Under the old mansion where he had lived for thirty years, a red coffin was dug up! The bright red coffin has undergone 800 years of baptism and has not faded a little, what secrets are hidden behind it? And who is the owner of this coffin? What is even more bizarre is why, when archaeologists arrive at the site, they let all the onlookers leave immediately, and what is this all about? Hello everyone, I'm hadron. Let's find out the secret behind this strange red coffin.
An 800-year-old tomb was found under the old mansion
What is it like to dig up an ancient tomb at home? This creepy-sounding thing really happened to a farmer in Zhejiang. One day in May 2016, in a place called Datu in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, a villager named Yang Jitu was digging the ground in his old house. His family's old house was bought in 1985, and now his two sons consider that their father is older, so after discussion, they decided to demolish the old house and rebuild a new house. Yang Jitu first dug the foundation flat, and then called for an excavator in the village. He started construction in the morning and worked until four o'clock in the afternoon.
It was dug about two meters deep. Just then, the excavator hit a rock. Yang Jitu and his younger son went to check and found a red thing behind the rock. According to Yang Jitu's recollection, at first he thought it was just a box. It wasn't until I looked at it more closely that I realized it was a coffin! What was even more bizarre was that the color of the coffin turned out to be a strange blood red. This kind of thing was dug up under his house. At that time, Yang Jitu's family was even scared to cry, listening to Yang Jitu said that in these years, the family has not been very smooth, and there may be a big reason for this coffin.
In the end, Yang Jitu decided to report it to the state immediately. When the local villagers heard the news, they all rushed to watch, and they were very surprised, and at the same time they wondered why this coffin was so brightly colored, even a little strange? When the team arrived, they were also stunned by the brightly colored coffin. Even well-informed archaeologists can hardly imagine that this coffin, after hundreds of years of vicissitudes, can maintain such a bright color, as if it has just been buried. How exactly did this happen, and who would be the owner of this mysterious coffin? Why did his coffin remain incorruptible?
Who the owner of the mysterious red coffin really is
After some exploration by the archaeological team, it was confirmed that there was an ancient tomb in the local area, and the archaeologists found an epitaph at the scene, which was displayed as the Shaoxing period of the Southern Song Dynasty, which has a history of more than 800 years. The owner of the tomb is Zhao Bopeng and his wife Li Shi, which means that this is a husband and wife burial tomb. Unfortunately, his wife's tomb was destroyed by tomb robbers in the past, and most of the coffin has decayed. The villagers found the coffin intact, which was Zhao Bopeng's. So who is Zhao Bopeng? According to historical records, Zhao Bopeng was the sixth son of Zhao Ziying.
Then everyone may have to ask, who is this Zhao Ziying? Zhao Ziying was the sixth grandson of Zhao Kuangyin, the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty. That is to say, the owner of this ancient tomb is a royal nobleman, a relative of the emperor of the Song Dynasty. According to historical records, in the fifth year of Shaoxing, that is, in 1135 AD, Zhao Ziying came to Taizhou to serve as a county magistrate in Huangyan County. The simple and gentle environment here, Zhao Ziying set up a home here. As his son, Zhao Bopeng was not a lazy person, he presided over the reconstruction of the Huangyan Five Caves Bridge in the second year of the Qingyuan Dynasty, that is, in 1196 AD.
Wudong Bridge is still a key cultural relics protection unit in Zhejiang. The news shocked everyone. For archaeologists, the confirmation of the identity of the owner of the tomb means that what will be developed in this ancient tomb may have great research value. Funerary objects, or some silk clothing, are also very important cultural relics, which have a profound impact and significance on historical research. Now that the identity of the coffin owner is clear, how can he make his coffin still bright as new after hundreds of years? Is there any mysterious magic weapon that can be kept incorruptible? Don't walk away from the excitement and go on right away
Mercury that should not appear
Although this ancient tomb is somewhat damaged, the coffin is very well preserved. Although the bright blood red color of the coffin is a little strange, it also shows that it has not yet been destroyed. According to experts, the reason why the coffin can be well preserved is because the Southern Song Dynasty people pursued a funeral ceremony focusing on embalming. The coffin, which uses cypress wood as a raw material, is both strong and thick, with strong stability and protection. Moreover, in addition to the inner coffin, it is also covered with an outer coffin, and the two layers of coffin are double protected. In addition, the space of the entire burial chamber is not large, and only coffins can be put in.
This can reduce the corrosion caused by air circulation to a certain extent. Most amazingly, inside the narrow voids of the burial chamber, between the walls and the coffin, they were also filled with glutinous rice juice, rosin, triad soil, and finally capped with stone slabs. The entire burial chamber is tightly sewn together to ensure that the coffin can be completely isolated from the outside world, reaching a state of near "vacuum". This is one of the reasons why Zhao Bopeng's coffin can be preserved so perfectly. And the second reason is what? Don't worry, listen to the hadron slowly to tell you. As the archaeological work unfolded, several holes were cut by experts with electric drills.
