If you didn't look carefully, you would have thought it was a woman's face, extremely pale.
Actually no, after I got into the water, I braved it and touched it with my hand.
It's just a plastic bag.
Because there is white mud buried around the plastic bag, it looks particularly like a human face! It has a nose and eyes in its outline!
Dou Sprout took it out and laughed: "Haha! What a human face! Isn't this just a plastic bag? Zhao Xuanxuan, you are so shocked."
"let me see."
When I took it over and saw that it was okay, I immediately exclaimed: "Head, this is not mud, this is white plaster mud!"
With excitement on my face, I took a little off the plastic bag and asked you to take a look at it, is it right?
He rolled his head back and forth with his fingers, frowned and said, "Yes, this is Lao Bai Gao, but why... did it come to the top?"
With a confused look on his face, he took a detour and walked to the other side of the river.
I lowered my head and looked at my feet, then frowned and stared at the river. When I saw this, I ran over quickly.
"Yunfeng, I think the place where we just picked up the plastic bag might be an exploration pit."
"Isn't that right? The bottom of the river is full of mud. I didn't see any pits."
Frowning his head, he speculated: "Some people have dug digging pits at the bottom of the river before. Over time, the silt will naturally fill up the digging pits."
"I guess I didn't find anything. They left later."
"Boss, if it's a pit exploration as you said, then why did Bai Gao Ni come up?"
"Also, if the people who dug the pit at that time saw the white mud, they would definitely dig it. How could they leave like you said? This doesn't make sense."
"I think I dug it and then gave up."
"Have you ever heard of a word called anti-mud?"
"Anti-mud?"
I shook my head and said I had never heard of it.
"You'll know after you try it."
"Wen Bin, go get the shovels."
He took three steps back with his head, stamped his feet and said, "Just dig down from here."
We went back and got dressed, put on our headlamps and ran over. The three of us dug a hole with shovels at the same time, watching the whole process with our heads raised. He kept frowning, not knowing what he was thinking.
The three of us dug for more than an hour. When the depth reached nearly 1.8 meters, Brother Yu and I jumped down, while Dou Sprout and Yuan Bao were lifting soil from above.
I shouted upward: "Head! There's nothing! It's all dead soil!"
"Don't stop, keep going."
After digging for more than half an hour, something started to go wrong.
The underground soil has become very wet, and when you dig it up, you will find lumps of soil.
When I saw the lumps of earth that Dou Sprouts lifted up, I seemed to think of something.
He slapped his thigh fiercely and said loudly: "I knew it! It turns out to be a funnel mound!"
"It's so rare."
"Why is there a funnel mound in this place? It has only been found in Changsha in the past... This is the north. Who is buried here?"
After muttering to himself, he quickly ordered: "Yunfeng Wenbin, you two widen the hole to one and a half meters and continue digging."
I don't know what the Funnel Tomb in Changsha is at all, and Dou Sprout and Brother Yu don't know either. Anyway, they just listen to the leader and dig as he asks.
When we dug to a depth of nearly five meters, a layer of white plaster mud was exposed under our feet, which was very sticky and stained our feet.
The white mud layer is nearly twenty centimeters thick, and below it is a layer of black charcoal soil. The charcoal from many years ago has broken into pieces, broken into powder, and fused into the soil layer.
"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, when you see the white mud, you can see the top of the tomb very quickly. 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 paste 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 asked Brother Yu to stop, and then squatted 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 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 is 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 distinctive organs of men and women, because Yumen do not differentiate between men and women.