Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

The reason for confirming the identity of the Buddha statue is very simple, because there were enough photos of the Buddha statue when it was destroyed, and the Buddha statue inside is the top priority, so just simple correspondence can figure it out.

At the same time, this Buddha statue is part of the missing copper hall, so if there are no accidents, we should be able to find clues about the missing copper hall through this bronze statue.

However, clues are clues. Whether it can be found still requires further research. Such a bronze statue cannot be found even with cards. After all, it is difficult to determine the time. If you want to trace it, it will most likely be traced back to China.

Fortunately, Liang En had made corresponding preparations before this, so as the vehicle drove, they quickly arrived at an abandoned farm on the outskirts of the city, and then moved the Buddha statue into the barn.

This farm was rented by Elizabeth in advance for one year at a time to prepare for the next operation. At the same time, for Liang En's convenience, a series of equipment for cleaning and maintenance of cultural relics was prepared on the farm.

Because I was in a hurry before, this pile of things was standard second-hand goods, bought directly from a closed antique store. Fortunately, it was second-hand, and the quality was still good.

More importantly, Liang En often chooses to repair cards in this situation. This pile of things is only used for cover and is generally not used.

After the helping workers left, Liang En began to study the Buddha statue he had obtained. Soon, he found some traces of welding at the bottom of the lotus seat of the Buddha statue.

"Did you find any problems?" Looking at Liang En with his head buried in inspecting the lotus seat of the Buddha statue, Jeanne asked curiously, "Did you see any abnormal signs?"

"Yes, there are indeed abnormal traces." Liang En nodded and pointed at the welding traces he was looking at just now. "There's something wrong with this weld mark."

"Is there a problem?" Jeanne stepped forward to look at it curiously, then frowned: "Aren't these marks left by the classical welding method you told me before? It is not electric welding, so there should be no problem."

"No, no, no, it's not just electric welding that has problems." Liang En pointed at the base and said, "Buddha statues of such a large size in China are basically hollow. There is often a hole at the bottom, but there is absolutely no copper plate at the bottom to block the hole. practice."

Although many people today refer to welding as electric welding, it is a very modern thing. But that's not actually the case. Taking China as an example, local welding technology was invented in the late Western Zhou Dynasty and was widely used during the Warring States Period.

Before the Spring and Autumn Period, lead-tin soldering was mainly used. Copper soldering was invented in the early Warring States Period, and records of silver soldering first appeared in the Ming Dynasty. Records about amalgam welding are relatively late, but judging from the excavated cultural relics, this technology was invented not too late.

The main slag-forming flux for welding in ancient China was borax, and in addition, slag-forming flux was also used. There are about three specific operations of welding: high-temperature pour welding, high-temperature spot welding, and amalgam bonding welding.

The article "Hammer Forging and Treating Copper" in Volume 10 of Yingxing's "Tiangong Kaiwu" of the Ming Dynasty and Song Dynasty says: "Those who use tin powder are called small hammers, and those who use ring copper powder are called big hammers. , wash away the rice in water, and keep the copper powder, otherwise it will be scattered). If you are guarding silverware, use red copper powder."

This "sounding copper" means the copper used to make sounding instruments (percussion instruments), that is, high-tin bronze. The small welding using "tin powder" is about the same as today's soft soldering, and its strength is lower; the "big welding" using copper powder is about the same as today's hard soldering brazing, and its strength is slightly higher.

The technique used on this current Buddha statue is to use "big welding" with copper powder. Even because copper is used as the solder, it can't even be seen that it is blocked by a copper plate after the treatment.

The reason why Liang En discovered it was because he felt that the weight would never be solid after getting started. Then he discovered the problem at the bottom of the Buddha statue during the search and used his extraordinary power to discover the structure inside.

Sure enough, the other party sealed the statue with a copper plate not just for free, but to use the statue to hide some information, because he found some carved marks on the inner wall.

As for the cavity being filled with a large amount of organic matter, since he had never seen these things before, he could not tell what was stuffed inside.

Fortunately, for Liang En, there are some things that he is good at in the next work. For example, he can now take out the contents completely without damaging anything inside.

This is the reason why he drove away everyone except Joan of Arc before. After all, it is better not to let outsiders see the use of extraordinary power.

With the output of the legendary power, the solder previously used to connect the bottom cover and the upper bronze Buddha body gradually melted and flowed to the side, and then the entire bottom fell off.

"This thing doesn't look like it was made after World War II," he said when he took the bottom out from under the Buddha statue and really looked at the bronze that had turned brown. "It looks like an old thing."

After finishing speaking, Joan of Arc bent the index finger of her left hand and tapped it hard against the copper base. As a result, a crisp sound came from the base.

"You're right, this thing is indeed an old thing." After hearing the crisp impact, Liang En, who was attracted, raised the copper plate and observed it carefully.

Sure enough, this is no ordinary piece of copper. But a piece of high-tin bronze. Under normal circumstances, this kind of bronze ratio is often used on percussion instruments made of metal, and it does not belong to the common bronze ratio.

Based on careful observation, Liang En realized that these things were most likely an ancient gong, which was deliberately cut into this shape and welded to the bottom of the Buddha statue.

It must be said that this is indeed a very high-level approach. At least even the previous antique shop did not see the problem inside, but subconsciously felt that the bottom cover and the Buddha statue itself were one.

This is why no one has discovered the secret here. Of course, for antique shops, the reason why they admit their mistakes is purely because they don’t know much about Eastern cultural relics.

After all, Americans value European cultural relics and even flaunt their status and wealth by collecting those European cultural relics.

And if you cannot find European cultural relics, there is no problem with American cultural relics. Even some Coke cans and Coke bottles that are worthless to foreigners can be sold for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

As for Chinese cultural relics, although they are said to be very expensive in many places, in fact they only regard them as financial investments or even financial speculation. There are only a small number of people who truly like Chinese culture from the bottom of their hearts.

Therefore, many times some relatively local antique shops do not know much about non-native, non-European cultural relics, and even some Eastern European cultural relics.

From a certain perspective, this also shows a special arrogance of the Anglo-Saxons: they took ancient Greek and ancient Roman culture as their own, and at the same time belittled those contents related to themselves while touting them. other civilizations.