In January 1989, the government of Shangcunling in Sanmenxia, Henan Province, received reports from the public that the local ancient tomb group had been destroyed by a group of tomb robbers, and the situation was very dangerous. The relevant staff arrived in time to stop the tomb robbery case, but a large pit with a length and width of more than 3 meters and a depth of 11 meters has been excavated.
In fact, this tomb is a group of tombs of the nobles of the Yu Kingdom in the Spring and Autumn Period, which has been discovered as early as 1956 when the Sanmenxia Hydropower Station was built. Previously, it was relatively well preserved, so no archaeological excavation was carried out, but this time the tomb has been destroyed, and with the consent of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Sanmenxia City Archaeological Team jointly excavated it.
This archaeological excavation found a lot of funerary items, and according to the inscription on it, the owner of the tomb turned out to be the late Western Zhou Dynasty Emperor Yu Ji. For the history of the Kingdom of Yu, I believe that many people only stay on the idiom of the false way to destroy the State of Yu, in fact, the State of Yu is an important princely state of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the monarch is the younger brother of King Wen of Zhou, so it was once very powerful. Therefore, in the tomb of the monarch of the State of Yu, many precious cultural relics have been unearthed, but the most shocking thing is also to change our cognition, or an inconspicuous sword.
It is said to be inconspicuous because no one recognized it when it was unearthed. At that time, when cleaning up the site, archaeologists found a piece of shiny ancient jade on the dirt outside the coffin. The experts at the scene were very confused at that time, according to the reason, the jade should be placed in the coffin to accompany the burial, will not be randomly placed in the dirt next to it, and there is no trace of theft in the burial chamber.
Doubts turn to doubts, and archaeological work must continue. They carefully cut through the dirt next to them to try to take out the ancient jade, but found that there seemed to be something connected to it underneath. This had never happened before, and the staff was curious, but it was late, so they couldn't dig it out and had to wait for the next day to arrive.
For archaeologists at the time, it was destined to be an extraordinary night. They tossed and turned, imagining a thousand possibilities. Unexpectedly, the next day, they patiently started from the periphery, and when they dug out the soil in a circle, they actually dug out something that resembled a baked sweet potato. This is of course because of the mud cover, and when the scene was briefly cleaned up, a young man suddenly exclaimed: This is iron, jade-encrusted iron!
The staff of the archaeological team looked at each other, and after half a day, an old comrade said to the young man very dissatisfiedly: "Do you understand common sense in the end, this is the tomb in the Spring and Autumn Period, and iron tools cannot appear here!" ”
At that time, this young man should be scolded, because any history textbook would write in black and white that the time when China used iron was in the Warring States period, and the earliest iron weapon was the iron sword with a copper handle in the Qin state. Yu Ji was a Spring and Autumn man, how could iron objects appear in his tomb. At that time, the young man also felt that he was out of shape and bowed his head in embarrassment.
However, when the artifact was sent to the laboratory for compositional analysis, it immediately shocked the entire archaeological community. After testing, it is really iron, and it is also an iron sword. Because the hilt of the sword is jade, it is named the jade handle iron sword of the Yu kingdom. Although it has rusted and even broken into two pieces, only a little bit connected together, it is still considered a national treasure because it has rewritten history.
The age of the yuji life is 2800 years ago, that is, the appearance of this iron sword has pushed forward the time Chinese the use of iron tools by more than 200 years. It is now an old dragon clock, but it must have been extremely sharp back then, and it would be buried with it as a beloved object of Yu Ji.
The reason why the tomb of Yu Ji was rated as one of the top ten new archaeological discoveries in the country in 1990 is that this jade-handled iron sword has made a great contribution and added a lot of points to it. Cultural relics are silent, but they are also telling a wonderful history, from its body, we can see the hardships of the ancient ancestors, we can also see the history of the Chinese civilization stumbling forward. It is with it as a symbol that the Chinese nation has opened the door of the Iron Age with difficulty.