Isn't this destroying artifacts? Non also. It should be known that Taizhou, Zhejiang is located in the subtropical monsoon climate zone, and the ancient tomb was found in the rainy season and the groundwater level was high. Experts predict that a large amount of groundwater may have penetrated into the coffin. That is to say, even if on the surface, the entire coffin is well preserved, but its interior may have been soaked into a piece. If the body is soaked in water for transportation, it may cause irreparable damage to the cultural relics inside, and even everything will be wiped out. Although the crowd at the scene did not agree with this, some people thought it was simply superfluous.
The coffin looks so complete, how can there be standing water? But archaeologists insisted on being careful, carefully drilling a few small holes in the coffin. Sure enough! As soon as those holes were opened, turbid sewage gushed out, and it took a while before it gradually turned into clear water. The water in these holes has been flowing for a long time, and this phenomenon has surprised the people who have just questioned it, and they have to sigh at the professionalism of the archaeologists. The coffin was parked all night before the water inside was cleared. The archaeologists were relieved to carry the coffin to the car.
Send the coffin to the Huangyan Museum for the opening of the coffin. And as we said earlier, this kind of coffin is strong and thick, and the coffin lid and coffin body are closed with a mortise and mortise structure, which is very difficult to open. The experts searched for a long time to find the deeply hidden gap. The process alone took nearly four hours. It can be seen how difficult it is to open the coffin. And just when the coffin lid was about to be opened, an expert suddenly shouted: "Back off!" Then order everyone to leave the scene. People were startled by this sudden scene? Why? That's the second reason we're going to talk about—mercury.
Mercury, also known as mercury, can be evaporated at room temperature, and mercury contains high toxicity and is extremely harmful to the body. Therefore, as soon as the expert saw the mercury, he immediately became alert and hurriedly drank it to make everyone back off. For safety reasons, the archaeologists decided to leave the coffin open for ventilation for one night and continue the excavations the next day. In fact, mercury has been used in tombs for a long time. It is widely known as the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin. According to the investigation, it was found that there were very obvious mercury anomalies in the underground palace of the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, which were also recorded in Sima Qian's historical records.
"Mercury is used as a hundred rivers and seas, machine phase infusion, upper astronomy, lower geography", this distribution state is exactly in line with the distribution location of China's Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea. Qin Shi Huang pursued immortality, so he used mercury as a river and mountain in the tomb to pray for immortality. In addition to this symbolism, mercury also has anti-corrosion and anti-theft functions. As the only liquid heavy metal that can be obtained in ancient times, mercury can play a role in complete isolation from natural air, which is equivalent to completely enveloping objects in a vacuum state. Preventing objects from corrupting from the inside out, how does mercury prevent theft?
As we mentioned earlier, mercury is highly toxic and volatile at room temperature. Putting mercury in the burial chamber is equivalent to putting a bunch of poison gas bombs into it, which naturally has an anti-theft effect. The wisdom of the ancients is really amazing, and now that the secret of the coffin's immortality has been revealed, what treasures are hidden in this ancient tomb that has spent a lot of effort to prevent corrosion and theft? What kind of value should the treasures in the tomb be to allow the owner of the tomb to spend so much effort to build the cemetery? Don't go away, hadron will take you to reveal the treasures in the tomb right away!
The appearance of the crown of silk
Let's continue back to the excavation site of the coffin of this royal descendant Zhao Bopeng. After a night of placement, the toxic gases inside the coffin were completely evaporated. The experts of the Continental Silk Museum began to clean up the coffin. The coffin was luxurious, smearing the crevices of the inner walls with lime and rosin, rubbing the bottom of the coffin with rosin, and laying a layer of charcoal up to 5 centimeters thick. After the owner of the tomb was buried, the gap between the body and the coffin was filled with clothes, and the whole coffin was full of people, which can be described as very attentive.
The staff first unveiled the clothes on the top floor, they were very careful, each layer had to be photographed and recorded, the whole process was both delicate and patient, and they did not dare to be sloppy. After cleaning up the clothes filled on the upper floor, the body of the owner of the tomb was finally presented in front of people's eyes. The body was not damaged in the slightest, and the clothes were intact and the bones were complete. Such a complete preservation is really rare, and later according to experts, this coffin is the only one in the whole of Zhejiang, which was not destroyed by stolen tomb thieves and well preserved, and its significance is self-evident.
The staff then carried the owner of the tomb out and carefully placed it in the freezer. The whole clean-up work was arduous, and the people present were not unmoved by their dedication. In the end, the experts cleaned out a total of 66 cultural relics such as silk clothing, jade, crystals, and bronze mirrors. Among them, the silk fabric, which can be called the crown of song costumes, has witnessed the process of Zhejiang from the source of silk to the silk house with its integrity, and has provided an important sample for the silk art and research of the mainland. If we look back at the entire excavation process of Zhao Bopeng's tomb, we can see the wisdom of the ancients in tomb art. Friends, what are your different views on the appearance of this mysterious red coffin? Are you also amazed by the ancients' technology in coffin anti-corrosion and anti-theft? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area we discuss together, well, this issue of the video is shared here, like the video of hadrons to pay attention to hadrons, the next issue will bring more exciting content, we will not see the next issue,