The tomb of the king in the pyramid of Khufu has five layers of weight reduction chambers on the top, which can withstand the huge weight above, otherwise the mummy of Pharaoh Khufu is estimated to be smashed flat by the huge boulder that weighs down from above before the tomb robbers can patronize.

The vertical passage of the mastaba tomb in front of me is about nine meters deep, how much does the tamped sand on top weigh it?

Zhang Nan is not very good at mathematics, but he thinks that there should be more than 70 tons - at the point, if it is only separated by a tiled slate, how thick will it be to ensure that the slate does not break?

Zhang Nan can't figure out this physicist's math problem, so he has to be an expert. It doesn't matter if Zhang Nan can only dig, not build, and the designers and builders of the tombs can't be like him, and they must solve this problem.

The ancients 4,600 years ago could have thought of and solved such a professional mathematical problem, and then thought about the weight loss room in the Pyramid of Khufu, I really don't know how the brains of ancient Egyptian engineers at that time grew!

What are people from other parts of the world doing besides the ancient Egyptians?

It has developed to the stage of clan society, and most of them are estimated to be still wearing animal skins, as for the tombs, it is estimated that they are still buried directly wrapped in animal skins, and they don't even know what the coffin is, and the ancient Egyptians used weight loss rooms.

It really hurts without comparison!

Fortunately, Zhang Nan doesn't have to envy the current Egyptians, because they really have little to do with the ancient Egyptians, and they are fundamentally different things.

....

The mastaba in front of him is not a tomb of the pharaoh, but only a burial tomb for officials, although the level is not low, it is estimated that it is not enough like the king's mastaba tomb, and he directly put down the matter with a giant door sealing stone weighing dozens of tons.

The strength of the sealing stone is not enough, and the method of adding a weight reduction plate is obviously a good idea - or because of weight and class, such a mastaba tomb cannot be committed with the complex weight reduction chamber structure in the pyramid, two quartz stone slabs can be done with a cross on the top.

However, it is difficult to say that the bottom of the weight reduction plate is directly under the burial chamber or there are other structures, which need to remove two huge and thick weight reduction plates.

The work was not easy to do at night, and the miners needed to lift two weight-reducing plates together, otherwise it would not be good to smash them: the weight had to be recalculated and replaced with a more load-bearing tripod and pulley.

Take your time and don't rush.

Besides, this time it was also archaeology, and even the sealed soil of the tomb dug up by the miners was not directly dumped, but needed to be screened and inspected by William Brin's team to see if there were any first-class cultural relics in it.

As a result, I found a 4,600-year-old tool - a prototype hammer head that was overused and somewhat damaged, and a wooden hammer handle more than 20 centimeters long was attached.

The following work will come slowly - it doesn't matter if you dig the soil with your head covered before, but after you find the weight reduction board, you need to draw and take pictures again, which are all procedures and cannot be missing.

......

Early in the morning of the 14th, everyone gathered, and the miners, who had started work in advance, had already cleaned up all the remaining sand under the graveyard, and were waiting to find a way to remove the weight reduction plate.

Because the two sides of the weight reduction plate are basically tightly seam with the tomb wall, only four holes can be carved out on the marl surface on both sides of the two stone slabs, and then the wire rope wrapped with wear-resistant rubber strips is passed through, and then tightened after wearing.

When lifting, both stone slabs must be fixed, otherwise when the first one is moved, the second one will be smashed!

The cavity is small, and an industrial endoscope and wire hook are used - not brought by the miners, the archaeological team already has.

In Egyptian archaeology, it is best to have an endoscope.

The situation has been proven: there are stone slabs under the weight reduction board, which are also two, but they are placed horizontally flat, and the tomb entrance is completely covered!

Zhang Nan also went down to see the situation through the endoscope, fortunately, the two large stone slabs below should be fixed on the reserved protrusion of the tomb road, and the size is not as wide as the plastered tomb road, otherwise you have to find a way to erect them when you take the stone slabs.

I don't care about the sun anymore, let's do it.

At 11 o'clock at noon, two weight-reducing plates were brought up one after another - no crane was prepared, after the slate was lifted, a few steel pipes were immediately laid at the entrance of the tomb, and a few short steel pipes were placed horizontally on the top as rollers.

The method used is almost the same as that of ancient Egypt, except for the set of pulleys.

While waiting to lift the weight reduction plate, he casually asked William Breen about the pulley, because he remembered that the earliest image record of the pulley in China appeared on the portrait brick of the Han Dynasty, about 2,000 years ago.

There is also a discussion of pulleys in the "Book of Ink" written in the Warring States Period, but that will not exceed 400 BC, and it is really difficult to say whether there were pulleys in China earlier, because there are no words, images or physical objects.

Even if archaeology can use its imagination, it must be physically proven, otherwise the world will not admit it at all!

4,600 years ago, the Xia Dynasty had not yet been established.

Professor William Brin is certainly capable and knowledgeable about archaeology, even if he has some impure motives, and told Zhang Nan: "It is difficult to determine whether the pulley technology was mastered in the early days of ancient Egypt, there is no evidence.

