In 1973, excavations began in The Second Tomb of the Mawangdui Han Tomb; since no complete corpses were seen in the previous Tomb No. 3, people pinned their hopes on Tomb No. 2; the archaeological team found a strange porcelain in the process of cleaning up the cultural relics, whose style was completely different from the surrounding utensils, and experts identified it as coming from the Tang Dynasty; how could there be Tang Dynasty porcelain in the ancient tombs of the Han Dynasty? What's going on? Let's take a look!
At the end of 1973, the archaeological team was excavating The Third Tomb of Mawangdui, because it had been stolen, resulting in poor sealing, and the corpses in the coffin had long been corrupted; people sighed and sighed at the same time, pinning their hopes on the last excavated Tomb No. 2; to everyone's disappointment, it did not take long to start construction, and a circular robbery hole was found, "I see that it is similar to Tomb No. 1, and I may not be able to dig to the end!" "Some people comforted; everyone recalled that when Tomb No. 1 was excavated, there were also robbery holes, but the tomb robbers did not dig into the tomb, but abandoned halfway; so people regained confidence and continued to excavate downwards, who knew that after less than a minute, another robbery hole appeared;
"It seems that the situation of this tomb is not good!" An old technician with many years of experience in excavating ancient tombs said; tomb robbery existed in the Spring and Autumn Period, according to Sima Qian's "Historical Records": "Digging graves, adultery also"; and the robbery cave presents the phenomenon of "ancient circle near square", which means that the robbery caves of the ancients are round, and the holes dug by modern tomb robbers are square; the old technicians carefully studied these two robbery holes and added: "These two holes were formed after the Han Dynasty and before the Song Dynasty, and it is likely to be dug into the tomb!" ”
Sure enough, when people entered the ancient tomb and found that there was a mess in front of them, full of fragments of cultural relics and scattered silk, only a few complete utensils, so that everyone present sighed; among the few utensils, there was a porcelain bowl that was particularly eye-catching, because its style was far from other cultural relics and did not look like Han Dynasty objects; experts took it back to the museum for special research, identifying its age as belonging to the Tang Dynasty;
Why does a Tang Dynasty porcelain bowl appear in the tombs of the Han Dynasty? Experts wondered, obviously the people of the Han Dynasty could not use the Bowl of the Tang Dynasty; and this porcelain bowl was nothing special, nor was it a court item, it was very ordinary; how did it come to the ancient tomb? Experts remembered that the two robbery holes found in the tomb belonged to the han dynasty and before the Song dynasty; could this porcelain bowl have been brought in by tomb robbers? If so, why would a grave robber bring a porcelain bowl into the tomb?
Experts have come to the conclusion after careful investigation of the site of Tomb No. 2: this tomb was stolen during the Tang Dynasty, when the tomb robber's crime tools were very simple, it may be a shovel, called "iron mortar" in ancient times, it takes several days and nights to dig a robbery hole, in the process of eating, drinking, resting and not leaving the cemetery, so it is necessary to bring dry food and bowls for food; when the utensils in the tomb are swept away, the porcelain bowl is left; the expert also explained, The fragments of utensils found in the tomb were caused by the tomb robber smashing the cultural relics, and he probably stayed in the tomb for a long time, inspecting, binding, and cleaning up the stolen burial items.
Due to the invasion of tomb robbers, we have no chance to see those luxurious treasures; from ancient times to the present, tomb robbery is so rampant because it can bring the opportunity to get rich overnight; now look back at the Mawangdui No. 1 Tomb, the cultural relics unearthed by it have been after many times of encounters, so it is particularly precious!
[References: "The Soul of the Western Han Dynasty", "History"]