The best-preserved Warring States water well appeared in Shanxi, how did the ancients build the well?

Not long ago, in Yangquan, Shanxi, archaeologists found the best preserved Warring States water well, this well on the mouth of the inner diameter of 4.5 meters, the residual depth of 9 meters, the well wall is a wooden structure of the plane of the nine sides of the supporting structure, but also in China is found in the largest scale of the Warring States water well. The discovery of this ancient well, the archaeologists to study the local ancient history, people's living conditions, as well as the ancient well masonry process of the Warring States is of great significance, the following we extend the understanding to see how the ancients generally build water wells.

Site Selection

Whether in ancient times or now want to build a water well, the first thing is to carry out site selection work. Specifically, it is to find the veins of groundwater, only the well just hit the veins of water, there will be plenty of groundwater to use later, otherwise, it may not rain for a long time, the well at home will dry up. Well site selection requires experience, there are professionals in this area in ancient times, some people will look at the terrain feng shui, as ordinary people do not have the relevant professional knowledge, then you can only choose those low terrain, the growth of Artemisia bushes.

Digging

Seeing and choosing a good address, the next step is to dig the earth, in fact, is to dig a vertical deep pit down until the digging out of the water until the general ancient people digging wells are more than three feet deep. In those days, the tool used for digging wells was called a butterfly cone, which could easily be used to bring the excavated sediment into a mud bucket and then pulled out of the ground and dumped.

Making a well coping

Because the wall of the earth is prone to collapse when digging a well, it is necessary to reinforce the wall of the well with a well coping when digging a well downward to ensure that the wall of the well does not collapse on the one hand, and on the other hand, it will also play a cleaning and filtering role of the well water in the future, and will not let the sand and sediment easily seep into the well water. Well coping is generally made of pine boards or mixed wood boards, laid on the wall of the well after more hexagonal, each board has a mortise and tenon fastening together. Of course, this was a long time ago, and with the advent of pottery and bricks, people gradually used bricks and pottery instead of wooden boards.

Earth extraction

Earth extraction is physical work, usually one or two people digging the well below, putting the earth into bamboo baskets, and then a few people above them lifting the baskets up and dumping the earth outside. Repeat the process of water wells will get deeper and deeper, while building a well coping down the side, with a heavy hammer to tamp the well coping, until the water is dug out until the well is almost done. Modern rural well digging is also basically the same, after digging to the well wall brick, and in the well wall on both sides of the bottom up to leave two rows of small holes, people are able to step on these two rows of small holes in the well free up and down, easy to clean up the bottom of the well in the future. For example, after a long time, the bottom of the well may have silt clogging, or small animals fell to the bottom of the well, then you can step on the two rows of small holes in the wall, down to the bottom of the well to clean up the silt or pick up the small animals.