Chapter eight hundred and eighty sixth Han Dynasty cake gold
Looking at the golden beast in his hand, Chen Wenzhe saw that it had the characteristics of the Western Han Dynasty.
He visually estimated that the body height of this Western Han Dynasty gold beast was over ten centimeters, its overall body length was over fifteen centimeters, its body width was about twenty centimeters, its weight reached 9100 grams, and its gold content was as high as 99%.
This Western Han Dynasty gold beast is not solid, but hollow, but its wall is thicker, so it is not easily damaged.
This is formed by melting gold and pouring it at high temperature, and the process is relatively complicated.
This kind of craftsmanship also fully reflects the exquisite production technology of the Western Han Dynasty.
Most of the goldware we usually see are made by manual beating, and this gold beast is produced by the perfect combination of ancient gold forging technology and gold hammering technology.
In fact, you can tell at a glance whether the craftsmanship is good or not.
A gold vessel with a height of more than ten centimeters, a length of more than fifteen centimeters, and a width of twenty centimeters. For such a large body, if it is not made well, you can tell at a glance.
Of course, if the production process is good, it will be more beautiful.
This golden beast is in a curled-up state like a puppy. Its head rests on its front legs, its waist is bent and its body is hugged. Its ears are placed on both sides of its head. It has a big head, a long tail, and a short and lean body.
It looks like a tiger, but more like a leopard.
The golden beast's eyes were wide open, its mouth was wide open and its teeth were exposed, and its expression was very cautious.
It wears a three-wheeled collar around its neck and a button on the top of its head.
There are markings all over the body, and these markings are hammered on after the animal body has been prepared. They are all about the same size, showing irregular circles, and look very delicate and beautiful.
The base of this treasure is hollow and recessed, and the inner wall is engraved with the word "Huang Jiu", which is written in small seal script and belongs to the Qin and Han Dynasties.
Seeing these two words, Chen Wenzhe suddenly realized!
This is definitely not the first time such an inscription has appeared.
Chen Wenzhe thought about it carefully, he must have seen it, but after a while, he remembered it.
There is also a gold beast like this hidden in the Nandu Museum. It is about the same size as this one, and the casting process is similar. The main thing is that the inscription is different. That one seems to be Huang Liu!
At that time, experts pointed out that the "yellow" in these two inscriptions refers to the material being gold, and "six" is its sequential number.
That's right now, the golden beast in Chen Wenzhe's hands is Huang Jiu, which is the ninth one made of gold.
“Boss, I’ve discovered something again, it’s a golden pot!”
Chen Wenzhe had just studied the golden beast, and Gao Qijing sent another large golden pot.
This golden pot made entirely of gold is bigger than the golden beast.
Its height exceeds 30 centimeters, and the diameter of the largest part of its belly exceeds 20 centimeters. It is really heavy to hold. Needless to say, there must be something inside.
Opening this special gold pot with exquisite shape, it was filled with gold utensils.
Chen Wenzhe poured it out and looked at it. There were 9 and a half gold cakes inside, with a total weight of 2864 grams.
There are also 15 pieces of gold that resemble horseshoes. This is horseshoe gold, which was also found in the tomb of Haihunhou.
In addition to these, there are also unicorn foot gold, weighing 4845g, and the 11-piece gold version "Ying Yuan" weighing 3260g.
Just such a gold pot, including the gold cakes inside, etc., the total weight of gold exceeds 20kg.
At this time, Chen Wenzhe realized that the passage that Gao Qijing and the others discovered by accident might not be a trap, but a bait.
As long as you eat the bait, you will be lured into the side road. If you find some treasures, you will miss the real treasures!
I looked up at a wall at the corner. In fact, only by getting through it can I truly enter the cave where a large number of gold items are hidden.
However, now that there is a visible passage, does he need to explore it?
There may be danger over there, but this passage should be reaching the small port soon, right? How much danger can there be at such a short distance?
The most important thing is that no matter what the reason is, some precious cultural relics have appeared here, and Chen Wenzhe cannot give up.
Sure enough, after entering this passage, I did not encounter any danger, but instead gained a lot.
These include more than a dozen boxes of gold horseshoes and more than 20 boxes of gold cakes, totaling more than 750 pieces.
Chen Wenzhe knew that these gold objects were actually gold coins from the Han Dynasty, but not many of them had been unearthed before. Only in the tomb of Haihunhou were seventy-five of them discovered.
He now easily obtained the harvest of the stone tablet in the tomb of Marquis Haihun.
From this we can also imagine how much wealth has been lost in the many large tombs that have been hollowed out in our country!
Looking at the gold cake in his hand, Chen Wenzhe knew that this was a gold coin from the Han Dynasty, but it was a bit bigger and different from the gold coins we see now.
In fact, our country has a long history of using gold.
During the Yin and Shang Dynasties, ancestors already used gold as decorations.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, various vassal states began to mint gold shell coins, and the gold currency "Yanjin" cast by the Chu Kingdom in the south was spread all over China.
By the Han Dynasty, gold currency was popular, but the unit of calculation was kilograms.
The gold currency of the Han Dynasty was mainly in the shape of a round cake, which was called "cake gold", "gold cake" or "persimmon gold".
There are many written records in the historical records of the Han Dynasty that mention the cake gold at that time, such as "The Book of the Later Han·The Biography of Le Yangzi's Wife": "The sheep tasted the road and got a cake of gold."
The gold cakes of the Han Dynasty discovered by archeology are in the shape of a round cake. The front has been beaten, the center is concave, the edges are convex, and the back is uneven.
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, gold cakes and cakes from the Han Dynasty have been unearthed in tombs and cellars of the Han Dynasty across the country.
It's just that the ones unearthed are scattered and not many in number.
At this time, Chen Wenzhe had a lot in front of him. After all, he had seven hundred and fifty.
There are so many gold cakes with inscriptions on them.
Almost all of these gold cakes have words or symbols on them, and the content is very rich. There are words indicating surnames or names, such as Jun, Huang, Qi, Zhang, Tu, Wang, etc.
There are words indicating the heavenly stems, earthly branches or directions, such as Shang, Chen, etc.;
There are words indicating weight, such as eight jin per catty, nine baht per catty, two liang per catty and nine baht per catty, eight liang per catty and four baht per catty, eight liang per catty and four baht per catty, etc.;
Some are numbers, such as one, two, three, etc.;
Some of them are words representing official positions, such as Taishi, Ling, etc., and there are also many unreadable engraved symbols.
From this, it can be determined that these gold cakes must have been circulating currency at that time, otherwise there would be no way there would be so many messy gold cakes buried in a large tomb!
Chen Wenzhe studied for a while and found that the manufacturing level of these gold cakes was still acceptable, and could even be said to be standardized production.
Because the gold content of these Han Dynasty gold cakes is relatively high, the gold content is generally above 95%.
Although each gold cake has different sizes, thicknesses and weights, Chen Wenzhe knows that this is because they can be cut at will during circulation.
After all, gold is relatively valuable, and even if it’s small, you still need change sometimes!