How did ancient people rob tombs?
In the history books, most of the grave robbers recorded are celebrities. No matter ancient or modern, grave robbers can be divided into official thieves and civilian thieves. Like Xiang Yu, Dong Zhuo, Cao Cao, and Sun Dianying, the notorious thief of Dongling, they all used a large number of soldiers to dig ancient tombs with a clear knife and a clear gun. In addition to taking away the treasure inside, they also destroyed the mausoleum building. Such people are often called officials and thieves, and have typical characteristics of warlords and hooligans.
Apart from these open robberies, they are "private thieves". Thieves mostly come from the people, secretly digging ancient tombs in various ways, stealing money and making a fortune. These people sometimes walk together, and most of them look for traces of ancient tombs from historical books, local documents or folklore before they act. Then we will look at the shape of the ground to judge the grade and age of the ancient tomb, and then we will rely on experience and tools to rob the tomb.
In ancient China, people thought that death was not the end of life, but the dead just entered another world. Therefore, regardless of poverty or endowment, the ancients always hoped to take away some belongings or treasure utensils after death and let themselves continue to enjoy themselves in another world. The more people with high status and rich family, the more funerary objects there are. Thick burial has become an important cultural custom in ancient China.
Dong Qingling Mausoleum in Zunhua: The royal mausoleum complex with the largest existing scale, the most complete system and the most reasonable layout in China.
It is this kind of wealth that attracts those who try to get rich. When building their own graves, dignitaries are also trying to prevent grave robbers. Grave robbery and theft prevention are almost inseparable. It is impossible to verify which dynasty tomb raiding first appeared. As can be seen from the history books, it was very common in the Zhou Dynasty. There is a passage in Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals that describes the life of the people during the Warring States Period: "Your father is not obedient to the people, your father is not dutiful to his son, and your brother is not obedient to his younger brother. Are all villages destroyed? And one by one is afraid of the hard work of cultivating crops, refuses to be an official and personnel, and prays for the beauty of food and clothing. I'm smart and poor. I can't think of it. So a large number of people gathered in the mountains, attacked and arrested them, depending on the thickness of the famous tomb, and lived in harmony with each other day and night. " It means that the bad guy of the monarch, the unfilial son of his father and the disobedient brother of his brother are all rejected by the villagers and neighbors. These people hate the hard work of farming, refuse to manage personnel, and pursue exquisite clothes and delicious food for fun. When opportunistic thoughts are exhausted, many people will gather and carry out sneak attack and highway robbery relying on deep mountains, lakes, dense forests and swamps. They still look at the heavy graves in the famous mountains and hills, find a house nearby, and dig these graves day and night every day. They must get the benefits they want and share the spoils. From this point of view, the prevalence of grave robbery at that time has become an ethos.
On the one hand, it is robbery, on the other hand, it is theft prevention. On the one hand, for the benefit and safety of life, the technology of grave robbery has been continuously improved; On the other hand, in order to prevent theft, the authenticity of tomb buildings is difficult to distinguish and valued. This game has been played for thousands of years, and it is still enduring.
Ancient grave robbers in China, with the Yangtze River as the boundary, can be divided into two types: the southern faction and the northern faction. The northern faction is divided into Luoyang gang and Guanzhong gang, and the southern faction is divided into Changsha gang and Guangdong gang. Every gang has its own "scope of activities", and it is difficult for people outside the gang to come in. Under normal circumstances, gangs do not invade each other and do their own thing.
For the northern faction, they are good at "skills", such as where to steal the hole, whether it is in front of the coffin or at the end of the coffin, what shape to dig when digging, whether it is a square hole or a garden hole. The square-mouth-shaped stolen cave was created by the North School, which is mostly found in the yellow land in Guanzhong area of Shaanxi Province. It is often called "Guanzhong-style stolen cave" in the circle. The grave robbers in the North School are still very particular about the use of tools. Luoyang shovel, for example, was invented by grave robbers from the North School.
Luoyang shovel
Modern archaeology found that eight tombs in the western area of Yinxu in Anyang and five tombs in the eastern area were stolen more than once, leaving few relics. Archaeologists who participated in the excavation recorded that the early grave robbers judged the location of the tomb very correctly. They will open a round thief pit in the middle of the tomb, which is close to the wall of the tomb. This thief pit will go straight to the top of the tomb. At this time, the tomb in the tomb room has not yet decayed and collapsed, and the grave robbers can directly enter and sweep away the property inside.
Some grave robbers in the North School will also build houses around the graves for various reasons to hide people's eyes and ears, and then dig tunnels from the houses to the graves. They basically act at night, which is difficult for outsiders to detect. In Ji Xiaolan's Notes on Yuewei Cottage, Volume 9, I Hear Three, a story about robbing a tomb by similar means is recorded: "In Kangxi, a thief coveted jade fish's hiding place, planted it next to the melon tomb and crossed the tunnel in the shadow of the public focus." The "mass coke" mentioned here, that is, the round melon shed built in rural Gua Tian, belongs to the most commonly used classic method of grave robbers.
However, not all tombs can build houses or melon sheds next to them. Once it is found that there are heavy treasures in the tomb, and the nearby environment is not suitable for building bunkers, grave robbers will even adopt circuitous tactics, dig wells in relatively distant but more hidden places, and then dig obliquely along the wells until they reach the tomb. This method is time-consuming and laborious, and it can't be sustained without some patience and physical perseverance. Sometimes, in order to avoid crowds, even a few kilometers away, the construction period may reach half a year or even longer. However, once you succeed, you will get enough for the rest of your life.
