Zhuang Rui looked through the glass on the oxygen mask and saw a corpse emerging, but it was all gray and hard to the touch of his fingers. It didn't look like a human body.
"Gold...gold-lined jade clothes?!"
Zhuang Rui was wondering when Professor Meng let out an exclamation and threw himself on the copper coffin. If the mercury level inside had not dropped, it would have splashed all over him.
"Quick, speed up. This ancient corpse is protected by a golden jade garment. I'm afraid it's not decayed..."
Although Professor Meng's face could not be seen clearly through the oxygen mask, it could be heard from his words that the old professor was very excited and almost stepped forward to snatch the ladles from Zhuang Rui and Dr. Ren, and went to clean up the mercury himself.
Already working.
Mercury has the effect of antisepsis, and jade also has the effect of preserving freshness. Combining the two together, it is no wonder that Professor Meng made such an inference.
The gold-lined jade garment, also known as the "jade box", was the burial garment worn by emperors and high-ranking nobles of the Han Dynasty after their death. Its appearance is the same as the human body.
Jade clothing is a symbol of the wearer's status. The jade clothing of the emperor and some of his ministers was made of gold threads, which was called "gold-lined jade clothing." Other nobles used silver and copper wires to weave jade clothing, which was called "silver-lined jade clothing."
” and “Copper strands and jade clothes”.
There are currently 18 tombs of the Western Han Dynasty in which jade garments have been unearthed in my country, while there are only eight tombs with golden thread garments. The most representative one is the gold thread jade garment of Liu Sheng, Prince Jing of Zhongshan, unearthed from Tomb No. 1 in Mancheng, Hebei Province.
After research on relevant stone materials, it was found that this gold jade garment is made of more than 1,000 grams of gold wire connected with 2,498 jade pieces of varying sizes. It took hundreds of craftsmen more than two years to complete. The design of the entire jade garment
Exquisite and meticulous in workmanship, it is a rare artistic treasure.
In 1968, this gold-lined jade garment was unearthed, which caused a sensation in the archaeological community at home and abroad. Countless domestic and foreign scholars rushed to Hebei to conduct scientific research on this rare treasure.
Now among the gaps between the jade pieces that have been exposed in the coffin, you can see the thin lines with a slight golden luster with the naked eye. Even a novice like Zhuang Rui who has never come into contact with gold-threaded jade clothing, it is not difficult to judge.
Come out, this is a jade-clad body with golden threads!
As the mercury in the coffin continued to be scooped out, more of the corpse wearing gold jade clothes appeared in front of everyone. The first thing they saw was his abdomen, which was bulging high, but now, his chest and both sides were
The feet have also been exposed.
"There's something on the head..."
Professor Meng, who had been staring closely at the golden jade clothes in the coffin, suddenly shouted, and everyone's eyes were immediately attracted. The head of the corpse exposed above the water was shining with golden light, and it turned out to be a golden mask.
Different from the golden mask that Zhuang Rui once obtained, this mask is not very big and only covers the nose of the corpse. However, the mask is carved with extremely complicated patterns, and the entire mask is densely covered with various lines.
Professor Meng leaned out and tried to take it. The rope tied to the jade garment behind the mask must have rotted, so he took the mask off easily.
"National treasure, national treasure, more exquisite than the gold mask unearthed in Sanxingdui, Hubei..."
Professor Meng could not wait to take off his gloves and touch the mask directly, murmuring to himself, as if he couldn't put it down.
After playing with it for a while, Professor Meng looked at Zhuang Rui and said, "Xiao Zhuang, although this mask is not as big as the one in your museum, the workmanship is much more exquisite..."
"Haha, that is, the craftsmanship of our ancestors is of course better than that of foreign devils..."
Zhuang Rui smiled, but after saying this, he suddenly felt a little uncomfortable. Wasn't what he was doing now disturbing his ancestors?
"My friend is doing archeology, and he was dug up by tomb robbers later..."
Zhuang Rui found a reason in his mind. In fact, national archeology is also official robbery. The only difference from tomb robbers is that one is used for private profit, and the other is open to the public.
"Xiaozhuang, Xiaoren, take out all the mercury immediately, and ask them to prepare tools to transport this gold jade suit to the laboratory in Henan Province. If it takes a long time, I'm afraid something will go wrong. If it doesn't work, call the local
helicopter..."
After seeing the gold jade garment and gold mask unearthed, Professor Meng immediately made a decision.
To be honest, opening the coffin this time was a bit too hasty, but it was also due to the constraints of conditions. It was impossible to transport a copper coffin with such a large volume and weight out of the tomb in its entirety.
