In June 2021, the rainy season sky was cloudy, and the driver of the sedan carefully lifted two mysterious wooden boxes, which were waiting to be transported to Wuxi.
The people at the scene had serious faces, as if they were waiting for something important to happen. Back in April, in the Banqiao Village Industrial Park, the staff of the Cultural Relics Protection Bureau was conducting pre-construction survey work.
The work stems from the pre-archaeological project launched by the city of Suzhou in 2017 to protect precious cultural relics. After all, Suzhou has a history of more than 3,000 years, and there are many cultural relics buried underground.
Archaeological pre-positioning enables archaeological work to be completed before land transfer, so that those cultural relics and monuments buried deep underground can be protected, which is really indispensable.
In subsequent surveys, experts discovered a group of pit and wooden coffin tombs, which are located in two adjacent areas, and are most likely a family burial area. However, experts still have a long way to go before they can reveal the details of these tombs.
First of all, the state of preservation of these ancient tombs is extremely unoptimistic. Although five tombs were excavated, most parts of the tombs were not found, leaving no further archaeological information from the tombs.
This is a regrettable fact, but the experts have made some unexpected discoveries in the filling of the tombs, which made them ecstatic. Under a bottle stacked with fragments of the building, experts found two well-preserved wooden coffins, Tomb 4 and Tomb 2.
They immediately compared and identified the excavated pottery fragments and other objects. After careful examination and research, they finally determined that the tomb complex would be more intact if it was preserved in a natural environment where the tombs were generally preserved on the tombs, and that the artifacts had been kept in extremely dry or humid environments.
However, Suzhou is located in the Taihu Lake basin, and the groundwater is criss-crossed by transportation, so there are very few well-preserved ancient wooden coffins unearthed in the Suzhou area. These two well-preserved wooden coffins just fill the gap in the archaeological history of Tang and Song funeral customs in Suzhou.
They provide realistic material evidence for future generations to understand that distant history. However, how to extract these two wooden coffins has become a thorn in the hearts of experts.
In order to better preserve and extract the wooden coffin, the experts decided to use high-tech instruments to aid the study. They hope to use technology to provide better protection for these two precious wooden coffins.
After a long period of preparation, a stunning archaeological square warehouse has been built!After the archaeological cabin was ready, the two precious coffins were carefully packed and transported to Wuxi for further study.
In June 2021, everything was ready, and the experts began to clean the front corners of the coffin. The outside of the coffin is only wrapped in a thick layer of green plaster mud, which is extremely waterproof and is one of the important waterproof and moisture-insulating materials in ancient tombs.
It is thanks to the protection of this layer of green plaster mud that these two coffins have been well preserved. As we all know, the coffin is the place where the burial goods are most concentrated in the tomb, can these two well-preserved coffins bring us a different kind of surprise?
Let's wait and see.
As expected, a peculiar wooden horse was first excavated in the tomb, and below it were three crudely carved wooden figurines. Later, three figurines of different shapes were unearthed one after another, and although they were of different shapes, they were all carved from whole wood.
The experts were even more excited by the Ming Hall, a sacrificial altar excavated from the coffin, with peculiar human motifs and three incomprehensible characters carved on it.
This mysterious decoration has never been found in the Suzhou area, and these unearthed artifacts can be said to be extremely rare.
Shocked!Archaeological discoveries have newly discovered two Tang Dynasty Kaiyuan Tongbao copper coins, which are engraved with the words "Run" and "Yue" on the back, representing the Zhejiang West Road and Zhejiang East Road of Wu Yue Kingdom during the 5 dynasties and 10 kingdoms respectively.
The excavation of these two rare copper coins reveals that the tomb owner may have lived during the Wu Yue Kingdom. At the same time, when cleaning the bottom of the No. 2 coffin, a petal-shaped lacquer bowl was found, and the four-character inscription of cinnabar handwriting on the bowl showed the aesthetics and natural aesthetics of the late Tang Dynasty.
However, it was a difficult task to extract thousand-year-old objects in a small and limited space, but the archaeological team finally succeeded in unearthing a well-preserved lacquered yarn crown, which shows the special style of crown hat making in ancient China.
This crown hat is light and comfortable, it is said to have originated in the Han Dynasty, and has a close relationship with the black gauze hat worn by the ancient **. However, because it is an organic artifact, it is extremely rare in tombs.
