"I'm so exhausted, Brother Yu, stop, I have to rest for a while."
"I'm a little tired too, so I'll rest for a few minutes."
I patted the soil on my head, lit a cigarette and sat down to rest. Then I looked up and saw that the bottom of the pit was very high from the surface.
"then!"
Yuan Bao shook his flashlight, shouted, and threw down two bottles of water.
It was over 30 degrees that night and I was sweating a lot. I drank a bottle of water in one go and continued to smoke while sitting.
I have been thinking in my mind, what kind of tomb is this? Under normal circumstances, you can see the top of the tomb quickly when you see the white mud. If it is a pure earth tomb without a top, you will see the white mud.
It means that the coffin is nearby, and maybe the next shovel will touch the rotten coffin board.
But here, after seeing the white plaster mud, I dug several meters down and found the rammed earth layer again.
It's so strange, I've never heard of it.
I admit that this situation involves a blind spot in my knowledge.
Let’s briefly review the common sense about burials.
From the Western Zhou Dynasty to the early Warring States period, white plaster mud was restricted by a strict tomb hierarchy. Common people could not use it and could not afford it. One or two coins and one tael of land was too expensive. Only nobles such as small princes and kings could use it.
After the Warring States period, due to the discovery of a large amount of microcrystalline kaolin (white paste clay) in Jiujiang County (Jingdezhen) and the relaxation of the system, some wealthy officials began to use it after their deaths.
Under normal circumstances, from the tomb to the ground, the first layer is the white plaster mud layer, then the charcoal layer, then the rammed earth layer, and finally the sealing soil layer.
This tomb by the river in Huanggugou, Mang Mountain, has been rectified!
The order is completely reversed!
It's the white plaster mud first, then the charcoal, rammed earth, and I guess the sealing earth is at the bottom... Isn't this the other way around?
After resting for about ten minutes and continuing to work, I suddenly heard Brother Yu's shovel hit something with a "bang!"
Brother Yu looked down.
It turned out to be a dark coffin lid!
"Stop! Stop digging!"
I quickly shouted to Brother Yu to stop, and then I knelt down to watch.
That's right.
This strange tomb has no tomb chamber and no apocalypse. It is just a pit tomb made of pure earth. What you dig out is a rotten coffin!
Judging from the coffin lid exposed from the soil, the coffin is very thin and narrow. Although not all of it has been dug out, it is still very short by visual inspection.
At a quick glance, it feels like it's not a coffin, but a long box.
After looking down, he took a deep breath and said, "This is... a thin coffin burial."
I asked the leader: "What era is this coffin from? This is a white clay pit tomb. It is most likely before the Tang Dynasty. Is it the Sui Dynasty? Or the Western Han Dynasty?"
"It's hard to say...it's possible to have a look."
"Wen Bin, give me your water."
He took half a bottle of water from Brother Yu's hand and slowly poured his head on the exposed black coffin lid.
The wood of the coffin is unknown, and I don’t know what kind of paint it was painted on. It’s not rotten at all. After watering it, I wiped it with my hand and it looked new. This is very unusual for a pit tomb.
The only reasonable explanation is that the charcoal layer and the white plaster mud layer isolate the air and water. If it were as humid as above, the wood would have rotted into slag.
I'm making an analogy: the white plaster mud is like the "white film" we see after peeling off the egg shell.
After watering, I turned my head with a flashlight and looked carefully. He asked me in a low voice if I saw it?
I said I saw it, it looked like a feathered man.
You can vaguely see it.
There are several naked little figures with wings painted on the coffin lid.
There are no characteristic organs of men and women, because Yu people do not differentiate between men and women.