As soon as Professor Meng said these words, everyone became busy. At this moment, protecting the golden jade clothes and the body inside is the most important. As for any other unearthed cultural relics in the coffin, they have been put aside for now. Anyway, the things are inside.
He won't run away on his own.
When the state machine was used, the efficiency was very high. After more than half an hour, a helicopter stopped at the top of the mountain and carefully placed everyone in a bag filled with ice cubes, including the golden jade clothes and the bodies inside.
, transported out of the mountains.
At this time, the poisonous mercury gas in the tomb was basically dispersed by the blower. Everyone went down to the tomb and began to count the objects in the copper coffin.
You know, it has been more than 10 days since the beginning of the survey and the excavation, and the identity of the owner of the tomb has not even been found out. This makes many experts and scholars, including Professor Meng, feel a little embarrassed.
Although there are many unnamed tombs unearthed in China, they were all due to military disasters and robbers who swept away the identification objects in the tomb. However, this tomb is very well preserved. If the identity of the owner of the tomb cannot be verified, it is definitely a mystery.
Something that made colleagues laugh.
Originally, there was still a layer of mercury that had not been scooped out in the copper coffin. However, the mercury from more than two thousand years ago quickly evaporated after seeing the air. Inside the coffin, a thick layer of funerary objects was revealed.
.
"Is this a jade grip?"
Zhuang Rui put on his gloves and dug inside to find a pair of jade objects that were dark in color, olive-shaped, round in the middle and pointed at both ends, with some lines on them.
"This should be a jade pig..." Zhuang Rui looked at it for a long time and recognized the shape of the object. It was a long cylinder with single lines carved on it, a typical Han Badao technique.
The jade handle is one of the jade burial utensils. It has always been an object held in the hands of the deceased. The ancients believed that you should not leave empty-handed when you die. You must hold wealth and power. Pigs represent wealth. Therefore, jade handles in the Han Dynasty were basically jade.
Pig shape.
Professor Meng took the jade object handed over by Zhuang Rui, nodded, and said: "Yes, it is the jade handle, but there is definitely no jade plug in it. That thing is designated to be inside the jade garment with gold threads..."
As the cleaning work progressed, artifacts were taken out from the coffin one by one. There were gold and silver products, small animal pottery figurines that represented auspicious meanings, and most of them were jade articles.
Jade huangs, jade pendants, jade figures, and all kinds of jade articles are placed on the white cloth on the ground. Due to the protection of mercury, these jade articles are like new jade, without any trace of being unearthed.
The most surprising object was a sheathed bronze dagger. The dagger was no longer than two fingers long, but it was extremely sharp. Zhuang Rui tried it and could easily cut through the dozens of layers of white cloth clappers.
rip.
As soon as this bronze dagger was unearthed, Professor Meng wrapped it with the soil from the tomb. According to him, the unearthed bronze will undergo qualitative changes when exposed to oxygen, so it needs to be wrapped with the soil from the tomb, etc.
Take it to the laboratory for processing.
Zhuang Rui didn't know if Professor Meng's statement had any scientific basis, but when he found the fixed light sword, it seemed to be covered with copper rust and mud.
"Be careful, this is pottery..."
"Wow, this jade is the best mutton-fat jade..."
The unearthed artifacts caused exclamations of exclamation from time to time. There was even a set of sixteen thumb-sized colorful pottery figurines.
The figures represented by these pottery figurines should be the emperor's royal chefs, some cutting meat and cooking, some washing rice and steaming rice, and there is also a pottery well with pottery figures doing the movements of fetching water beside the well.
Although these pottery figurines are extremely small, their facial expressions are vividly depicted, almost like shrunken real people.
There were originally some brocade quilts in the coffin, but when the mercury was scooped out, those brocade quilts immediately fell away and stuck to the inside of the coffin, making it difficult to clean up.
"What's going on? There's no seal or jade seal?"
The cleaning work of the coffin was almost coming to an end, but the jade seal or seal that everyone was expecting did not appear. Professor Meng, who had always been very calm, was now a little anxious.
"No, could this be the owner of the tomb deliberately not letting others know his identity?"
"Impossible, the burial is done by future generations, and the seals they carry with them will definitely be placed in the tomb..."
"Then why isn't it there? Let's look carefully..."
Not only Professor Meng is a little anxious, but the rest of the people are not very calm either. If the identity of the owner cannot be found in this coffin, then there will be no objects to prove the identity of the owner in the other ear rooms and side rooms.
While everyone was talking, Zhuang Rui released the spiritual energy in his eyes and re-examined the inside of the coffin. When he saw the upper right side of the copper coffin, his eyes couldn't help but pause.
