Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

After switching to the probe, the search speed suddenly slowed down a lot. Fortunately, the grass area was not that big, so when it was time to have lunch, they successfully found something unusual.

The first person to notice something was wrong was Jeanne. When she inserted the probe in her hand into the soil again, she felt that the top of the probe touched something hard.

At first, she thought she had just encountered a certain stone as before, but after checking it with the probe in her hand, she realized that the thing below should not be the stone she encountered before.

Because this was a small island located in the center of the lake, the soil on the hillside naturally became soft because it absorbed a lot of water. In just ten minutes, Joan of Arc dug a pit more than half a meter deep.

After realizing that she was less than 10cm away from the thing that her probe had just touched, she quickly put down the big shovel in her hand, then lay on the edge of the shallow pit full of mud and took out a plastic shovel to clean up the bottom of the pit bit by bit. soil.

"I think I dug a stone statue." After digging a few shovels, he suddenly jumped up and said to Liang En next to him.

"What?" After hearing Joan's shout, Liang En and the three of them immediately moved forward, and saw a white stone under the big pit.

After carefully digging out the stone, everyone found that it was part of a white marble statue. Although it was only a small part of the statue, it could still be seen that it was probably the remains of a humanoid statue's hand.

"It seems that there is indeed something hidden here." Liang En carefully inspected the fragments of the statue, "This is marble from Carrara, and statues that can be made from this marble are basically high-quality."

Carrara marble is named after the small city of Carrara at the foot of the Apuan Alps. This city is known as the "Hometown of White Marble" and "The Capital of Marble" and is a world-famous marble trading and processing center.

But when it comes to the history of stone mining, it can even be traced back to ancient Rome. Even the name of the city, Carrara, means "stone mine" in Latin.

The earliest marble buildings in history actually appeared in Greece, which is an example of the Greeks using local resources. This custom spread to the entire Mediterranean with the colonization of the ancient Greeks.

Later, with the rise of the Roman Empire, Roman sculptors began to search for mineral veins around their capital. As a result, Carrara's marble veins were discovered on the Italian peninsula, and they were called Luni (Carrara's name at the time) marble.

Carrara marble began to be widely used in Roman buildings, eventually replacing Greek marble that had to be shipped thousands of miles to obtain.

At that time, the ancient Romans paid high prices to quarry the stones here in order to build landmark buildings of imperial power: the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Temple of the Sun at Baalbek, etc.

The founding emperor of ancient Rome, Gaius Octavian Augustus, once proudly announced that he inherited a stone city but left behind a marble city.

Of course, the emperor's statement was just propaganda. In history, it was the recognized tyrant Nero who truly marbleized the city of Rome on a large scale. However, due to well-known reasons, it was difficult for everyone to publicize it.

In the 13th century, the sculptor Nicola Pisano used Carrara marble to create the seats of the local baptistery and the seat of the cathedral. Since then, many art masters have followed suit, vying to choose this marble as the raw material for their creations.

In the 16th century, Michelangelo also used Carrara marble to create the "Statue of David" and "Lamentation of Christ", which made Carrara marble even more famous.

"From the beaches of any of the nearby towns, you can clearly see the snow-capped marble tops."

More than 500 years ago, the young Michelangelo Buonarroti sighed like this when he moved with his father to this small city of Carrara at the foot of the Apuan Alps.

Michelangelo, known as one of the three masters of Renaissance art, was a key figure in making Carrara marble famous around the world. His sculptures, such as the famous David, were made of Carrara marble.

He came here with his father, a stonemason, who owned a mine here since he was a child, and was deeply exposed to the mine, which also became an opportunity for him to learn sculpture.

But it really became famous around the world after World War II. Since the 1950s, Carrara marble miners have traveled to other places to carry out trading activities.

On the one hand, it is to export local marble, and on the other hand, it is to import other stone materials, such as onyx, black marble, etc. Suddenly, Carrara became a stone market, and it became increasingly international.

Even in the far East, you can see many advertisements linking Carrara marble with high-end. Of course, the price is several times more expensive than domestic marble.

The reason why this kind of marble is favored is also very simple. Unlike other marbles, this kind of marble has a slightly rough structure, with a sugar-like structure. It is easier to cut than other marbles, and it is obviously very delicate after polishing.

But this also caused many problems for Liang En and his team's excavation. The most important one was that the structure of this kind of marble sculpture was more fragile, so it would break more seriously after encountering external force collision.

Because the people present were Liang En and his friends, with the help of extraordinary power, they dug out nearly a hundred cubic meters of soil before dark, and found hundreds of white marble fragments from it.

"A very important discovery. These fragments obviously come from 3 to 4 life-size humanoid sculptures, and they are very beautiful purely from the perspective of carving technology. They can definitely be called exquisite works of art."

Looking at the white marble fragments that had been sorted and put together, Liang En quickly found some important clues from these wreckage.

"More importantly, during the excavation we found that the soil was obviously filled in later. At the same time, we found a stone wall on the other side of the pit, and there were traces of artificial carvings on the stone wall."

"Compared to these sculptures, I think artificial traces should be paid more attention to." Elizabeth said at this time, "Because this means that there is likely to be some artificial space below."

"I only support part of your point of view." Mary said, walking to the edge of the pile of debris, and then pointed to one of the fragments. “There are some very famous people in these sculptures.”

She pointed at a stone disk with hand sculptures, and then spoke seriously. "For example, this should be the famous sculpture of the discus thrower."

"To be precise, it should be a replica of the discus maker. The original version of this sculpture is made of bronze." Liang En naturally recognized what this sculpture was because this sculpture was so famous.

"Because of this thing, I am now more interested in the possible space under the pit. Think about it, what can be put together with these famous sculptures from ancient Rome will definitely be beyond our expectations."