Why is the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang not excavated?
The Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang is known as "the largest mausoleum in the world". This mausoleum is located near mountains and rivers and has excellent Feng Shui. The construction of the mausoleum is grand in scale, unique in structure and ingenious in design. The mausoleum occupies a large area, its area is equivalent to nearly 80 times that of the Forbidden City.
Such a majestic mausoleum contains very rich culture and artwork, and is of great research value. However, despite this, experts in the Chinese archaeological community have not excavated the tomb of Qin Shi Huang for a long time. Why is this?
The mercury-contained hidden weapons inside Qin Shi Huang’s Mausoleum pose a serious threat to the lives of the excavators. We all know that mercury is very toxic and evaporates quickly. The water in the rivers and lakes in the Qin Emperor's Mausoleum is made of mercury, so it will kill people in minutes. During the reign of Qin Shihuang, there was a woman named Ba Widow. She found a mineral deposit rich in cinnabar and specialized in refining the elixir of life, and became a wealthy woman.
Qin Shihuang was more obsessed with immortality than anyone in the country. He specially invited the Ba widow to come to his palace. Later, he discovered that cinnabar burned into mercury. He believed that mercury was the essence of elixirs. Qin Shihuang then Widow Mingba put all the mercury into her tomb. This is why there is a lot of mercury in Qin Shihuang's tomb.
The security system is incomplete. When opening the imperial mausoleum, a strong security system must be in place, otherwise someone will take advantage of the troubled waters and secretly take away one or two antiquities, which will cause huge losses. But for a place as big as the Imperial Tomb, how many people must be deployed to protect it? And as mentioned before, it would take hundreds of years to dig the imperial tombs, and it is impossible for the country to mobilize so many people to stay here for hundreds of years. This is a complete waste of the country's resources.
The entire mausoleum of Qin Shihuang is located in an earthquake zone. In order to protect cultural relics, active excavation can be carried out. According to historical records, there is a large amount of mercury in the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang, as well as anti-theft mechanisms such as crossbows. These are all uncertain factors.
Duan Qingbo, the leader of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum archaeological team, once said in an interview that the excavation of Qin Shi Huang’s Mausoleum is not difficult as imagined. The difficulty lies in the protection of cultural relics after the excavation, especially the protection of the huge mausoleum, and the specific details. The number and types of cultural relics (different cultural relic protection methods are different).
To fully excavate Qin Shihuang’s mausoleum, it will definitely take a huge amount of time, energy, manpower and financial resources. Not only that, in order to avoid tomb robberies, ancient emperors would also set up tombs in their own mausoleums. Therefore, no one dares to rashly excavate the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang before these problems are solved.