The significance of physics for heritage conservation?

There have been many recent works of art on tomb raiding, such as The Mummy, Tomb Raider, Ghostbusters, and so on. Of all the adventure activities, grave robbing, or tomb exploration, is undoubtedly the most attractive one. Since the practice of "thick burials", grave robbers have emerged. The owners of the tombs would do everything possible to ensure their peace of mind after their death, just like a bank defending its vaults. So, how exactly did the ancients, especially the ancient emperors, give their tombs anti-theft?

▲The Qianling Mausoleum

They used suspicious graves to hide the truth from the world

Tomb robbers want to rob tombs, the first step to do is to find the tomb first, ancient monarchs in the first step to set up a big problem for them - the establishment of many suspicious graves and fake tombs. Want to dig my grave? First you have to be able to find me. "Although suspicious mounds are the dumbest method of anti-theft means, they are also the most effective, often killing the thieves' grave-robbing plans in the cradle." Ma Juncai, director of the Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Protection at the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said.

Ma Juncai introduced, the most famous suspicious mound belongs to Cao Cao's tomb, which will be suspicious of the use of the mound method can be said to be the peak of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", said Cao Cao's legacy of the Changde Prefecture outside the city of Lianwu, the establishment of a suspicious mound of seventy-two, "do not make the future generations to know my burial place, afraid of being unearthed for the people, so also. This also reflects the side of Cao Cao's suspicious nature, set up seventy-two suspicious mounds, so that people who hate it and grave robbers have no way to start. Though this is a theory from the playbook, it is also a reflection of the fact that this method is really effective and widely used.

Running sand to fill the tomb, the hole is difficult to dig

The mound tomb of the most absolute anti-grave robbing trick is "accumulation of sand", this tomb also has a professional term, called "accumulation of sand tomb". "Accumulated sand tomb" commonly known as quicksand tomb, is one of the most headache and fear of grave robbers mound type, appeared very early. In the construction, digging more than ten meters deep, the area of dozens or even hundreds of square meters of underground space, set the direction and orientation of the coffins and coffins, the coffins and coffins are buried with fried dry fine sand, instead of backfilling with soil. Sand accumulation buried to a certain position and thickness, only to the soil buried, and will be surrounded by tamping firmly built.

Ma Juncai explained that the reason for the use of dry fine sand, one can maintain a dry underground environment to prevent decay of the body; two is to strengthen the anti-theft effect. Dry fine sand such as water, mobility is very strong, grave robbers simply can not dig a hole, because when digging, the sand will flow, simply do not form a hole. It is also very easy to cause a cave-in, making the grave robbers martyrs.

In May 2005, Ma Juncai participated in the full-scale excavation of the Chu tomb in Guozhuang Village, Shangcai County, as the leader of the team. According to him, the whole tomb has a ring of anti-theft tricks: the tomb is 17 meters deep, of which more than 10 meters are buried in sand. And in the main coffin directly above and to the side, plus repair two fake coffins, in order to be realistic, but also placed small pieces of burial goods. Tomb road design is also very absolute, unlike the usual tomb, the tomb road straight to the bottom of the tomb, but changed the direction, if the tomb robbers down the tomb road, can not see the real coffin room.

"The burial goods in this Chu tomb can last for more than 2,000 years without being stolen. It is because of this interlocking anti-robbery design. The scene found that this tomb has 17 large and small robber holes, including the earliest age of the robber holes dug in the Warring States period, is located in the northern entrance of the tomb room outside about 3 meters, is a stepwise diagonal holes, downward discovery of the accumulation of sand and then stopped digging." Ma Juncai said.

Iron seals mausoleum, solid as gold

Many ancient tombs have been patronized and ransacked by grave robbers, but one tomb in history has been spared: the Qianling Mausoleum, the joint tomb of Tang's Gaozong Li Zhi and Wu Zetian.

