When it comes to archaeological excavation tools, I believe the first thing that everyone thinks of is the Luoyang shovel. The Luoyang shovel is the symbol of China's archaeological drilling tools. It was widely used in tomb robbing in the early days and later became an archaeological tool. 1. Appearance of Luoyang shovel
Luoyang shovel is used for digging holes and collecting soil, so the shovel body is not flat but semi-cylindrical, similar to the shape of a tile cylinder.
The width of the shovel clamp of a common Luoyang shovel is only 2 inches, and the width is a U-shaped semicircle. The upper part of the shovel is equipped with a long handle. Although the Luoyang shovel looks like a semicircle, in fact, the shape is not round. Not flat, the most important thing is to create the arc during molding. It is 20 to 40 centimeters long and 5 to 20 centimeters in diameter. After being installed with a flexible wooden pole, it can be driven into the ground more than ten meters. By distinguishing the soil structure, color and inclusions brought out by the shovel head, it can be judged. The quality of the excavations and whether there are ancient tombs underground. There are nearly 20 manufacturing processes for the Luoyang shovel. The most important thing is to create the arc during molding, which requires special care. If you are not careful, the Luoyang shovel will not be able to carry the soil. Not only that, the production process of Luoyang shovel is more complicated. Usually, making a small shovel requires nearly twenty processes, so it can only be made by hand. 2. How tomb robbers use a Luoyang shovel to discover tomb chambers
If a good Luoyang shovel is made and then equipped with a tough waxwood pole and connected with a special rope, it can be driven into the ground. At a depth of more than ten meters or even tens of meters, after the shovel is lifted, a tube of soil will be brought out from the inside of the shovel head.
Continuously drilling deeper into the ground, the tomb robbers analyzed the soil structure, color, density and various inclusions of the different soil layers extracted. If it is mature soil that has been disturbed by later generations, the underground will be There may be tombs or ancient buildings. If the objects include ceramics, iron, copper, gold, and wood, the nature and layout of the underground collection can be inferred. Experienced tomb robbers can judge the underground conditions based on the different sounds made by the Luoyang shovel hitting the ground and the feeling on the hands. For example, the solid walls are naturally very different from the hollow tomb chambers and tomb passages.