Introduction: A red lacquered coffin was excavated from an ancient tomb. It was still as new after being buried for 700 years. Experts fell into deep thought after being exposed to X-rays.
Preface
In ancient society, ancient people in the Central Plains region were basically buried after their death. Moreover, some powerful and status families will build very luxurious tombs and bury many exquisite funerary objects in the tombs. This will inevitably be coveted by greedy people, and tomb robbers will emerge. Even the tombs of emperors cannot escape the fate of being stolen. For example, the famous tomb of Empress Dowager Cixi was blown up and looted by Sun Dianying.
mysterious ancient tomb
There are many ways for people to understand ancient history. Most people can learn about it through paper records such as history books, which is also the simplest and most intuitive way. In addition, there is another method that is familiar but only accessible to a very few people, and that is archeology. The authenticity of archeology is even higher than official records, because history books are written by historians from various dynasties and generations, and they are inevitably subjective.
However, most of the physical objects discovered through archaeology have spanned thousands or hundreds of years to the present. They are things that people actually used in their lives at that time. Their objectivity cannot be compared with documentary materials. Therefore, items obtained through archaeology need to be treated seriously and carefully protected. A red lacquered coffin was excavated from an ancient tomb in Jiangsu. It was as bright as new after being buried for 700 years. Experts fell into deep thought after being exposed to X-rays. Why can this red lacquer coffin be preserved for so long? What’s inside?
Red lacquer coffin
The ancient tomb was discovered by a construction team member. At that time, they were digging with an excavator, but they accidentally encountered a hard object. Then they dug out a corner manually and found that it turned out to be a big red wooden At that time, they guessed that it might be an ancient tomb, so they immediately reported it to local cultural relic experts. Then an experienced archaeological team went to the site, and soon the entire coffin was revealed.
After careful investigation of the ancient tomb and based on the sealing of the cemetery and other characteristics, experts determined that this ancient tomb was from the Yuan Dynasty and was more than 700 years old. And that big red coffin is located in the tomb chamber of the second tomb in this tomb group. The material of this coffin was coated with a layer of red paint. When it was unearthed, it was still as bright as new, as if it had just been buried. The experts present could not figure out why it was still looking new after being buried for 700 years, so they decided to take the coffin back to the laboratory for further research.
open coffin
Even if the best golden nanmu has been buried underground for seven hundred years, it may not remain in its original state. How can a red lacquer coffin dug out of an ancient tomb be maintained so well? There was no obvious reason from the appearance alone, so the experts decided to understand the situation inside the coffin. But after the X-ray exposure, the experts fell into deep thought. They found that there was a large amount of liquid in the coffin, but they were not sure what the liquid was composed of. If it was poisonous, they would suffer great losses if they opened the coffin rashly.
Experts came up with a way. They drilled two small holes in the bottom of the coffin and drained the liquid out of the coffin through drainage tubes. Two days later, the water in the coffin was finally drained. Experts carefully opened the coffin lid and found a female skeleton inside, as well as dozens of bamboo burial objects. However, due to being soaked in liquid for a long time, these funerary objects have been deformed or damaged. Experts present felt very sorry for this. As for the liquid in the coffin, experts speculated that the coffin had been underground for a long time, and the coffin was surrounded by silt, so the water could not be drained out.
Conclusion
Some people think that excavation of ancient tombs is actually a kind of damage to ancient tombs, but in fact, current archeology is “protective excavation.” What’s more, these precious cultural relics buried underground without seeing the light of day will not produce any value. Being able to see them again will be of great help to us in understanding the culture and customs of the ancients.