Chapter 47
turn, I kept watch from 1:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m.This bonfire was started by Chen Jian-sheng using a fire starter. There's quite a bit we can burn here, so we collected some already rotten and dried bra..."Dead...it's a skull!" As soon as I touched the two eye sockets, I knew. The sphere contained a skull.
A mole on her face slightly changed color, but she reacted better than I did.
She forced herself to say, "Yun Feng, you're a big man, and you're a tomb robber! What are you afraid of a skull for If Lao Er were here, he would dare to kiss this thing.
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"Get started! I'll take charge!" she said, her brows furrowed as she dove right in.
Because the ball had already been smashed open with a large gash before, this time she didn't have to put much effort in. With just a few hits from a stone, she completely shattered it.
This time I was right, as I guessed before, inside the sphere there's really a human skull.
The skull portion is eroded, and what's strange is that there are some gilded layers on the surface of this skull. These gilded layers are arranged in a pattern, not like writing, but more like some kind of pictorial symbol.
In ancient crafts, I've heard of copper gilding, silver gilding, thin gold inlay, gold and silver filigree, and gold and silver threadwork, but this kind of using gilding on a human skull is something new to me.
The rim of the eye sockets around the skull is gilded with gold, glittering brilliantly, and paired with a pure black skull, creating a rather eerie style.
A mole frowned and said: “When I was providing logistics for a gang from Chengde in my younger years, I saw something similar. However, it wasn't a skull, but a small section of a human finger bone. The leader of that gang told me it dated back to the Spring and Autumn or Warring States period.”
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She looked up at the trapezium-shaped bronze objects on the ceiling and said, "Yunfeng, your aim is good. These things look like there are dozens of them at least. Smash one down for us to study."
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"Well," I nodded in agreement.
This height, I can't even reach it by jumping, so I still used my old method, smashing it with stones. I picked out a particularly big stone for this.
"Bang!"
The first blow connected, the stone and bronze colliding with a clear, resounding clang.
Hearing this sound, my heart already agreed with a previous guess of mine. This row of trapezoidal bronze objects is ninety percent likely to be a set of bells.
"With a bit more strength," a mole raised its head and looked.
"Bang!" That last hit landed solidly.
With a splash, the chime bell fell into the river. A mole had been prepared beforehand, and in less than a minute she fished it out.
After we brought it up, the two of us started researching.
This bronzeware is narrower at the top and wider at the bottom. There are some red and green rust spots on its surface, but aside from that, the waistline, edge line, and cloud-thunder patterns are all very well-defined. This is a genuine piece from the Western Zhou period at first glance.
I weighed it in my hand, and it felt surprisingly light. I could barely lift it with a gentle touch.
"Red Sister, you try it. I don't feel like the weight is right."
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A mole reached out and touched it, "Huh, so light, this isn't bronze"
A mole, older than me, frequented these parts for years. She’d seen more things than I ever had. She tapped the copper bell with her fingernails, dislodging flakes of green rust. It was loose and came off easily with a touch.
Once the rust fell away, the triangular chime inside revealed a gray-black base.
A mole looked at it and frowned, "It's not bronze. This is a good thing. If I'm not mistaken, it should be celestial iron..."
"Iron bell" I stared, incredulous. "Red Sister, ironware during the Western Zhou period No way! Are you sure you haven't got it wrong"
She shook her head. “You didn’t understand. I said celestial iron, not wrought iron. Ironware appeared in the late Spring and Autumn period. To put it simply, celestial iron is meteoric iron, it’s from a meteorite mine.”
No wonder it felt off the moment I started using it.
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A mole said that the trapezoidal chime was made of meteoric iron, and there is indeed evidence for this. A few years ago, in 1996, the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology teamed up with the Sanmenxia Cultural Relics Work Team. They conducted a rescue excavation at the Guokuo tomb site in Shangcunling, Sanmenxia City. In the end, they unearthed two rusty iron swords. These two short swords came from the tomb of Guo Zhong. After X-ray radioisotope analysis, the archaeological team found many unidentified components similar to high concentrations of nickel on the iron swords. Finally, these two swords from the Bronze Age were identified by the national archaeological team as meteoric swords.
"Sister Hong, what do you say This thing is so precious, shouldn't we carry it out" Knowing the value of this ancient bell, a greedy thought arose in my mind.
I thought to myself, “It’s better for me to take it out of this dark and lifeless underground river than to leave it here to go to waste, isn't it”
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She glanced at the antique clock on the ground and felt a twinge of longing.
"It's not too heavy, so let's take it. No one's likely to come down here for another few hundred years," she shook her head, motioning for me to take the chime."
I took off my shirt and twisted it into a rope. I didn't mind the chill, carrying the rope behind my back and bundling it with my clothes. Then, I tied a knot in front of my chest. That was it. I swayed a bit, but it held firm and steady.n one percent of what we had in our Hong Kong lab!"After grumbling for a bit, she continued, "You've already looked over the samples we gave you," she said, pointing to a large monitor. "The data is s...