The earliest evidence of pulleys in the world throughout the year is probably an Assyrian relief from the eighth century BC, on which is carved a very simple pulley that can only change the direction of force, the main purpose is to facilitate the application of force, and does not give any mechanical benefit.

The ancient Greeks classified pulleys as simple machines, but that was not until the fourth century B.C...."

Well, the ancient Egyptians were really awesome!

After lunch, he continued to work, and this time not only the experienced Sanchez personally went down to the grave, but even Qiu Bo went down to the bottom of the grave.

The blowers were constantly pumping fresh air downward, and Jobaud and Sanchez, plus an old Zamorano, were wearing gas masks and military gas detectors.

Because there is a space between the stone slab and the tomb wall, there is no hole, so use a crowbar first.

Pry can't move!

No rut, let's chisel.

He didn't dare to use a pickaxe that shook too much, so he used a special chisel made of steel bars, and Sanchez held a hammer in his hand to chisel down from the edge.

The moment it was chiseled, Sanchez immediately got out of the way, and Qiu Bo put the extended test tube of the detector into the hole - the tester immediately alarmed!

Take a closer look: the oxygen content is too low.

In a moment, Qiu Bo made a gesture above the tomb entrance - no problem!

He took off the gas mask that made him feel a little suffocated, and the two miners also took off their masks - they also often wore masks, usually with gas cylinders attached, as they were customary.

But it's always uncomfortable to wear this thing on a hot day, so since it's not dangerous, it's better to take it off as soon as possible.

Qiu Bo was sweating, and he originally wanted to say a few words to the two around him, but in the end he didn't speak: the buddy from Chile basically doesn't know English, let alone Chinese.

Zhang Nan and William Brin went down to the bottom of the grave in a hanging basket one after another, and the five people were squeezed into a space two meters long and one meter five wide.

With an endoscope, the first to see the space that has been closed for 4600 years, this kind of opportunity Zhang Nan is the best, he loves this feeling to death!

No one could grab it, and Mr. Professor honestly waited for it.

The lens tube was stuffed in, and as soon as he entered the space below, he was startled by the scene displayed on the display screen in front of Zhang Nan!

The camera is on the faces!

Well, it's frescoes, or colored.

The camera pans to reveal a mural on three sides of the tomb and a plaster on one side. There was a long black table on one side, and nothing else.

What about mummies, coffins?

Zhang Nan knew the reason, but William Brin in the back was even more anxious, and said: "This is a front room, and the level of the tomb owner is not low!"

The front room, where the table is supposed to be the sacrificial table, is most likely made of wood, and it has not collapsed for 46 centuries, and the dry desert environment is too good for preserving artifacts - except for the lacquerware that was estimated not to exist in ancient Egypt.

If there's the front room, then there's the main room—nine times out of ten, it's behind the wall that doesn't have a mural!

Don't dig in a hurry first, because there are murals, you have to let the murals that have been closed for 46 centuries take a break with the table and contact the outside air.

If it is worse, don't look at the glossy now, once the slate is pried open, the rapid increase in oxygen content and the light shining into it may cause irreversible damage to the colored mural in a short period of time.

It's still the same sentence: We are not robbing tombs, and we can't be in a hurry.

Evacuate, cover the entrance of the tomb on the ground with a transparent plastic sheet, and then focus on the excavation of the inclined tomb on the north side.

Watching the movements of the guys nearby after her brother came up, Charlize Theron felt very strange: she also knew that the ancient tomb below had not been destroyed, so why didn't she dig it?

Zhang Nan told her the reason, at least two or three days later.

The miners moved on to the second graveyard, and as a result...

When I dug to the bottom in the evening, it was a rough space filled with gravel and sand, not only was there no murals, but even the surrounding walls, floors, and ceilings were rough.

William and his two students searched carefully for the sand and stones, and finally found the broken clay pot.

It's been stolen here.

Charlize Theron couldn't stop her curiosity, and entered the tomb with Zhang Nan to see the excitement, and after finding almost nothing, she complained: "Damn tomb robbers, don't leave any left!"

Zhang Nan on the side smiled embarrassedly, and said viciously in his heart: "You little girl, Lao Tzu has also been a native master, okay!"

She didn't ask why the other tomb passage and the front room would remain intact: maybe the tomb robber had an accident after digging the first tomb passage, and there was infighting?

Caught?

Even war, when it was war, tomb robbing was the most common.

In the past 46 human centuries, anything has been possible.

During the meal, Zhang Nan told Charlie: The ancient Egyptians liked to rob tombs, and the pharaohs of later dynasties would actually use the coffins stolen from the tombs of the pharaohs of different dynasties in the past, and even the coffins would be wasted.

The pharaohs did this, not to mention the other ancient Egyptians, many of whom should have taken hoes when they were busy and robbed tombs in their spare time.

Ordinary people robbing tombs are still trivial - which is the most terrible in the tomb robbing industry?

Official thieves!