Different from the northern school, the southern school is good at "ingenious skills", mostly relying on their own or ancestral experience and combining their own theoretical research knowledge. People from the South School are very good at ancient geomantic knowledge. Compared with Luoyang shovel used by northerners, they are better at using four methods: looking, smelling, asking and cutting. This method was summed up by grave robbers from Changsha, a southern school. It is a common method and can be regarded as a stunt of the southern school.
"Look" means looking at the terrain and feng shui. Grave robbers rely on their own experience and knowledge of geomantic omen to check the terrain first everywhere they go. Due to the age and style of ancient tombs, many of them have been mixed with natural plains, hills and slopes in appearance, and outsiders can't see them even if they walk on the graves every day. But grave robbers with deep roads can be seen several kilometers away, mainly because the ancient tombs were built according to the layout of geomantic omen. As long as it is a real treasure trove of geomantic omen, there will always be a big tomb, and the specifications of the tomb must be very high. The treasures buried with them are naturally numerous, exquisite and even priceless. It is almost necessary to use this geomantic omen to predict whether there are marked graves on the ground.
"Smell", as the name implies, is to smell the smell, so as to search for the specific location of the ancient tomb. Grave robbers usually listen to the wind, rain, thunder, grass and mud marks. In the field reconnaissance, if the location of the tomb is found, the soil layer on the surface of the tomb will be uncovered, and a pinch of tomb soil will be put under the nose to smell it fiercely, so that whether the tomb has been stolen can be distinguished from the smell of the soil, and the approximate age of the tomb can also be judged according to the color of the soil. It is said that people with good kung fu can distinguish the tombs of the Han Dynasty from those of the Tang Dynasty with their noses.
"Asking" means stepping on the spot. Generally, these grave robbers will pretend to be geomancers or fortune tellers and wander in places where there will be beautiful scenery or high officials. These people are eloquent, good at observing words and feelings, able to talk with elders in daily communication and explore the information and orientation of ancient tombs.
After finding the specific location of the ancient tomb, it is necessary to use "cut". The first thing is to find the location of the hole and try to get into the coffin in the shortest distance. People who know this road have rich experience in robbing tombs and keen observation of things. They often judge the location of the tomb according to the terrain and the direction of the vein, just as accurately as giving people a pulse. Second, after reaching the coffin chamber and cutting open the coffin lid, you should touch the treasure of the deceased, starting from the head and touching your feet. At this time, it is not a blind touch, but a skill to ensure that property will not be missed. After the death of the ancients, jade articles were placed in some organs of the corpse to prevent decay, and the details of these grave robbers could not be let go. Step three, touch the unearthed cultural relics with your hands. There are countless cultural relics that have been touched by experts in all aspects. In the face of these stolen treasures, sometimes you don't need to look with your eyes. Just touch them and you will know what era they come from and what their value is.
Faced with the arrogance of grave robbers, the ancients tried their best to build their own graves before their death. Ancient methods to prevent grave robbery mainly include the following:
One is the accumulation of stones in the tomb, which mostly appeared in the tombs of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and the Northern Qin and Han Dynasties. For example, in the No.1 Tomb of Warring States in the western suburbs of Luoyang, pebbles and charcoal were piled up and down on the coffin support, and the Carboniferous on the upper part of the coffin support was piled up into a two-story platform, which was in a slope shape.
The second is to seal the tomb door with masonry, such as the cliff cave tomb in the northern cave of Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province in the early Han Dynasty. Its passage is close to the tomb door, and it is blocked with three rows of nine stones and two rows of eight stones, which can weigh up to seven tons.
Stone plug next to the tunnel of Han Liang Wang Shiyuan's mausoleum in Mangdang Mountain, Yongcheng, Henan Province
The third is to build the tomb in the mountains, which is hidden and difficult to find. It was popular in Xuzhou during the Western Han Dynasty and in Sichuan after the Eastern Han Dynasty. For example, there are two pyramid-shaped passages leading to the cliff tomb of Guishan No.2 in Tongshan, Xuzhou, and there are burial rooms and drainage systems in the mountain.
The fourth is to strengthen the tomb by pouring copper and iron. "Miscellanies of Xijing" Volume VI has such a record: "Mourning the king's tomb is filled with iron and opened in March." Archaeologists also found an iron gate made of molten iron in the tomb of Liu Sheng, the wife of Zhongshan King in the Western Han Dynasty.
Fifth, the organs we are familiar with. Generally speaking, there are various organs in large tombs. According to Records of the Historical Records of the First Emperor Qin Shihuang, in the first imperial tomb, "the commander will be a crossbow, and the wearer will shoot it." Some emperors or wealthy businessmen, dajia, will choose to set up various organs in the tombs if they can, so that grave robbers can be killed on the spot.
Schematic diagram of continuous turnover operation
In addition, some people will also adopt the method of "hidden burial", that is, secretly burying at night to avoid crowds, or building two tombs to prevent grave robbers.
Grave robbing is actually an offence to the dead by the living, and even a provocation to the underworld by the dead in the eyes of the ancients. Therefore, although grave robbery is thrilling, it has been treated as a felony by successive dynasties. However, the psychology of "getting rich overnight" brought by grave robbery still stimulates many people, "one after another" on this road.