Chapter 0244 – Exploration and Site Selection

For a long time after the birth of the Luoyang Shovel. It was used for grave robbing.

Henan Luoyang Mang Mountain on the mound Saga, a few lying cattle, underground burials are extremely rich, in the pre-liberation period, almost every corner of the mountain, have been explored by the Luoyang Shovel, a large number of unearthed cultural relics were lost to foreign countries.

In 1928, the famous archaeologist Wei Juxian, after witnessing the scene of grave robbers using the Luoyang shovel, it will be used in archaeological drilling, in China’s famous Yinxu, Yanshi Shangcheng and other ancient city sites in the excavation process, played an extremely important role.

In the 1950s, Luoyang became a key construction city, factory site selection often encountered ancient tombs, to machine drilling samples, time-consuming and labor-intensive, so the engineering and construction personnel used this concave probe shovel, accurately detect more than a thousand ancient tombs.

Today, the Luoyang shovel is a symbol of Chinese archaeological drilling tools, and, of course, an essential piece of equipment for grave robbers.

Learn to use the Luoyang shovel to identify the soil quality. It was more of a basic skill for every archaeologist, Professor Meng didn’t stop Zhuang Rui from going to explore the soil with his two disciples, that is, he wanted to let him get in touch and familiarize himself with the use of the Luoyang Shovel first.

“Little Fan, how come all these Luoyang shovels are still different?”

Zhuang Rui followed behind the duo and walked to the place where the Luoyang shovels were placed, and at a glance, he found that there were actually more than ten small shovels placed on the ground, about 20 to 40 centimeters long, with diameters of about 5 to 20 centimeters, except that some of them had a blunt shape at the bottom, while some of them looked like crescent-shaped shovels, which was a little bit different from what he had heard about.

“Brother Zhuang, this is used to detect different tombs, like this one is called a heavy shovel, it’s specialized in detecting Han tombs, due to the excavation of the Horse Tap Flying Swallow here, the teacher suspected that there were Han tombs, so he brought it here.”

Fan wrong then pointed to that a bit like water margin inside Lu Zhishen with the crescent moon shovel shape of the shovel said: “This is called flat shovel, that is, we often say Luoyang shovel, Tang tomb will have to use this.”

While explaining, Fan Er and Ying Ning picked two Luoyang shovels and handed one to Zhuang Rui.

Seeing Zhuang Rui tossing and turning and looking at the Luoyang shovel in his hand, Ying Ning spoke up and explained, “Brother Zhuang, don’t look at this thing like a shovel, it’s very simple, but in fact it’s very troublesome to make. It needs to go through nearly twenty processes such as billet making, calcining, heat treatment, molding, and sharpening the blade. The most critical is the molding to create the curvature, need to be carefully knocked, a little careless, hit the shovel will not take the soil, that is waste, can only be hand-beaten, the one in your hand, but the teacher’s collection, the rest are this side of the cultural relics department to provide.”

After Zhuang Rui received, found that this is just a shovel head, in the head of the shovel, there are hollow internal screw threads, must be connected to the wooden pole used.

In order to carry convenient, these Luoyang shovels are removable, even the wooden pole, also can be selected according to your height, these wooden poles are specially made, generally are good ash pole, toughness is very strong, can easily bend it without breaking.

“Brother Zhuang, you use this. This is the one that teacher asked someone to specially make, specifically for that Luoyang shovel of his.”

Zhuang Rui was about to bend down to choose a wooden pole when Fan Wrong handed over a holster about sixty or seventy centimeters long, Zhuang Rui reached out and picked it up, feeling a little heavy, opened it up, it turned out to be a hollow threaded steel pipe about half a meter long inside.

Will take out the steel pipe, Zhuang Rui realized that there is more than one steel pipe, but layer by layer, a bit like a fishing rod, can be extended at will, in the head of the steel pipe, there is a buckle, above the binding of a thumb-thick rope, very neatly coiled in the above.

How to use, this is not enough to use others to teach, Zhuang Rui pulled out three sections of steel pipe, aligned with the threaded mouth to choose to tighten, gesture, about two meters or so factory, weighing the weight, is not very heavy, should not have a problem with the use of Zhuang Rui put the rest of the steel pipe back into the holster, will be slanting the holster back on the shoulder.

Zhuang Rui took Ying Ning received a good ash pole Luoyang shovel, and their hands a comparison, probably twice as light, but this ash pole is more than two meters long. Carry up, is far from their own hand tools convenient, in fact, now Luoyang shovel varieties, such as the recent emergence of electric Luoyang shovel, just like a small drilling machine.

“Brother Zhuang, let’s walk a little farther! The two to three hundred meters around here have all been explored.”

Fan Wrong and Yingning, each holding a Luoyang shovel, with a straw hat on their heads, if they didn’t look at their attire, they were no different from the farmers who labored all year round.

“Within a few hundred meters around, this is the only place where cooked soil appears?” Zhuang Rui was a bit puzzled, underneath that sealed soil, there was also the possibility of building a mausoleum ah!

