The secret of the underground palace of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang was discovered
Foreword] In 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang went through six dynasties and annexed six countries, achieving the name of "One Emperor of the Ages". In his quest for immortality, he sent alchemists to search for a panacea, but he was unable to do so.
In 210 BC, Qin Shi Huang came to the end of his life in the sand dunes. Soon after, under the arrangement of his son Hu Hai, he was buried in the underground palace. After Qin Shi Huang was buried, legends about this underground palace were endless.
Some people say that Qin Shi Huang's underground palace was stolen as early as the end of the Qin Dynasty, and now it is just an empty tomb; Some people also say that this is one of the suspected tombs set up by the first emperor.
However, there have always been different opinions about the truth about the underground palace, and no one has been able to come up with conclusive evidence. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, China has carried out many archaeological explorations on the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, but due to technical limitations, the progress has not been obvious.
It wasn't until 1996 that Chinese and German archaeologists combined modern technology to reveal some of the mysteries of history. and discovered a secret ...... hidden in the dungeon
Uncover the truth of the mausoleum, Chinese and foreign experts jointly tackle key problems] At the foot of Li Mountain in Xi'an, China, stands the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, this mysterious mausoleum is full of doubts when people have not used modern technology to investigate it.
Some people even speculate that this mausoleum is actually a suspicious array laid by the First Emperor, and the underground palace is hidden under a huge mound of sealed earth, and the coffin of the First Emperor may not be among them.
But what is the truth? Can we solve these mysteries in a simple and intuitive way? In fact, the simplest and crudest way to verify this is to get the state to invest a lot of money and have the archaeological team excavate it.
As long as we open this mausoleum, we can determine whether it is really a suspicious array set up by the First Emperor for his descendants. However, the reality tells us that this approach is not feasible.
As one of the only remaining emperor's tombs of the Chinese nation, the existing archaeological excavation technology cannot ensure that no damage will be caused to any cultural relics during the excavation process.
If we rush to excavate the mausoleum just to determine the authenticity of the mausoleum, it will be disrespectful to history and an act that will not pay off. As a result, Chinese and foreign experts are working together to find a way to reveal the truth and protect the artifacts.
Can modern technology reveal the truth about the Mausoleum of the First Emperor? In the 60s of the last century, the Chinese archaeological community used advanced technology to conduct the first preliminary exploration of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, which preliminarily revealed the appearance of this mysterious mausoleum for us.
However, the technological limitations of the time left questions about its authenticity. It was not until 1996 that Chinese and German archaeologists jointly used geomagnetic resonance technology to conduct a comprehensive "physical examination" of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor.
After careful technical investigation, archaeological experts confirmed that this huge mound of sealed earth at the foot of Lishan Mountain is the real mausoleum of the First Emperor. In addition, Chinese and German scientists have also discovered many historical secret ...... in the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang
The Secret of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor: The Mystery of Depth] The depth of the underground palace of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor has always been the focus of attention. Qin Shi Huang had the concept of "seeing death as life", and he wanted to enjoy the luxurious life of the sun even underground, so he began to build his underground palace early.
Sima Qian recorded in the "Historical Records" that the depth of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang is "wearing three springs", but how deep is this "wearing three springs"? Yan Shigu believes that this "piercing three springs" refers to the groundwater that has been dug up.
If this inference is followed, the depth of the underground palace of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang should be below three layers of groundwater. Therefore, some archaeologists speculate that the underground palace of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang was hundreds of meters deep.
However, how people more than 2,000 years ago built such a huge project without reinforced concrete has remained an unsolved mystery. It wasn't until 1996 that Chinese and German scientists, using modern technology, gave a general picture of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.
The Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang is a grand underground palace with a mound of earth about 76 meters high that covers the entire mausoleum. The underground part of the underground palace is protected by a huge wall about 145 meters long from east to west, 125 meters wide from north to south, and about 14 meters high.
After passing through the city wall, there is the coffin of Qin Shi Huang, a rectangular burial chamber about 80 meters long, 50 meters wide, and 15 meters high. The tomb contains Qin Shi Huang's favorite items in his life, with a total area of about 4,500 square meters.
Based on the data, experts speculated that the depth of the underground palace of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum was about 30 to 40 meters, thus solving the mystery of depth. During the investigation of the underground palace, the experts also found a strong mercury area, which provided new clues for the study of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.
What's going on? Next, let's explore the "Mystery of Mercury" in the underground palace of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang. The mystery of mercury in the underground palace of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang] Mercury, a rare metal with a small distribution in nature, was called "cinnabar" in ancient China, and was believed to be able to ** some diseases, and even some alchemists thought that it could be used to refine the elixir of life.
Although there are clear records of cinnabar being used in medicine in medical texts, the royal relatives and wealthy families who tried to use it to refine the elixir of life ended up dying early due to mercury poisoning.
In addition to its medical uses, mercury is also used as a preservative. In addition, the fluidity of mercury also happened to satisfy another hobby of the First Emperor, which was to patrol the country with a large army, and his hobby also continued underground.