There was a large piece of rotten tapestry, but in the middle, Zhuang Rui sensed a very strong aura. Although the object inside was only the size of a baby's fist, the purple aura was abundant in it.
"Teacher, I found this thing, it should be a jade seal, right?"
Zhuang Rui reached out and took the remnants of the brocade in his hand. After peeling off the rotten brocade, a jade stone suddenly appeared in his hand.
The jade stone is square in shape, with a dragon carved on the top, with clear scales and armor. The dragon head contains a dragon ball, which is very majestic in shape, and underneath is a square seal.
Zhuang Rui turned it over and took a look. There seemed to be a lot of characters on it, but he only recognized a seal character.
Recognizing the word "玺" is actually enough. At the very least, it means that this is the tomb of an emperor, because the seals used in ancient times were hierarchical. After the Qin Dynasty, there was a distinction between seals and seals. The seal used by the emperor was called a seal.
, the ones used by the subjects can only be called seals.
According to the records of the Han Dynasty, the emperor had six seals: the emperor's official seal, the emperor's official seal, the emperor's official seal, the emperor's official official seal, the emperor's official seal, and the emperor's official official seal. The six seals had different purposes and were under the control of Fujie Lingcheng.
However, the jade seal passed down to the country is not among the six seals. This jade seal is used to represent orthodoxy. The so-called "true emperor" must possess this jade seal, otherwise he will only be a grass chicken king instead of a true dragon emperor.
The so-called jade seal passed down to the country naturally refers to the famous Heshi Bi in history. After the Qin Dynasty defeated Zhao and obtained the Heshi Bi, Qin Shihuang ordered Li Si to seal the seal on the Heshi Bi with the eight characters "Ordered by Heaven, both longevity and longevity".
Sunshou, the king of jade craftsmen in Xianyang, ground He's jade finely and carved it into a seal. The jade seal passed down to the country was completed.
The Jade Seal of the State passed through the Eastern and Western Han, Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen dynasties, and was finally brought into the palace of the Sui Dynasty by Yang Jian. However, after the fall of the Sui Dynasty, Empress Xiao and her emperor Sun Zhengdao fled to the Mobei Turks with the Seal of the State.
Later, when Li Jing conquered the Turks, Empress Xiao returned to the Central Plains and presented the Imperial Seal to Li Shimin. However, at the end of the Tang Dynasty, the world was in chaos and heroes were everywhere. The last emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Li Congke, climbed to the Xuanwu Tower with the Imperial Seal in his arms and burned himself on the Xuanwu Tower. The Imperial Seal disappeared.
.
"Imperial jade seal?!"
Zhuang Rui's words attracted everyone's attention to him. More than ten hands reached out to Zhuang Rui at the same time. Zhuang Rui was so frightened that he stepped back repeatedly. If this thing breaks, who will be responsible?
"Bring it to me..."
Professor Meng also lost his composure at this moment. After taking the jade seal from Zhuang Rui, he took off his gloves and stamped it on the back of his hand, regardless of whether there were any harmful substances on it.
While Professor Meng was identifying the seal characters on the back of his hand, his face suddenly showed an incredible look, and he stammered: "Liu...Liu Xiu's Emperor's Seal?!"
"Liu Xiu? Hasn't Liu Xiu's tomb been arbitrated long ago?"
"Yes, how is this possible? Liu Xiu's tomb is dozens of miles away..."
"Professor Meng, you are not mistaken, are you?"
As soon as Professor Meng said this, the tomb suddenly exploded. For thousands of years, Liu Xiu's tomb has been recognized as being on the bank of the Yellow River, and gardens have been built. How could there be another Liu Xiu tomb here?
?
"It's true, Lao Li, Lao Song, take a look at these words, they can't be fake..."
Professor Meng couldn't believe his eyes, but the gradually blurred words on the back of his hand confirmed that this was Liu Xiu's emperor's jade seal.
After Professor Meng handed the jade seal to several colleagues, he murmured to himself: "Is that legend true?"
"Teacher, what legend is it?"
Zhuang Rui has a good ear. After hearing what Professor Meng said, he asked a question.
"It is said that Liu Xiu's son was a very rebellious person. If Liu Xiu asked him to go east, he would definitely go west; if Liu Xiu asked him to chase the dog, he would definitely chase the chicken.
According to legend, when Liu Xiu was about to die, he asked his son to bury him on the bank of the Yellow River. In fact, he wanted his disobedient son to bury him in Mang Mountain. Now it seems that this rumor is somewhat true..."
The historical truth can no longer be investigated, and Professor Meng can only use these unofficial rumors to explain the unearthing of Liu Xiu's jade seal.
