While waiting for the arrival of the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences, the Guangzhou Institute of Archeology did not do nothing.

After three days of investigation, local archaeologists basically figured out the structure and scale of the tomb. With the help of the construction site, they built a rainproof basin to protect the tomb.

In fact, the tomb passage they led people from the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences to see was only a little bit of the entrance.

At the construction site at that time, the tomb chamber's capping stone slab was dug out directly.

Generally, tombs in the Qin and Han Dynasties are in the shape of "Jia".

The horizontal line below "A" is the tomb passage, which is used for construction workers to carry mounds of earth up and down.

Generally speaking, the tomb passage leads directly to the ground. It is enough to backfill the tomb passage after the construction of the tomb chamber is completed.

In order to prevent theft, many people backfill all kinds of strange things in the tomb passages.

Some people are so stupid that they build a fake tomb in the tomb passage and place the real tomb underneath the fake tomb.

However, in the actual archaeological excavation process, it is rare to actually dig along the tomb passage.

The entire soil layer is cleared directly from top to bottom.

As the soil is cleared, tomb passages filled with soil of different colors will naturally be cleared out.

As for tomb robbers, they always dig a hole directly into the tomb.

Regardless of whether they are serious or not, they basically do not go to the tomb passage.

Especially this time during the excavation of Xianggang, 20 meters of soil were directly removed, and a piece of land of 7,000 square meters was carved out.

The tomb passages have basically been demolished.

Only a section of the tomb passage close to the level of the tomb chamber remains.

That is the corridor in front of the tomb door.

"The existing tomb entrance is 10.46 meters horizontally long, 2.50 meters wide near the tomb door, 2.36 meters wide at the southern end, and 3.22 meters deep from the current surface."

"The long sides of the east and west sides are basically straight, the upper opening is slightly wider than the bottom, the two walls are slightly sloping, the wall is not very smooth, and there are many pits formed by collapse, indicating that there was a slight collapse of the tomb passage wall after the excavation.

Phenomenon."

The staff of the Guangzhou Institute of Archeology are introducing the situation to everyone at the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences in detail.

"The remaining tomb passages are ten meters long? It is indeed the tomb of a king..." Zhuang Yunpeng murmured in surprise.

"The tomb passage that is ten meters long has an inclination of just over 3 meters. If you want to build it to the ground, the tomb passage must not be 70 or 80 meters long?"

It does not mean that the height difference between the ground and the tomb is 20 meters, but the tomb passage is only 20 meters.

The ones that go straight up and down are not called tomb passages, they are called wells!

If you want to be able to walk around and build stairs, the tomb passage must be built at an angle.

Just like the subway passage you usually take when taking the subway, it is built diagonally downwards.

"Now that everyone is here, the excavation work will officially start tomorrow."

"Let's clear out the tomb passage first."

Zhai Heng, deputy director of the Guangdong Institute of Archeology, clapped his hands and said.

Kong Jianwen and Professor Li are doing their best, and everyone does not need to take a few extra days of rest to get back to work tomorrow.

...

The next day, several crane trucks took the lead in heading to the excavation site.

Local archaeologists had already investigated it clearly before.

This tomb passage, which is about ten meters long, is not only filled with earth, but also has a layer of stone filling.

The height of the stone filling is level with the ground surface when the tomb was discovered.

In other words, these fill stones must be removed first before everyone can clean up the fill soil below.

There are a total of eighteen pieces of stone filling, 16 of which are filled near the tomb door, seemingly to block the door.

The last two pieces are seven meters away from the tomb door and are already at the upper part of the slope of the tomb passage. They seem to be meant to block the entrance of the tomb.

This made the archaeologists on site very curious about the seven-meter space from the tomb door to the tomb passage.

The front is blocked and the back is blocked, which means something must be buried in the middle!

You must know that this ten-meter remaining tomb passage is only a part of the original tomb passage, only one-seventh of the length of the original tomb passage.

It was preserved just because it was closest to the tomb gate.

So, why is there a section of the tomb passage closest to the tomb door that is specially blocked?

If we say that inside the tomb door is the tomb of the Nanyue King, it is also his underground palace.

So will he arrange some "guards" to guard his palace at the door?

Thinking of this, every archaeological worker on site became excited.

After more than a dozen pieces of filling stone were removed, more than 30 archaeological workers from three archaeological institutes immediately devoted themselves to cleaning up the tomb passage.

Chen Han also squatted on the east wall of the tomb passage, holding a shovel and shoveling dirt out.

While shoveling the soil, he would reach out from time to time to take some filling soil, rub it in his hands, rub it, and smell it.

And also exchange information with other people.

"Well, all the filling soil is yellow-brown clay."

"This shows that the entire tomb passage should be backfilled at once, and the amount of work is not small."

Chen Han rubbed the filling soil with his hands and sighed in his heart.

There are no traces of the filling soil being disturbed. Looking at the bright side, this means that no one has ever re-excavated the tomb after it was backfilled.

This shows that this tomb has not been robbed!

It is not easy to find a large tomb from the Qin and Han Dynasties that has not been stolen...

I haven’t seen Zhao Yingqi’s tomb. It was dug up at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

In this way, for the whole day, more than 30 people squatted beside the tomb passage, busy cleaning the tomb passage.

In one day, everyone dug down 2.7 meters and cleared half of the tomb passage.

In the fill soil, some remaining cord-patterned tiles were gradually discovered.

Some of these remaining tiles are decorated with dot patterns, while others are plain.

Qin bricks and Han tiles.

When the Nanyue Kingdom existed, it happened to be the Western Han Dynasty in the Central Plains.

It seems that the advanced tiles from the Western Han Dynasty were also circulated to the South Vietnam Kingdom through trade routes, and were used by the South Vietnam monarch to fill the tomb passages.

This should be considered a luxury at the time.

However, apart from the tiles, no one has found anything else yet.

After the excavation work ended in the afternoon, Chen Han also received a task to survey and map the longitudinal section of the tomb passage filled with stone and soil.

An archaeologist who does not want to be a good painter is not a good archaeologist.

Anyone who studies archeology must also study surveying and mapping.

Like civil engineering, archaeological engineering is also inseparable from surveying and mapping.

The size, shape, and style of the tomb all require surveying and mapping.

The size, shape, and style of the unearthed objects also need to be drawn.

These will be compiled into excavation briefing archive records later.

When Chen Han was studying in the first two months, he followed Kong Jianwen and had been drawing simple sketches of the cultural relics unearthed from the Wenfeng Pagoda Cemetery.

He also complained a lot.

Nowadays, we have the technology to take photos and keep records. Why bother to rely on hand painting anymore? No matter how good the painting is, the photos can be clearer and more straightforward...

But he had nowhere to say this.

Nowadays, archaeologists in China, or rather around the world, are still drawing pictures purely by hand.

However, by the next day, he had no intention of complaining anymore.

Because during the cleaning process of the tomb passage, cultural relics that point to the Eight Sutras were finally found!

－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
Chapter completed!