"How's it going? Have you counted everything clearly?"

"I counted clearly, there are 2291 jade pieces in total."

"However, because the connecting silk threads are easy to decay, this set of silk jade clothes was very scattered when it was unearthed."

"Repairing this set of jade clothes should be much more difficult than repairing the jade clothes with golden threads all over the city."

"I'm afraid it won't be repaired within three to five years."

Chen Han and Professor Li reported on the extraction and cleaning of jade clothes.

There are Han tombs all over the city, that is, the tombs of Liu Sheng, Prince Jing of Zhongshan in the Western Han Dynasty, and his wife Dou Ji.

In this tomb, two sets of jade clothes with gold threads were unearthed.

Among them, Liu Sheng's jade garment uses a total of 2,498 jade pieces and the gold wire weighs 1,100 grams.

Dou Wan's jade garment consists of 2160 jade pieces and the gold wire weighs 700 grams.

The manpower and material resources required to make each set of gold jade clothes are astonishing.

In terms of the number of jade pieces, this set of jade robes worn by the King of Nanyue is similar to the jade robes with gold threads in the Han Dynasty Tombs in Mancheng.

However, not a single gram of gold wire was found.

After all, this is a set of silk jade clothing that is independent of the official jade clothing system of the Han Dynasty.

However, there was only one year between Liu Sheng's death and the demise of the Nanyue Kingdom.

Therefore, the owner of the tomb of the Nanyue King in Guangzhou naturally lived earlier than Liu Sheng.

Therefore, this set of jade clothing is also the earliest set of jade clothing discovered by Chinese archeology.

As an early Yuyi, it is normal that a unified system has not yet been formed.

This jade garment is of course even more precious.

"The tomb of the King of Nanyue has not been disturbed, and the identity of the tomb owner can be verified. It is located on the border of the Han Empire. It is also a rare tomb of princes with different surnames during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty."

"With all these factors combined, the value of this tomb's cultural relics is really too precious."

"It's no wonder that the local government is planning to build a Nanyue cultural base."

"These dozens of jade pieces alone are the best in the tombs of princes and emperors in the past dynasties."

There are really many jade stones in the tomb of the King of Nanyue.

Not only what is inside the coffin, three jade bis and a jade ring were discovered in the middle of the west ear chamber of the Guangzhou Archaeological Site, near the south wall.

In the lacquered wooden box near the north wall, three pieces of jade were also found.

Moreover, a lacquer box was found on the north wall in the middle, containing 43 jade sword ornaments and 4 jade huangs.

Although the foot box, head box and outer coffin have not been cleaned yet, Director Fu also saw jade cups, jade bis, jade boxes, jade belt hooks and other items in the head box.

In the foot box, we also saw jade bis, and at the four corners of the outer coffin, there were four large jade bis that were very conspicuous.

In addition, there are jade pendants and jade plaques in the inner coffin.

It can be seen that Zhao Hu, the king of South Vietnam, really likes jade.

Because except for the jade bi, there are obvious traces of use on other jade objects.

Obviously these jade articles were items he used to use during his lifetime.

This is a relatively rare situation among the tombs of princes and kings from past dynasties that have been excavated.

Even in the tombs of other Western Han princes and kings, more exquisite lacquer wares and a small amount of jade wares were unearthed.

Unlike Zhao Hu, basically all daily necessities are made of jade.

They use jade bowls, jade cups, and jade pots for eating and drinking, and their bodies are covered with jade pendants, jade plaques, jade beads, and jade belt hooks.

Even the accompanying sword must be made of jade to make the sword head and sword decorations!

In comparison, the number of gold vessels is very small.

Apart from the two gold seals, there are only a few gold utensils used for decoration.

For example, some gold leaves are inlaid on the cover, and the gold hook, jade dragon pendant, gold belt hook, and gold beads in the set of jade pendants are all made of gold.

These golds are just embellishments, used to set off the elegance of the jade pendant, rather than as a separate piece of gold.

This can also prove that Zhao Hu is indeed different from other princes and kings in the same period of the Western Han Dynasty.

The Han Dynasty princes and kings in the interior loved gold most. When they were buried, they would almost make all kinds of gold they earned in their lifetime into utensils, or even directly make gold cakes to accompany them.