However, the crown hat unearthed this time is so intact that it can be called the first case in Japan!Although we cannot see the silk fabric in its original splendor due to the severe oxidation of its fabric, through the jade and metal buckles wrapped in it, we learn about the physical condition of the tomb owner and the value of the tomb.
Through the identification of the tomb owner's skeleton, experts preliminarily restored his physical condition. He is about 17 meters, strong bones, adequate nutrient absorption. However, despite being highly nutritious, traces of parasites were found in his bones, suggesting that he may have had a parasitic disease during his lifetime.
Although this tomb is not a noble tomb, it is of high archaeological value. Finally, the handwriting on a wooden board reveals the identity of the tomb's owner, but archaeologists are still puzzled by this.
The land pass, the land pass of the underworld, is also the key to revealing the identity of the tomb owner. This voucher records the date of the burial of the tomb owner, which was in the fourth year of Qiande, when Song Zhenzong was in power, but the Wu Yue kingdom had not yet completely perished.
The lacquerware wooden figurines and ancient coins of Tomb No. 2 prove that the owner of the tomb lived at the turn of the Tang and Song dynasties, but who is the owner of Tomb No. 4? They may be a husband and wife, the owner of Tomb No. 4 is significantly higher than the owner of Tomb No. 2, and his coffin is of a higher shape, which may be a son-in-law of humble status in the Tang and Song dynasties.
However, the No. 4 coffin is made of wood, why is that? Moreover, it is also mysterious why the two symmetrical and thick coffin nails on the back side of the coffin lid are exposed.
The length of the two obviously shallow nails reached seven or eight centimeters, which made the experts deeply confused. Under normal circumstances, the nail of the official coffin should be embedded in the coffin lid to play a fixed role, but this is contrary to common sense.
In addition, what is even more shocking is that there are actually two holes in the coffin lid that are as big as the palm of a hand, and they directly penetrate the cover! Could this really be the work of tomb robbers?
However, experts have rejected this speculation after research, believing that when the owner of the tomb was buried, there was a violent conflict at the funeral, which led to the damage to the coffin. And in the entire tomb, only one four-series clay pot was found, which made the experts find it tricky, because it means that nothing else has been found except this clay pot.
An ancient tomb was soiled with a unique small wooden boat-shaped coffin, inlaid with strange clay pots and wooden plaques with cinnabar handwriting on both sides. Experts restored the coffin to its original condition in order to better study the traces of the tomb.
This boat-shaped coffin is a unique wooden boat-shaped coffin in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, reflecting the close relationship between ancient people and boats. Boats are a means of transportation and water dwelling in some areas, and the owner of Tomb No. 4 may hope to realize his dream of traveling to Wuyue Water Village after death through the boat-shaped coffin.
In preparation for the opening of the coffin, experts found a number of precious items. Two extremely valuable celadon powder boxes and a lacquer box were discovered. Inside the box is a bronze mirror identical to Tomb No. 2.
These findings have the experts excited and uplifted.
A comb was found underneath the lacquer box, which further confirmed that the tomb owner was a woman. However, as the bones in the coffin become clearer, an even greater mystery emerges.
The head and body of the tomb owner were separated and appeared to have been subjected to cruel treatment, while the limbs of the skeleton also had severe twisted marks. For a time, the clouds of suspicion were thick, and the detection work reached an impasse.
After the precise research of experts, we finally understand some basic information about the owner of the tomb. She is a middle-aged woman aged about 45-50 years old and about 1Around 52 meters.
During the Tang and Song dynasties, the average life expectancy of people was not high, so 50 years old was considered an old man. The old lady in the coffin suffered from severe bone hyperplasia, which caused her to have extreme mobility problems.
At this time, new clues appeared. The owner of the tomb appears to have been violently hit in the back of his head, resulting in severe fractures. Could it be that the owner of the tomb was killed by gangsters? That's why she caused a riot when she went out of the funeral?
Surprisingly, however, the old lady was hastily buried with only a straw mat, which seemed out of place with the luxurious coffin she enjoyed. A woman who has worked hard all her life is bedridden in the last few years of her life and finally dies miserably, which can't help but make people sigh.
But unfortunately, even if the evidence of ** was found on the remains of the owner of the tomb, the mysteries in the tomb have still not been completely solved. But we have reason to believe that the mystery left by the owner of the tomb to future generations will one day be solved.