Hearing Zhuang Rui’s question, Ying Ning turned her head and replied, “It’s like this, when the other places were beaten down more than ten meters, the rock layer appeared, and under the sealing soil layer as well, we probed very carefully, except for the cooked soil. There’s nothing else.”

“Maybe the mausoleum isn’t that deep! I’ve heard that in ancient times, mausoleums that are seven or eight meters deep are rare ah!”

Zhuang Rui said this once he left the room, he himself also felt out of place, seven or eight meters deep tomb, surely does not apply to the king’s mausoleum, other than that he does not know, the thirteen mausoleums underground palace can be up to dozens of meters deep.

“We basically beat down a hole every three to five meters, if there is something down there, it will definitely be brought up.” Yingning knew that Zhuang Rui knew nothing about archaeological excavations. So she explained it to him.

After hearing Yingning’s words, Zhuang Rui realized that this Luoyang shovel could not only identify the soil quality underground, but also bring up the objects in the tomb.

If you hit the hole, encounter those cups, bowls, plates, pots and other types of ceramics burial goods, or iron, gold, wood and other things, can be brought up, from which you can determine whether there is a tomb below, archaeological excavation of people, according to these items, to deduce the nature of the underground collection and layout.

What’s more, like those experienced grave robbers, by virtue of the different sounds made by the Luoyang shovel colliding with the ground and the feeling on their hands, they can judge the underground situation, such as the compacted walls and hollow chambers and tomb passages are naturally very different.

Some grave robbers, with a Luoyang shovel, can accurately hit the hole into the main chamber where the coffin is placed, in terms of the use of the Luoyang shovel, I am afraid that most archaeologists are far less than those family tomb robbers.

“Which direction are we going?”

Zhuang Rui asked the two, he previously stood on the sealed soil layer to look around, as if only now digging the place, is a piece of feng shui treasure, and then to the direction of the mountain range, is the tail of the dragon vein is located, upward, there is a small hill, according to reason should not be there, because the general choice of the dragon vein of the tomb, are in the head and tail of the two places in the choice of a thick can be gathered in the feng shui treasure, and will not go to cut off the dragon vein, that’s a feng shui The big taboo.

“Go to that small hill and take a look! It’s the only place in this neighborhood that hasn’t been explored.”

“Wait, wait for me, I want to go too!”

A voice came from behind the three, but it was Meng Qiuqian that little girl who followed up, her hand also seemingly holding a Luoyang shovel.

“Aren’t you afraid of getting a tan? Like an African?” Fan Error and the little girl were used to fighting with each other. He couldn’t help but speak out to tease her.

“Not afraid, I have sunscreen.”

Meng Qiuqian proudly waved a small fist at Fan Er, watching a few people relatively speechless, this dare to come on vacation ah! Even sunscreen was brought along.

Meng Qiuqian did not pay attention to Fan Error, but came to the side of Zhuang Rui, said: “Zhuang Rui brother, you are about to take my grandfather’s graduate school, then I can be your sister ah, you see can not let you that Tibetan mastiff, to me a little bit of affection ah?”

Zhuang Rui heard a sudden big head, this girl actually played the idea of the white lion, not to mention her, is Liu Chuan that grew up watching the white lion guy, have not gotten the good face of the white lion, not to mention this girl.

“So what, Qiuqian ah! It’s not that brother Zhuang Rui doesn’t help you, you know, the Tibetan Mastiff is grumpy, besides me, it doesn’t buy from anyone, I think you’d better stay away from it! Otherwise, with your thin arms and legs, it will be troublesome if you get bitten off.”

Zhuang Rui was afraid that this girl would go and tease the white lion, and deliberately exaggerated a bit to try and scare her.

“Hey, that’s not right! Girl, you’re not Professor Meng’s student, you’re just following to play, then again, we’re still twice as far apart, you should call me uncle, how can you let me call you sister?”

Zhuang Rui suddenly thought of this problem and opened his mouth.

“If you don’t help, you don’t help, you still want me to call me uncle, there is no door.”

The little girl pouted, fiercely glared at Zhuang Rui, then pulled out a bag of beef jerky in the bag behind her for a while, wanting to go and feed the white lion, but looking at the size of the white lion, and did not dare to get close to it, and at a distance of three or four meters away from the white lion, she threw the beef over.

Who knows that the white lion simply did not even look at a glance, followed by Zhuang Rui ran to the front, angry little girl in the back stomping feet.

This hill is not far from the excavation site, only four or five hundred meters away, the mountain is full of kiwi trees, this time it is in the blooming season, the whole hill, full of yellow flowers, from a distance to see is very beautiful.

A few people walked into the only to find, actually someone around this hill, do a circle of railings, above also tied wire, should be to prevent the beasts in the mountains, to scourge the fruit trees it!

“Woof …… woof ……”

Not yet close to that railing, inside came fierce dog barking, followed by two stocky wolfdogs, from the forest surface pounced out.

“Roar ……”

The white lion that originally followed behind Zhuang Rui, a low roar came out, and those two wolfdogs immediately clamped their tails and drilled towards the fruit forest.

“What are you screaming for, mom’s stupid dog, won’t go up and bite ah!”

A man’s voice came out from inside the fruit forest.