But in the tomb of Zhao Hu, there are no gold cakes, gold horseshoes and other symbols of wealth at all.

The symbol of his wealth is these countless jade articles!

Not to mention silverware.

Didn't find it at all.

At least Chen Han and the others didn't see a single piece of silverware in the inner coffin.

Among the funerary objects in Xi'er's chamber, there were no objects made of silver.

There was no silverware in the exposed parts of the head box and foot box.

There may be some, but definitely not many, only three or five at most.

There are quite a few bronze and iron wares.

But they are all weapons.

In the outer coffin, most of the funerary objects are weapons made of bronze and iron, ranging from spears and halberds to swords and arrowheads.

But these things are outside the scope of work of Chen Han and others.

It took them a whole day just to clean up the jade pieces in the inner coffin, as well as the jade bis, seals and other items.

The next day, when the archaeological team took over, Kong Jianwen took Lin Ya and three researchers from the Guangzhou Institute of Archeology to take over the cleaning work of the main tomb chamber and began to clean the outer coffin, head and foot boxes.

Let’s not talk about the weapons stuffed in the outer coffin for now.

These weapons are common and typical weapons from the late Warring States Period to the Qin and Han Dynasties. They are numerous and not too rare.

But the cleaning of the foot box and head box gave Kong Jianwen and others a lot of surprises.

First of all, the silverware that Chen Han and Professor Li had been obsessed with but not discovered before was finally discovered.

It is a silver box, unearthed from the foot box.

The reason why I say it is a surprise.

It's because the style of this silver box is not the traditional Chinese gold and silverware, but has an obvious exotic style and characteristics!

This is a petal-patterned silver box.

The so-called "valve pattern", simply put, means that the body of the vessel looks like a peeled mangosteen or an unpeeled sugar apple.

The small box is filled with a bunch of "petal-by-petal" patterns, which look like the skin of a sugar apple.

This kind of silver box with petal patterns has been found in some large tombs of the Han Dynasty before.

Not only are they made of silver, but they are also made of copper.

However, among the silver boxes with petal patterns unearthed so far, the numbers on each silver box are different.

For example, there are 17 silver boxes with petal patterns unearthed from the Han Dynasty Tomb in Chaohu, AH.

There are 17 silver boxes with petal patterns unearthed from the Han tomb in Linzi, Shandong.

There are 24 silver boxes with petal patterns unearthed from the Han Dynasty Tomb in Dayunshan, Jiangsu Province.

The petal-patterned silver box unearthed from the tomb of the King of Nanyue has 26 petals.

In academic circles, it is generally believed that this is a style of silverware that comes from Persia, rather than something developed in China.

The reason is that this silver box is very similar in appearance to the petal silver bowl produced in Persia.

Moreover, this kind of silver box only appeared in tombs of the Han Dynasty.

Moreover, this kind of silver box with petal pattern does not form a unified style.

Unlike other lacquered wood or bronze wares of the Han Dynasty, they all have a unified style and are made in batches.

The petal patterns on the silver boxes are all different in number on different unearthed silver boxes. They are obviously not produced by one workshop, and may only be sporadically imported from other places.

Finally, after the Han Dynasty, this kind of silver box with petal patterns disappeared quickly, and no real objects appeared again.

This shows that this kind of silver box may have been brought to the Han Empire from the distant Middle East by merchants along the Silk Road and sold to high-ranking nobles of the Han Dynasty.

The petal-patterned silver box found in the tomb of the King of Nanyue is also the earliest one discovered by archeology.

Even when King Zhao Hu of South Vietnam passed away, the Silk Road was not yet open.

Although Zhang Qian had already dug through the Western Region at that time, the Western Region was still under the control of the Xiongnu at that time. Zhang Qian had to sneak around and go around to reach the Western Region.

For the time being, merchants in the Western Regions were unable to conduct large-scale trade with the Han Dynasty.

Really smooth trade did not begin until Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty in his later years. It was not until Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty that the Silk Road truly prospered.

In other words, the petal-patterned silver box found in Zhao Hu's tomb may have been imported from the Indian Ocean and flowed into Panyu via shipping, not through the Silk Road!
Chapter completed!