2,000-year-old heirloom sword

Hubei Provincial Museum, China, some time ago showing off the sword of the ruler Goujian Yue. "Sword Wahid Phone in the World" that has over 2,000 years old but still stay sharp and not rusted, but the question is how he could appear in the Chu royal tomb?


Actually, he was as a war prize or the State of Chu in the form of innate mating mas concubine Chu ruler Shaowang? Everything was completely mysterious.


Ages 2000 Years Still Not Sharp and Rustic
Hong.net According to the news, on one evening in December 1965, the grave number 1 - Chu Mount Jianglingwang - Hubei province is tense-strained conducted excavations. When workers archaeological very carefully opened the coffin the corpse, quite unexpectedly on the left frame remains visible bronze sword still stuck in the wooden scabbard covered with paint.


At the time the officer pull the sword from its sheath, accompanied a beam of cold light of a rather meyilaukan eyes, everyone in the place stunned. One other officer was inadvertently scratched his finger injury and blood flow did not seem to stop. One other officers again tried sharpness with 16 layers of paper, so use less energy, stacks of paper all torn truncated.


Sword of bronze sheen has size: length 55.7 cm, width 4.6 cm, 8.4 cm long and the handle, the handle end of a round-shaped plate on the inner circle there are 11 rows of circles with fine carvings, delicate to the point there that resembles a hair.


Sword Grid (the protective hand between the handle and blade), slightly protruding out of the front side of the granules attached turkis blue crystal framed in stone, though in the dark cool mysterious glow. In the body there are sword-shaped black diamond texture that is incredibly beautiful.


The most exciting part of experts is on hand protectors are engraved two lines of script style Niaozhuan. The number of characters that there are 8 pieces, an expert on the location of the site can only be revealed at that time among the six characters: "Yue Zuo Yong Wang Zhi Jian = sword belongs to the king of Yue homemade."


deputy chief of general museum Hubei Province, Wan Quanwen said, " Two characters in the middle that shows the person's name, based on repeated study of the ancient Chinese language expert researchers, new figures revealed that one of the most legendary in the history of China namely: Goujian (the ruler of Yue) ".


Chance Wedding Gift


How Goujian sword the ruler landed in the tomb of Yue Chu, this mystery can not be revealed until now. Estimated Qianwen Wan: "State of Wu and Yue Chu with've fought a few times. There is a possibility King of Chu was then presented the sword to one of his high officials of confidence. "


Meanwhile, another point of view assumes that the bamboo roller (red.: age before the invention of paper using a roll of bamboo as a media / pad) that were unearthed from the tomb shows , there remains the possibility of great nobility during the era ruler named Chu Shao Hua Huaiwang so it's possible to switch to sword Goujian Chu State through a wedding gift items.


According to the record book of ancient history, relations between the two countries since the time of Chu and Yue Yun Chang (Yue ruler) has been began to close, they have allied in a period, the ruler of Chu Chu Zhaowang never marry the daughter of Goujian as his concubine and gave birth to Chu Huiwang.


Therefore, sophisticated bronze sword it is possible as one of his daughter's wedding gift items and thus have changed hands to the State of Chu, and then present it to the ruler of Chu Shao Hua. After Shao Hua's death, the sword is part buried in the tomb.


Three For Rustic No Sword 

Sword of King Yue Goujian have gone through a time tunnel for 2,000 years, but did not show signs of rust. Whether the cause was not until the rust? The experts think, it was primarily made ​​possible by the sword circumstances are saved.


Qianwen Wan explains, copper content of about 80-83% Goujian swords, tin content of 16-17%, but it also contained some levels of lead and iron. Copper as a major part of bronze sword it is a kind of non-active metals, the situation daily conditions are not easily corroded.


Second, off-site conditions Goujian sword: Tomb buried below ground as deep as several feet, a hole filled two coffins , the wall around the tomb of using such a mud hole with the quality of fine white solid, which is called the world of archeology as a white paste of mud plaster, mud bottom use white paste was washed and filtered manually, the adhesive is very good.


Plus the top of the burrow tomb filled with a dense soil, the factors that make the tomb that nearly becomes an airtight chamber, so many layers of impermeable that basically has insulate tomb chamber with the atmosphere from outer space. Modern science and technology research states: under conditions of total insulated from oxygen, although in ordinary liquid water or acid water, iron and steel will not rust.


In addition, Chu tomb at Mount Wang no.1 is located on the embankment of the river dry Zhang in near the modern city of Jinzhou, the underground water level is rather high, the tomb chamber in a long time had also submerged by water, the acidic nature of the underground water is not great, basically tends to neutral, as evidenced by a large number of equipment / artifacts of wood with a beautiful paint coated storage condition is rather good. After submerged underground water, the air inside the tomb chamber is also shrunk a lot.


Goujian Regarding whether the sword is still as sharp as when dug out, Wan Qianwen states: "after that never again do such a test."


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