"The archaeological results show that there are indeed no traces of Qianling being stolen." Ma Juncai said, its main is the method of sealing the tomb with iron water, between the tomb road and the tomb door with swallowing strips filled with as many as 39 layers, with nearly 4,000 pieces of stone. Between the stone with iron tether plate tether pull, every 3 layers up and down with an iron bar through the joints, but also in the stone chiseled inverted trapezoidal holes, similar to carpentry do dowels and tenons, in the cemetery site to build a furnace into a juice of iron, pouring plugs stone mortise and tenon holes, so that the stone blocks firmly glued together, become one.

"Without such mortise and tenon holes, the stones would have been easy to pull away." Ma Juncai said, there are many times in history to steal the Qianling mausoleum records, such as Huang Chao revolt, had dug a large ditch in the west of the tomb road, and later there are warlords to organize a large number of people to steal the digging, but were unsuccessful. Visible, Wu Zetian iron water sealing mausoleum of anti-grave robbing techniques are quite successful.

Chemical poisons, smell of death

In addition to all kinds of physical anti-theft means, chemical traps are also used by the tomb owners. According to historical records, the most commonly used chemical anti-theft agent in ancient times was mercury, which was placed in the tomb and evaporated into mercury vapor, causing great trouble for grave robbers.

According to the "Records of the Grand Historian", the mausoleum of the first emperor of Qin Shi Huang "to mercury for the hundreds of rivers, rivers and the sea, the machine phase infusion," may be the use of mercury volatilization of poisonous for anti-theft. "This design has not been confirmed, but the Qin mausoleum sealing soil may indeed have a large amount of mercury, there have been people to measure the local soil, the more to the following found that the higher the mercury content." Ma Juncai said.

Other emperors' tombs may also have "mercury pools" inside. The tomb of King Xiang of Wei was known to emit an unidentified yellow gas that prevented people from getting close. In Taiping Guangji, it is written: "King Xiang's tomb was opened by pouring iron on it and chiseling it for three days. The yellow gas was like mist, and it was hard to touch people's noses and eyes, so they were not allowed to enter. With soldiers to guard it, seven days to rest." Ma Juncai said, wild history records, Weihui City, Henan Province, a tomb was excavated, there was a white gas escaped.

Volts of fire deep or methane gas

Some tomb-robbing novels also mention that as soon as many tomb robbers opened ancient tombs, fires broke out and they were burned to death and injury. The old Han rituals" said: "will be made to camp mausoleum land, within the square stone, outside the sand evolution, household cross cross Moye, set up ambush crossbow, ambush fire, bow and vector and sand, cover the ancient system has its own machine." This text reveals that the "ambush fire" in ancient tombs is one of the traditional means of anti-grave robbing design of the ancients. Changsha Mawangdui Tomb No. 1 (Xinchu's tomb), which had shocked the world, had "ambush fire".

In this regard, Ma Juncai said that this so-called "tomb fire" may not be an intentional anti-theft design. Rather, it is because there are a variety of organic materials inside the tomb, such as clothing, food, etc., after a long period of time after the burial will rot, thus producing a combustible gas - methane gas. When grave robbers enter the tomb with torches or candles, the methane gas will explode or catch fire when it meets an open flame.

The crossbow is not practical

In grave-robbing novels and movies, it is often seen that tombs are equipped with crossbows and arrows, and once a grave-robbing person triggers the mechanism, the crossbow and arrows will be shot out, killing him or her on the spot.

The crossbow is generally only used in the mausoleums of emperors and kings, and Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum was equipped with a "crossbow". Guo Moruo wrote in the first section of the third chapter of the "Chinese Historical Manuscripts," "In order to prevent future generations from digging up his tomb, Qin Shihuang ordered his craftsmen to install a number of crossbows to shoot those who attempted to enter the tomb passage."

"This kind is mostly seen in written records, where grave robbers are shot once they get close, but it has never been found in any of the tombs excavated so far." Ma Juncai said, this "mechanism" in reality is unlikely to exist, because the arrow is metal, the string is a variety of cattle tendons made of time will be rusted, decay, and thus lose effectiveness, can not be used.