Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

The moment they heard the metal detector's alarm, Liang En and the others became excited, then waved their shovels and started digging.

Unfortunately, the results were not optimistic. At least in the first dozen times, what was dug out were things like nails and iron sheets. There was nothing except these scrap metals.

But this is also expected. After all, there have been human activities in this area all year round. It is not so strange to leave a series of metals behind.

Others present didn't feel anything was wrong. After all, archeology can also be regarded as a process of constant trial and error. Finding garbage like this can be said to be very common.

Finally, when another metal detector went off, something that had never been seen before appeared under their digging tools: a golden light leaking from a piece of soil.

After gently scraping away the layer of soil with the small bamboo knife they carried, Liang En and the others discovered that this thing should be a piece of gold foil. Unfortunately, after such a long time, the gold foil had turned into a ball under the pressure of the soil. gold.

Obviously, the next work was not something that Liang En and the others could do with the simple tools they carried, so they quickly brought the ball of gold to the wooden house at the previous construction site.

Because of the discovery of cultural relics on the construction site, the construction project that was originally planned to start was also stopped. However, the previously built batch of prefabricated houses for the workers were left, just enough for the archaeological team to use.

It's just that this board house is not used to live in people. Instead, it contains a series of temporarily brought equipment, including some equipment used to protect and restore cultural relics. Liang En is also here to find those professionals. Complete repair.

"The situation inside this gold foil is a bit complicated, and we may not be able to fix it here." After watching Liang En show his findings, the young staff member in the room inspected it and said.

"But Mr. Liang, you don't have to worry. This work is relatively simple for those with specialized equipment, and gold is very flexible, so it only takes two or three days to complete the repair work."

"Okay, then I'll leave it to you." Liang En said and signed a series of documents in accordance with the regulations to complete the handover work, and then handed the small box containing extruded gold foil to the other party.

The rest of the time was just waiting, but during this waiting process, Liang En and the others were not idle, but started excavation work on the construction site.

But then I felt that the speed suddenly slowed down, because after those gadgets were dug out, it became difficult to dig out everything else.

To give the simplest example, all the ivory tusks discovered before are now sitting at the bottom of the pit, because it is very difficult to dig out ivory.

This is mainly because over a long period of time, most of the ivory has been completely corroded, leaving only the hardest part of the outer layer, the enamel, still remaining.

So the actual situation of these ivory is that it has been broken into countless pieces as Liang En and the others saw before. Therefore, it is definitely not a simple matter to dig out these things.

Some other bronzes also have the same problem. Long-term burial underground has caused severe corrosion on these bronzes, so they must be treated before they can continue to be excavated.

After waiting anxiously for two days, Liang Engang received a call on the morning of the third day when he was about to go from the hotel to the excavation site, asking him to go to the local archaeological department to visit the piece of gold foil that had been cleaned up just early yesterday morning.

"This is the ball of gold foil we sent before." After seeing the gold foil sandwiched between the glass plates, Jeanne showed a surprised expression, because this thing was very different from before.

"Yes, Your Excellency the Viscount." The person who came to guide them was a professional receptionist, so he said to Joan of Arc very seriously.

"This is the previous gold foil. We now name this piece of gold foil "Sun Bird" gold foil. The gold foil decoration has an outer diameter of 12.5 cm, an inner diameter of 5.29 cm, a thickness of 0.02 cm, and a weight of 20 grams."

"From the appearance point of view, the outline of the gold foil is circular, and the pattern is divided into two layers, the inner and outer layers, both of which adopt a transparent form. The inner layer pattern is twelve arc-shaped tooth-like awns distributed equally, and the awns are arranged in order. Clockwise rotation.”

"The outer pattern is composed of four equidistantly spaced birds. The birds are all flying with their necks stretched out, their legs extended, and their wings spread. The direction of flight is opposite to the rotation direction of the inner pattern."

“We can see that on the red substrate, the inner pattern of the gold ornament resembles a rotating fireball or the sun, and the bird in the outer pattern is easily reminiscent of the sun-carrying bird in ancient myths and legends. This is why everyone named it the "Sun Bird" gold foil."

"This naming is more rigorous." Liang En nodded while looking at this familiar piece of gold foil. "I think this should be a kind of worship of the sun in the early days of Chinese civilization."

Since the sun plays a vital role in human survival and reproduction, our ancestors naturally had a sense of reverence and worship for the sun. Among various primitive worship concepts, the most widespread is sun worship.

However, the traditional worship of the sun in China is not very obvious. At least in the traditional Central Plains region, there are not many things related to sun worship at all. The sun worship of this ancient Shu civilization is a rare exception in China. .

At the same time, the findings from previous archaeological work proved that there was a very prominent concept of bird worship and bird totem in the ancient Shu civilization, and this worship was integrated with sun worship and sun mythology and was reflected on this gold foil .

"Yes, after all, the pattern on it is very clear. Although everyone may have other guesses, this point can still be recognized by most people." said the accompanying staff member.

"Actually, I think this piece of gold foil is also an example of the communication between the civilizations of the Central Plains and Shu in ancient times." Liang En thought for a while and said, "Of course, this is just my guess, and there may not be evidence -"

"It's okay, please tell me." After hearing what Liang En said, the staff immediately took out their mobile phones and turned on the recording function, and then made a gesture of listening carefully.

"That's right. I think this piece of gold foil not only expresses worship to the sun god, but the makers and users of the gold foil ornaments may also use it to show that they are the emperor who "made the four birds" mentioned in the "Shan Hai Jing" The descendants of them show their kinship with Di Jun, the incarnation of the Golden Crow in ancient sun myths and legends, and Shiri, the son of Xihe."

Liang En quickly expressed his guess. In his opinion, the pattern on this piece of gold foil is likely to be connected with the records of the famous work "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" in Chinese history.

Although mainstream archaeologists now tend to believe that "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" was roughly written by the Chu or Bashu people from the mid-to-late Warring States Period to the early to mid-Han Dynasty, it is undeniable that this book was not written at one time, and the author was not one person.

In other words, many older legends and stories are likely to come from an older era, and the pattern recorded on this piece of gold foil is likely to be an early record of the legend of Emperor Jun.