In July 1983, Jiayuguan ushered in an unusual discovery. Under an ancient beacon tower, archaeologists accidentally found a wild boar's trotter, two thousand years later. This piece of pig's trotter buried in the sand turned out to be a memento of the soldiers of the Han Dynasty and witnessed a tragic history.
Jiayu Pass, as one of China's Xiongguan, is an important passage on the ancient Silk Road. In this once fiery land, history has left too many stories. On a hot summer day in 1983, the archaeological team found this pig's trotter buried by time during a sandstorm.
The origin of this wild boar's trotter can be traced back to the Han Dynasty. At that time, the emperor of the Western Han Dynasty built a beacon tower on this desolate and important land for the sake of border security. During a stressful border training camp, the soldiers came across a huge wild boar. So, a sudden hunt began, and the soldiers gave up the delicious barbecue for the sake of the motherland and threw themselves into the battlefield.
In the midst of this fierce battle, a soldier felt pity and could not bear to be abandoned by the delicious boar trotters. He hastily buried the pig's trotters in the sand, hoping that he would be able to taste the delicacy again in the future when he was victorious. However, the war was relentless, and the soldiers were eventually wiped out, leaving behind the boar's hooves in the depths of the desert.
It wasn't until 1983 that archaeologists came to this land buried deep in time, and a violent wind swept away this history. The wild boar's trotters that were blown out have become the treasure of the Jiayuguan Great Wall Museum, witnessing a tragic past of soldiers fighting for their homeland.