Guanzhong, but only the Qianling Mausoleum "the wind and rain cannot break", thinking that Wu Zetian's ghost was at work in the dark.Faced with the sudden display of power and holiness of this generation of beauties and women, Sun, even though he was wearing a military uniform and carrying a box cannon, did not dare to overpower the king and force his bow, approaching the dragon bed of Emperor Zetian, so he had to order his subordinates to buy fruits and a few Roujiamo announced its withdrawal after paying homage in front of the mausoleum.Therefore, Qianling Mausoleum became the only mausoleum among the eighteen imperial mausoleums in Guanzhong of the Tang Dynasty that was not stolen.This is an extremely rare case of successful anti-theft in Chinese history, and it is a remarkable event from ancient times to the present.

In stark contrast, Tomb No. 2 of the Han Dynasty Tomb in Xiaoguishan, Xuzhou, and the Tomb of the Western Han and Chu Kings in Beidong Mountain also used this method. A large number of huge stones were quarried from the bottom of the mountain and transported to the mausoleum area to block the tomb passages. But he failed to get rid of the fate of being stolen.

In the tomb of King Chu of the Western Han Dynasty unearthed in Beidongshan, Xuzhou, the northern and middle sections of the tomb passage were filled with three rows and three layers of tombstones. Between 3 tons and 7.8 tons.Near the gate of the tomb, there are 3 rows of 3 layers of 9 small stone blocks, followed by 8 large stone blocks of double rows and double layers. Large plug stone.However, such a huge and tight sealing form of the plug stone did not deter the looters. They either broke the plug stone or dragged it out, and finally ransacked the tomb.

Compared with the stone tomb, the anti-theft effect of the quicksand tomb is slightly better.Quicksand tombs appeared later, probably during the Spring and Autumn Period, when this method of burials was more popular in the southern region.The specific method is to excavate the tomb, then put the coffin into the tomb, fill the tomb with fried fine sand, and finally ram the top of the tomb with filling soil.The fried fine sand is very mobile. For the tomb robbers who rely on digging holes to enter the tomb, the fine sand is the best barrier. Keep the tomb robbers out of the tomb.Large-scale quicksand tombs are not only powerful in anti-theft, but also quite dangerous. Many tomb robbers are buried in the sand after digging into the quicksand layer, and can no longer leave.

In 1950, archaeologists discovered the joint burial tomb of the Wei royal family in the middle of the Warring States period. During the excavation of the No. 2 tomb with the most complete tomb structure, it was discovered that the tomb walls were all built with huge stones on both sides of the coffin chamber and adjacent to the two tomb passages. The walls are filled with fine sand, and finally the soil is compacted.Archaeologists measured that the accumulation of sand was eight meters above the ground and nearly 1000 meters deep, with a volume of 000 cubic meters of sand.It is conceivable that when the tomb robbers dug the hole deeply, the quicksand would continuously fill the hole. Unless the tomb robbers transported all the quicksand clean, they could only "look at the sand and sigh".But it is not easy to dig out [-] cubic meters of quicksand!This kind of anti-theft method of using softness to overcome rigidity has indeed played a good anti-theft effect.

Archaeologists from the Henan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology cleaned and excavated a large Chu tomb from the Warring States Period in Guozhuang Village, Daluli Township, Shangcai County, Henan Province in 2005.The scale of this tomb is grand, and the unearthed artifacts are all treasures, among which there are thousands of exquisite bronzes.What's even more rare is that this tomb has perfect anti-theft facilities.There are many robbery holes in the tomb, but the burial objects in the tomb are still very exquisite and rich, which shows that most of the tomb robbers were baffled by the exquisite anti-theft facilities of this tomb and were refused to leave the tomb.The anti-theft method adopted by this large Chu tomb is to use both stone and quicksand.

The tomb chamber of Guozhuang Chu tomb is 17 meters deep, and the depth of 5 meters from the surface is filled with fried fine sand. The amount of accumulated sand is the most found in China.Dry sand can not only prevent corrosion, but more importantly, it has anti-theft function.In addition, inside the fine sand, there are many stones of different sizes accumulated near the coffin, the largest of which can reach 165 kilograms.The gravel is neatly stacked around the coffin chamber, and no matter which direction the tomb robbers enter from, they cannot break through the double defense line of accumulated sand and accumulated stones.

In addition, there are other strict anti-theft measures in the tomb of Guozhuang Chu. Even if the tomb robbers are lucky enough to pass through the obstacles of accumulated sand and rocks, it is difficult to reach the coffin chamber.Such as using boulders to seal the door.This is a simple and common anti-theft method that has been popular for a long time and is generally used in large tombs.In addition, the tomb of Guozhuang Chu also placed a fake coffin in the accumulated sand to confuse tomb robbers, while the real coffin was placed in a secret place.If you go straight down the tomb passage, you can only find fake coffins, and the real coffins are still hard to find.

After clearing and excavating by archaeologists, it was found that the tomb of Guozhuang Chu, known as the largest tomb in southern Henan, had 12 robbery holes from the Warring States period to modern times. The longest hole was 27 meters long, and the largest For a sabotage, the tomb robbers actually adopted the method of uncovering the cover.Large uncovering is generally only a method that professional archaeological units approved by the relevant cultural relics department will use when excavating tombs. Sometimes official robbers who rob tombs on a large scale will also use this method to open tombs. The manpower requirement is very high, and it is too ostentatious, so ordinary private robbers will not uncover the tombs, but will dig holes in inconspicuous places.However, it is precisely this way of uncovering the cover that can avoid the mechanism of blocking stones and quicksand, and steal the treasures in the tomb.

Blocking stones and quicksand anti-theft methods were popular from the Warring States period to the Han Dynasty. Generally, large tombs of the princely level in the Changsha area will adopt these effective anti-theft methods according to local conditions. If there is no large amount of sand, charcoal will be used instead.This method can not only prevent moisture and corrosion, but also effectively combat tomb robbers.

Ambush back arrows and knives

(End of this chapter)