The online drama of the same name, adapted from the best-selling novel "Tomb Raiders", was released in its entirety on July 3, attracting many fans. It is said that within five minutes of the night when the full series was released, the instant playback requests for "Tomb Raiders" on iQiyi reached 160 million times, and the number of order requests for VIP membership exceeded 2.6 million. According to incomplete statistics, the overall playback volume has approached 10 billion times, even causing a "massive paralysis" of iQiyi servers. Such crazy scenes, coupled with the novel's previous popularity, show that everyone is very interested in "grave robbing", a business that is both thrilling and full of unknown mystery.
In history books, most of the tomb robbers recorded were famous figures. Whether in ancient times or modern times, all tomb robbers can be divided into official thieves and civilian thieves. Xiang Yu, Dong Zhuo, Cao Cao, and the notorious Dongling robber Sun Dianying all used large numbers of soldiers to excavate ancient tombs with open swords and guns. In addition to taking away the treasures inside, they also destroyed the tomb buildings. This kind of people are usually called official thieves and have the typical characteristics of warlords and hooligans.
In addition to those who rob openly, there are also civilian thieves who "steal secretly". Most of the thieves are people from the private sector who secretly dig up ancient tombs in various ways, steal finances, and make a fortune. These people sometimes travel together, and most of them will look for traces of ancient tombs from history books, local documents or folklore before taking action. Then they will check the shape of the earth on the ground to judge the level and age of the tomb, and then rely on experience and tools to rob the tomb.
The ancient Chinese believed that death is not the end of life, but that the dead just enter another world. Therefore, ancient people, regardless of poverty or wealth, always hoped to take away some belongings or treasures after death so that they could continue to enjoy themselves in the other world. The higher the status and the richer the family, the more grave goods they will have in their tombs. Luxury burial has become an important cultural custom in ancient China.
Zunhua Qingdong Tombs: The largest existing imperial mausoleum complex in China with the most complete system and the most appropriate layout.
It is precisely this kind of wealth that attracts those who seek to make money at the expense of others. When dignitaries built their own tombs, they also took great care to prevent tomb robbers. Tomb robbing and burglary are almost inseparable. It has not been verified in which dynasty tomb robbing first appeared. From the history books, we can see that it was very common during the Zhou Dynasty. In "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals", there is a paragraph describing the life of the people during the Warring States Period: "The king does not command the people, the father is unfilial to the son, the brother is disloyal to the younger brother, all are driven out of the village and are afraid of farming. They work hard to collect firewood, but they don't want to be officials, but they pray for the pleasure of good clothes and food. They are smart and have nothing to do, so they gather in large numbers and use the deep mountains and forests to attack and seize them. Those who are rich in the tombs of Qiu will live there if they want to live with each other, and they will work day and night to benefit from each other. "It means that the ruler's bad people, the father's unfilial son, the elder brother's disobedient younger brother, will be the best." They are all people who have been rejected and expelled by their fellow villagers and neighbors. These people hate the hard work of farming and refuse to manage personnel, but seek pleasure in fine clothes and delicious food. When the opportunistic ideas are exhausted, large numbers of people will gather and rely on the mountains, lakes, dense forests and swamps to carry out sneak attacks and roadside robberies. They also looked at the tombs with heavy burials in famous mountains and hills, looked for houses to live nearby, and dug these tombs day and night, and they must have obtained the benefits they wanted and shared the spoils. It seems that the prevalence of tomb robbing has become a trend at that time.
One is tomb robbing, and the other is to prevent theft. On the one hand, for the sake of profit and life safety, tomb robbing technology is constantly improving; on the other hand, to prevent theft, every effort is made to build tombs that are difficult to distinguish between genuine and fake, and have many mechanisms. This game has been going on for thousands of years and is still enduring.
Grave robbers in ancient China can be divided into two types according to region: the southern group and the northern group, with the Yangtze River as the boundary. The northern faction is also divided into the Luoyang Gang and the Guanzhong Gang, and the southern faction is divided into the Changsha Gang and the Guangdong Gang. Each gang has its own "scope of activity" and it is difficult for people outside the gang to come in. Under normal circumstances, the gangs do not invade each other and do their own thing.
People who are well versed in this art have rich experience in tomb robbing and are keen observers of things. They often judge the location of the coffin room based on the direction of the terrain and veins, which is as accurate as taking someone's pulse. The next step is to arrive at the coffin room. After opening the coffin lid, you need to touch the treasures on the deceased, starting from the head to the feet. This is not a blind touch, you need to be skillful to ensure that no property is missed. After the ancients died, they would put jade objects in some organs of the corpse to prevent decay. Tomb robbers should not miss these details. The third step is to touch the unearthed cultural relics with your hands. Experts in the field have handled countless cultural relics. When facing these stolen treasures, sometimes you don’t need to look at them with your eyes. Just touch them and you will know the era from which they originated. , the value is geometric.
Faced with the arrogance of tomb robbers, ancient people spent a lot of time building their own tombs. The ancients mainly used the following methods to prevent tomb robbing:
The first is to accumulate stones in the tomb. This form often appeared in large tombs in the north from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty to the Qin and Han Dynasties. For example, in the Warring States Tomb No. 1 in the western suburbs of Luoyang, pebbles and charcoal were piled up and down the coffin supports, and the charcoal on the upper part of the coffin supports formed a two-story platform in the shape of a slope.
The second is to seal the tomb door with bricks and stones. For example, in the cliff cave tomb of the early Western Han Dynasty in Beidongshan, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, where the passage is close to the tomb door, three rows of nine blocks are used to remove the blocking stones and There are eight block stones in double rows, which can weigh seven tons.
The stone block beside the corridor of the Shiyuan mausoleum of King Han Liang in Mangdang Mountain, Yongcheng, Henan Province
The third is to build the tomb in the mountain, which is hidden and difficult to find. This was popular in the Xuzhou area during the Western Han Dynasty and Sichuan after the Eastern Han Dynasty. For example, Guishan No. 2 Cliff Tomb in Tongshan, Xuzhou has two tomb passages leading into the mountain. There are tomb chambers and drainage systems inside the mountain.
The fourth is to solidify the tomb by pouring copper and iron. There is such a record in Volume 6 of "Miscellaneous Notes of Xijing": "The Tomb of King Ai was poured with iron, and it was opened in three months." Archaeologists also discovered an iron gate poured with molten iron in the tomb of Liu Sheng, King Jing of the Western Han Dynasty, and his wife. .
Five is the mechanism we are familiar with. There are various mechanisms in general large tombs. It is recorded in "Historical Records: The Chronicles of the First Emperor of Qin" that in the First Emperor's Mausoleum, "the generals were ordered to make crossbow arrows, and those who came close would shoot them." Some emperors, generals, ministers or wealthy businessmen would choose to set up a crossbow in the tomb as long as they had the conditions. Various mechanisms killed the tomb robbers on the spot.
Illustration of the serial flipping technique
In addition, some people will use the "hidden burial" method, that is, to bury secretly at night avoiding the crowd, or to create two real and fake tombs. and other means to prevent tomb robbers.
Grave robbing is actually an offense against the dead by the living. In the eyes of the ancients, it was even a provocation from the world to the underworld. Therefore, although tomb robbing is thrilling, it has been treated as a serious crime by all dynasties. However, the "get rich overnight" mentality brought about by tomb robbing still stimulates many people to continue on this road.