As a representative figure who regarded death as life, the First Emperor naturally wanted to bring his hobby underground.
The Historical Records once recorded that Qin Shi Huang used mercury to simulate hundreds of rivers in the mausoleum, and the top was decorated with a starry sky made of rare treasures. After his death, his coffin was placed on these devices, and he seemed to still be cruising underground with the flow of mercury every day"All over the world", in order to deter those who may be unfavorable to Great Qin.
Therefore, archaeologists deduce that the strong mercury zone in the underground palace of Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum may be what he called it"Rivers and rivers"area. This is an explanation of the area of strong mercury in the underground palace.
In addition, this time the archaeologists confirmed that the mausoleum is the real tomb of the First Emperor, and at the same time opened people's minds about whether the mausoleum was stolen. Next, let's explore whether this tomb of the first emperor of the ages was really stolen.
The mystery of the theft of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang is revealed] Legend has it that after the construction of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang was completed, it was stolen and excavated by Xiang Yu at the end of the Qin Dynasty. The "Classic of Mountains and Seas" records: "Entering the customs and sending hair, you can't be poor with 300,000 people and 30 days of transporting things", and "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" is a geographical treatise, this record may be slightly lacking.
The famous historian Sima Qian also wrote: "Xiang Yu burned down the palace built by the Qin Dynasty, excavated the emperor's mausoleum, and took the property from it for himself. Subsequently, the Book of Han also wrote: "After Xiang Yu excavated the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, a shepherd accidentally burned the coffin", and the imperial tomb eventually disappeared in this fire.
The true condition of this mausoleum has always been a mystery to the archaeological community. However, it was not until 1996 that Chinese and German archaeologists used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology to reveal the truth about the tomb and solve this thousand-year-old mystery.
After a comprehensive examination of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, archaeologists found that the underground palace was not only not excavated by Xiang Yu and tomb robbers, but was well preserved. The events recorded in history are not imaginary, the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang was indeed stolen, but the underground palace was not successfully excavated.
For example, Xiang Yu did dig the burial pit of the First Emperor's Mausoleum, but it would take a lot of time to excavate this huge mausoleum, and Xiang Yu's time in Guanzhong was not enough to complete the matter.
In addition, if the tomb is successfully excavated, the inspection should reveal traces of theft. However, the results of the examination showed that the underground palace was largely unmoved, except for a few holes several meters deep left by ancient tomb robbers and wartime trenches.
Some speculate that Xiang Yu and the tomb robbers may have entered the dungeon through an underground passage near the sealed mound, but this is less likely, as the dungeon is protected by a thick sealed mound and a strong city wall.
If you're lucky enough to find the location of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, congratulations on stepping into the door of death, as the dungeon is filled with deadly mercury. Therefore, this assumption is not valid.
Moreover, if the legends of tomb robbery are all true, then Xiang Yu mobilized 300,000 people to dig in retaliation, then the mausoleum, as the head of the empire, must hide countless treasures.
But why was the mausoleum stolen, but not a single treasure has been handed down, not even leaving any traces? This shows that the underground palace of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor has been coveted by many tomb robbers from ancient times to the present, and the robbery holes on the sealed mound are the witnesses of history.
However, they were all blocked by the mountain-like mounds of earth. Of course, in addition to the strict anti-theft measures of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, the protection of it by successive dynasties is also one of the important factors that the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang has not been stolen.
This archaeological exploration not only solved the historical mystery of the Qinling underground palace, but also discovered some secrets outside the underground palace. What's the secret? That is the burial pit of the arsenal of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.
Next, let's take a brief look at this burial pit.
While conducting a geomagnetic survey of a wasteland near the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the archaeological team accidentally discovered a huge burial pit. After exploratory excavation, it was found that the burial pit was 130 meters long from east to west and about 100 meters wide from north to south, with a total area of 1360,000 square meters.
During the excavation, the archaeological team found a large number of exquisite stone armor, which was divided into human armor and horse armor. After expert analysis, it was confirmed that this is the arsenal area of the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.
This discovery not only reveals more information about the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, but also provides important clues to solve the mystery of his underground palace.
You may wonder why the emperor's mausoleum did not use iron armor, which symbolizes the technological progress of iron armor, but chose stone armor.
In fact, China has a tradition of treating death as life since ancient times, but if you use iron armor for burial, the iron will be rusted in large quantities in the ground and turn into a pile of tattered iron lumps, which is obviously not conducive to long-term protection of the emperor.
Therefore, stone armor is an excellent choice for guarding the tomb of the First Emperor due to its stable physical properties.
The excavation gave archaeologists an in-depth understanding of how and when archaeology was carried out. The excavated stone armor was damaged due to the effects of pressure, humidity, etc. Since then, Chinese archaeological teams have used modern technology to gain a comprehensive understanding of the entire cemetery, accumulating data for future excavations when archaeological technology matures.
At the same time, it also gives those modern people who have not had the opportunity to see the underground palace of the First Emperor in person have a chance to get a glimpse of its appearance in this way.