Why the last thing archaeologists want to see is mineral water bottles?

This question is simple. Archaeologists not only don't want to see mineral water bottles, but also don't want to see all kinds of things that don't match the time of the tomb owner. As long as these litter and rubbish appear, it means that this tomb must have been visited by grave robbers.

Perhaps it is because of some recent film and television dramas about tomb raiding that the story of tomb raiding has been mythologized and whitewashed, but at the beginning, the ancestors of the protagonist were forced to embark on the road of tomb raiding because of their special life, whether it was blowing lanterns or taking notes on tomb raiding. Moreover, at first, they were in awe of the tomb owner. They took one or two utensils and left without damaging or destroying the owner's body everywhere.

But is the actual grave robber like this? Of course not! Grave robbers only want money, don't ask what cultural relics are not. In the past, most grave robbers didn't know a few words, only knew that gold, silver and jade were valuable and destroyed the most archaeological calligraphy and painting books. They didn't have it until recent years. What has words is valuable? This concept. In order to get a good price, some grave robbers even deliberately filed off the words on bronzes, which made us lose many opportunities for direct dialogue with history.

In the early years of Western Jin Dynasty, there was a grave robber named "No". No bid? An ancient tomb has been excavated. The owner of this tomb is a scholar. There are no gold, silver and jewels in the tomb, only bamboo slips. Grave robbers turned these bamboo slips upside down and even picked them up and burned them for lighting.

Fortunately, the remaining bamboo slips were loyal to the Emperor Wudi of the Jin Dynasty at that time, and they were ordered to carefully study and sort them out, so that the later bamboo books were compiled. This is just an example of being rescued. I don't know how many famous works and paintings have been destroyed by grave robbers in history, and our descendants simply don't know.

Some people think that archaeology is a blatant robbery, which is a joke. Archaeologists will pay attention to the protection of objects that have no collection value but are useful for understanding the tomb owner and his time. The historical value of each object will be used to prove history. Grave robbers steal items with collectible value, and those without collectible value will not be protected. To rob a tomb is to destroy the history contained in the objects in the tomb. To be exact, one is to protect culture and the other is to destroy it.

Besides Guo Moruo's exotic flowers and herbs, basically modern archaeologists dig tombs in a rescue way. Archaeologists wouldn't have taken the initiative to dig a big tomb if they hadn't been robbed by grave robbers or were about to face huge construction. National Cultural Heritage Administration is cautious about the excavation of ancient tombs, and only a few people approved the active excavation within one year, most of which were city sites.

Out of awe and respect for history, grave robbers cannot be confused with archaeologists at all. Do you think it's a joke that archaeologists are knowledgeable, familiar with geography and have to go on field trips all the year round? They all shoulder the mission of studying and proving historical events.

Maybe it's just a piece of China in the grave. Archaeologists will spend a lot of energy to find the same piece and repair it into a vase in order to prove the production date and technology. For grave robbers, these fragments are just rubbish, and the complicated work of restoring cultural relics seems to the grave robbers to be full and idle.

Finally, I hope everyone will respect our archaeologists, and don't always say that people dig ancestral graves, and then wait until the national treasure is exposed in Britain or France, and then say that our cultural relics bureau is useless. In fact, what archaeologists do most in a year is to clean up the mess of grave robbers and businessmen. They hate the destruction of ancient tombs more than anyone else.