Since June 5438+this year1October 5, the underwater archaeological work of Zhangjiangkou site has lasted for more than three months. Due to the arrival of rainy season in Minjiang River, the archaeological work will come to an end today. At present, the on-site excavation work has stopped, and the enclosure will be removed one month later. It is estimated that a new round of underwater archaeological excavation will be carried out in Zhangjiangkou from June 10 to June 17 to June 20 18 this year. The excavation area will be expanded on the basis of this excavation, focusing on finding the wooden sunken ships that occurred in the battle of Jiangkou.

Up to now, the underwater archaeological excavation area of Zhanghekou is * * * 20,000 square meters, and there are nearly 20,000 cultural relics out of the water. The identification and research of gold and silver ingots and gold and silver ornaments dug out of the water will also be carried out immediately.

The outflow of silver ingots reflects the great history of the late Ming Dynasty.

At present, Zhang Underwater Archaeology has unearthed nearly 20,000 pieces of cultural relics, including a large number of silver ingots, which we often call silver ingots. This not only reflects Zhang's plunder of Sichuan and Shu, but also reflects the broader historical information in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.

Among the seven pieces of silver ingots displayed by the archaeological team, one is engraved with the short words "Silver Worker at the Dawn of Fifty Liang", and the rest are engraved with words, except for fifty Liang, which clearly reads the words "Bing Yin".

Zhou, curator and doctoral supervisor of China Coin Museum: In the Ming Dynasty, the source and use of silver were sometimes engraved on silver ingots; Some are marked with 50 taels. Maybe this batch of castings has a clear source and purpose, so there is no need to type so many words.

The word "artisan Xiao" reflects another important silver casting system in ancient China.

Zhou: "Craftsman Dawn" means that this silver ingot was cast in a silversmith's shop called Dawn, which means this; Dawn is the person in charge of this silver shop, or rather the person in charge.

Judging from the casting process, water waves can be faintly seen on the front of these seven silver ingots, while the bottom is covered with honeycomb holes. According to experts, this is an important criterion to judge the fineness and purity of silver ingots.

Zhou: silver solidifies and releases gas during casting, and the hole formed is called honeycomb, which is at the bottom; Silk grains will be formed on its surface, indicating that the fineness of silver ingots is relatively high. If 10% copper is doped, this is definitely not the case.

According to experts' judgment, the 50 taels of silver ingots should be official silver. For a long time in ancient China, the maximum standard of silver ingots was 50 taels, and the weight was about1900g. /kloc-people or individuals below 0/0 hold and use mostly broken silver.

Zhou: One or two taels of silver can buy several hundred catties of rice. At that time, the food of a family of two was almost the same. So its purchasing power is very large. It is not a problem to buy 150 thousand gold and silver into the capital.

Since Zhang Hekou's sinking of silver, the folk song "Shilong vs. Shi Hu, gold and silver are absolutely 50,000, but the broken one buys the capital mansion" has been circulating in Shu, which shows the huge amount of Zhang Shenyin. However, mining was banned from Zhu Yuanzhang in the Ming Dynasty, and the amount of silver produced in the Ming Dynasty was relatively limited.

Zhou: In the late Ming Dynasty, the use and reserve of silver were the highest. It entered China mainly through global trade and the Maritime Silk Road. About from the Qin Long Switch to the end of Ming Dynasty, the silver flowed into China through various channels, exceeding 654.38+200 million, that is, 1 100 million.

A large number of cultural relics come out of the water, which increases the difficulty of cultural relics protection.

Since the end of last year, Zhang's archaeological excavation has lasted for more than five months, and nearly 20,000 cultural relics have been unearthed. A large number of cultural relics need to be restored, which increases the difficulty of cultural protection.

Many cultural relics coming out of the water have been squeezed and soaked for a long time at the bottom of the water, and sediment is attached and deformed, so it is necessary to rescue these cultural relics on the spot.

Ren Junfeng, Cultural Protection Center, Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology: As far as this silver ingot is concerned, what we see with the naked eye now is that this piece does not belong to the silver ingot itself, but should be squeezed in the riverbed for a long time, and may be mixed with some surrounding environments, and then an attachment is formed on the silver ingot. If it is made of pebbles or gravel, the hardness may be higher than silver. If we clean with something harder than silver, we are likely to scratch, but we must be very, very careful.

Faced with this situation, generally speaking, cultural relics protection personnel will first soften the attachments on the surface of gold and silver ingots with some reagents, and then repeatedly wipe them with cotton swabs dipped in water to peel off the attachments that do not belong to cultural relics layer by layer. After cleaning the surface of the cultural relics, the staff found many indelible spots on some gold and silver objects.

Ren Junfeng: Now we can see some mottled colors or some black things with the naked eye. We don't know what it is. If it affects its security and stability, we may clean it up. There is no need to clean up if it does not affect its own stability. Of course, this is what we often say, keeping the cultural relics intact and keeping the sense of historical vicissitudes.

According to the staff, it usually takes two to three days for a cultural relic to be cleaned up. After cleaning, the cultural relics will be sent to the laboratory for further repair and plastic surgery. A large number of cultural relics increase the difficulty of cultural protection.