At half past ten o'clock in the evening, the entire excavation project site was already silent.

But in the cultural relics preservation room at the far edge of the mobile board house, there was a noise.

The researchers affiliated with the Xia Shangzhou Research Laboratory were discussing fiercely around a few inscriptions rubbed from the chimes.

The predecessors planted trees and the later people enjoyed the shade.

Chinese archaeology has been developed for nearly 100 years, and countless bronzes of the Eastern and Western Zhou Dynasty have been unearthed.

In addition, there are many historians who have studied the inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou dynasties in history, and have left explanatory works.

For the Jin inscription, especially the writing of the Eastern and Western Zhou periods, domestic archaeologists and philologists are still very experienced.

After all, there are many templates of Jin Wen.

Unlike oracle bone inscriptions, the number of oracle bones unearthed is small, and many of them are solitary, and the font is too primitive to decipher.

There are now more than 3,722 characters recorded by Chinese scholars, of which more than 2,500 have been completely deciphered.

As long as you are willing to take the time to compare the inscriptions on the bell with the "Golden Script", you can at least decipher the general content.

At this time, Professor Li was holding a copy of "Jin Wen Bian" published in 1985, and he was constantly comparing it.

While checking, he also sprayed and said: "The inscription font on this bell is between Zhao Wei, Han Da Seal and Chu Seal, which is quite special." ”

"However, it is basically the same as the bronze inscription unearthed in the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, but there are precedents to follow."

Chen Han, who was helping him on the side and identifying the inscriptions with him, echoed with a smile: "Yes, after all, Tomb M1 is also a high-level tomb of Zeng Guo. ”

"If Zeng Guo is really Suiguo, as a vassal state surnamed Ji who resisted the Chu State for the Ji Zhou royal family, it is normal for the writing to have the characteristics of both the Central Plains and the Chu State."

Suizhou, Hubei, borders the Central Plains of Henan to the north, and Jingchu to the south.

Whether it is geographically or culturally, it is inevitable to be influenced by the Central Plains and Jingchu culture at the same time.

The script used by the Zeng State was based on the Great Seal of the Western Zhou Dynasty and incorporated the elegant and slender writing style of the Chu State.

Figuratively speaking, Zeng Guo's writing is like an elongated, thin and tall version of the big seal, and the glyph structure tends to be neat.

However, the characteristic of the Great Seal script is that this kind of script is between the pictographs and the stroke script.

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It is very difficult to distinguish this kind of writing.

To be honest, don't look at everyone as professional archaeologists, but there are really not many people who can read the big seal.

Only a philologist who specializes in the Great Seal will be able to discern the meaning of these complex scripts.

Even now, in the unearthed large seal inscriptions, one-third of the words are still unclear.

In the cultural relics storage room, more than a dozen archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences are now gathered.

But there are less than five people who dare to say that they have studied the Great Seal script, and all of them are from the Xia Shang Zhou Research Office.

Their "level of research" on the Great Seal script is limited to being able to take the book "Jin Wen Bian" and compare it with the inscriptions on the bronzes to find out the characters that have been deciphered.

The level is similar to using a Chinese dictionary to translate a classical Chinese text.

There are only two people who can understand part of the Great Seal text on their own, and even can decipher and interpret the Great Seal text without the help of "Jin Wen Bian".

One is Professor Li, half is Kong Jianwen, and half is Chen Han.

Although Professor Li mainly leads the team in the archaeology of the Qin and Han dynasties, his research on the big seal and the small seal is one of the best in the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The level is not inferior to those who specialize in the study of the Great Seal.

Kong Jianwen is because his main focus is the archaeology of Xia, Shang and Zhou, and he has been in contact with various bronze inscriptions, and after decades of archaeological work, he naturally has a deep understanding of the big seal.

This is also the highest level that archaeologists who generally specialize in the archaeology of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties can achieve.

If you want to be powerful, you must specialize in the field of big seal writing.

But the front-line archaeologists whose main job is to do field archaeology must not have this skill.

After all, there is no rule, archaeologists must read and understand the unearthed inscriptions.

Leave the work to a professional philologist.

So Kong Jianwen can only be regarded as half.

As for Chen Han, he naturally relied on the blessing of the system to give him a full reading level of Xiao Seal.

Although the Qin seal and the Great Seal of the Six Eastern Kingdoms are not the same system, they are from the same source and are both inherited from the Western Zhou script.

Chen Han, who can basically understand the small seal, is not completely imcapable of deciphering the Chu seal upside down.

It's like a person who knows kanji, even if he doesn't understand Japanese at all, but when he looks at Japanese kanji, he can guess most of the meanings correctly.

The current Chen Han is in such a state of speculation.

However, compared to other researchers who can't even be Meng, Chen Han is indeed half a person who can crack the Great Seal.

The artifact storage room has now been divided into two teams.

Most people are holding the "Golden Script" and comparing it with the inscription on the bell, trying to find the deciphered seal that has been recorded, and then registering it.

For example, "heaven", "earth", "man", "king", "sun", "moon", and "star" are relatively simple words and have sufficient samples to compare.

Professor Li, Kong Jianwen, and Chen Han gathered together, trying to decipher and interpret some of the more complex characters on the inscription that were surprising from the Great Seal of the Central Plains.

"I think this word is the word "positive"! ”

"Don't think about it, let Professor Li feel it!"

If you look at these two words, one is the person wearing the crown facing to the left, and the other is the person wearing the crown facing the right, and these two words should mean "left and right"! ”

"This word should be the word king, there is this word in the previous unearthed inscription!"

There are also these two words, it must be "Zeng Hou", there are these two words on the inscription of the bell unearthed in the tomb of Zeng Hou B before! ”

Not to mention, the effect of such a division of labor is still very good.

With the concerted efforts of everyone, 16 of the 20 inscriptions on the front of the No. 1 chime, which is the most prominent position, were quickly translated.

Among the remaining 4 extraordinary words, there are also 2 words that were quickly determined under the scrutiny and argumentation of Chen Han and Professor Li.

There are only the last two words, one is very obscure, Chen Han and Professor Li really can't decipher, and the other can be interpreted in several ways.

However, the two words do not affect the interpretation of this whole sentence.

So, a line of 20 words of inscription was translated by them.

"But the first month of the king, the auspicious day is the first day. Zeng Hou (??) Said: Bai bracket (Yong?) Open? ), left and right civil and military. ”

"The first year of the first year, the first month. Zeng Hou said: Bai Kuo once followed King Wu of Fuzuowen. ”

As soon as this sentence was translated, everyone immediately cheered up.

The inscription on this bell is not simple!

This is a record involving King Wen and King Wu!

These two are the founding sons of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty!

Nothing is trivial about them!

However, these 20 inscriptions on the front are just the beginning, and then there is no follow-up!

Isn't that appetizing!

Chen Han hurriedly picked up another inscription composed of 30 words, which was also engraved on the front of the chime, and continued to decipher.