Experts dug up the 'ivory bank', but they panicked and retreated halfway through the excavation. The truth lies in the ivory

In 2001, the Jinsha site in Sichuan, China was discovered, attracting the attention of archaeologists. With the cooperation of local personnel, excavations began to proceed, and archaeologists predicted that there must be a large number of precious cultural relics in it.

But when each thing was displayed in front of everyone one by one, experts discovered that there were very few cultural relics inside, and some of the remaining relics had even been destroyed. While everyone was still in a nervous mood, an archaeological team dug up an elephant tusk, and then a large group of elephant tusks appeared.

Experts dug up the 'ivory bank', but they panicked and retreated halfway through the excavation. The truth lies in the ivory Picture 1

Immediately, this news was reported by many media, this also attracted widespread attention from people across the country and the strange thing is that archaeological experts also immediately stopped digging. respond. This made everyone extremely surprised, many people speculated that the experts must have encountered danger so they decided to urgently withdraw. Not wanting to let the rumors go too far, experts soon explained the reason. It turned out that because the lower molar had been buried in the ground for a long time, it suddenly came into contact with the air, causing the intact ivory to show strange signs, so the archaeological work had to stop immediately to avoid damaging the monument. object.

Some people may wonder why protections were not implemented at the time? In fact, it was not that experts did not have protection measures, but even the best technology at that time could not guarantee that ivory could be completely protected. Furthermore, there was too much ivory to be disposed of quickly, so experts made the decision to stop excavation, and all exposed ivory would be buried underground.

Although experts have explained the reason for the problem, many people still do not understand and continue to discuss the reason. For people at that time, because they still did not know enough about archeology, it was difficult to blame them for this. In fact, we should be responsible for each piece of underground cultural relics because cultural relics cannot be recreated, and if an incident occurs, the damage will be immeasurable. Therefore, the excavation of cultural relics should not be hasty, but should be well controlled at each step, trying to have them well displayed to the world, and the expert's approach is worthy of our praise.

Isabella Humphrey

Update 03 April 2024