Many people on the Internet often sneer: Archaeology, isn't it just a licensed tomb robbery? What is the difference between digging people's ancestral graves every day and tomb robbers? Some people even pick up people's teeth and wisdom, go along with the crowd, wantonly personal attacks and abuse. However, I would like to emphasize that archaeologists are not licensed tomb robbers, and there is an essential difference between the two.
Archaeologists, with the responsibility of "rescuing and excavating destroyed ancient tombs, cultural sites and other historical relics, exploring historical knowledge and restoring historical truth", carry out relevant archaeological work in accordance with standardized procedures, which is of a protective nature. Tomb robbers only care about those valuable burial goods, and do not "pity the fragrance and cherish the jade" of the ancient tombs and cultural sites themselves, and even deliberately destroy them. As for tomb robbers**, no matter how good the tomb robbers in the movie are, no matter how good their morality is, they are all fiction. In reality, tomb robbers can't get on the table, not only lack morality, but also commit crimes. Tell a few stories of tomb robbery, which is even more impressive!
The Book of Jin records: In the second year of Emperor Taikang of the Jin Dynasty (281 AD), the people of Jijun were not allowed to steal the tomb of King Xiang of Wei or the tomb of King Anli of Wei. It is said that after not opening the tomb, he found bamboo slips everywhere, and in order to find the gold and silver treasures in the tomb, he did not hesitate to use bamboo slips as torches. As a result, many pre-Qin historical records were wiped out. Later, the remnants of bamboo slips were sorted out by Xun Mian, Shu Hui and other Confucian scholars, and edited into a total of 75 volumes (chapters) of books such as "Annals", "Book of Zhou" and "Biography of Mu Tianzi", many of which subverted the records of "Historical Records".
Time came to the ** period again, and the warlord Sun Dianying brazenly excavated the Qing Dongling in the name of military exercises, which was the famous Dongling treasure theft case. When digging Cixi's tomb, the mausoleum gate was directly blown open. This group of officials and thieves only rummaged for treasures, threw Cixi's body on the ground, trampled on it at will, and looted thousands of treasures in the tomb.
Another well-known example: the bell of Marquis Yi Zeng, which has been completely preserved due to archaeological excavations and will be recorded in history forever. In fact, in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States period tombs there are many sets of ceremonial instruments, especially bronze bells, from the past archaeological point of view, as long as the tombs are stolen, the bells will certainly not be able to remain intact, either all stolen and scattered around the world, or smashed to leave only scattered fragments. After the archaeological excavation of the No. 1 tomb of Qin Gong in Fengxiang, Shaanxi, it was learned that the bronze bell was stolen by the tomb thieves, leaving only 28 pieces of stone remnants, which should be thrown aside by ancient tomb robbers. In the 90s of the last century, two Qin Gong tombs in Dabaozi Mountain, Lixian County, Gansu Province were stolen and dug by local villagers, hundreds of ceremonial instruments were resold and smashed at the scene that could not be taken away.
Hubei Suizhou drum pier Zeng Marquis Yi tomb because it has never been stolen, after formal archaeological excavations unearthed a complete set of bronze chimes, archaeologists after efforts to restore it to its original appearance, after research is even more surprising discovery: as early as the early Warring States period, the Chinese have mastered the sound range across five and a half octaves, twelve semitones complete complex ** technology, and this set of bronze chimes can still play normally, further proving the brilliance of ancient Chinese civilization. The inscription on the bell has solved the "mystery of Zeng Sui" that plagued the world more than 2,000 years ago! Think about it, if the tomb of Marquis Zeng was dug up by tomb thieves, what would they do? According to the convention, everything that can be taken is taken away, and what cannot be taken away cannot be cheapened by future generations, which destroys things. Then, these precious historical relics that reveal to us the Chinese civilization have disappeared since then and turned into "green smoke". Isn't this a huge pity?
However, it is undeniable that in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, due to historical limitations and the lack of technology, some cultural relics were damaged and even the bones of the Wanli Emperor were burned, but after all, it was an isolated case, and the Chinese knew how to eat a trench and grow wise. The current policy of cultural relics protection is not to actively excavate ancient tombs, especially imperial tombs. We believe that with the development of technology, the protection and restoration of cultural relics will become more and more mature.
Therefore, whoever says "archaeology is a certificate to rob tombs" in the future must be unceremoniously scolded back - you are not only stupid, but also bad!