Master Archaeologist

Chapter 187
evening.

After a day of archaeological work, the Archaeological Institute of the Academy of Social Sciences and the archaeologists from the Guangzhou Institute of Archaeology gathered at the food stalls in the night market in Guangzhou.

After a hard day of archaeological clean-up work, if you can have a few bottles of wheat juice, it will undoubtedly be very refreshing.

"Ho ha."

Filling his mouth full with a large glass of wine, Zhuang Yunpeng burped comfortably.

"It has to be wheat juice."

Chen Han, who was sitting next to him, picked up a shrimp and put it into his mouth, smiled and shook his head.

"Senior brother Zhuang, you have to put it down, don't drink too much and won't wake up tomorrow."

"It's a mistake to drink."

"No, I'm not drunk for a thousand cups, comparable to the ancient Li Bai!" Zhuang Yunpeng raised his eyebrows proudly, filled another cup for himself, and poured it into his mouth.

Although he drank beer, he gave him the aura of baijiu.

Director Fu, who was sipping his wine, said with a smile, "Xiao Zhuang is a good drinker, so he must be from the north, right?"

"Yes, I'm from the northeast!"

"No wonder you drink beer instead of water." Director Fu smiled lightly.

Seeing that Zhuang Yunpeng had just finished a glass and filled it up again, Kong Jianwen frowned: "Xiao Zhuang, your brother is right, drinking is a mistake, drink less."

"Don't forget, Dayi merchants died because of wine!"

As for archaeology, one cannot speak without history.

Hearing the teacher's words, Zhuang Yunpeng didn't dare to drink so hard anymore, he smiled embarrassingly, and sipped slowly instead.

It is not a joke that businessmen died of wine.

People in the Shang Dynasty liked to drink, and the whole society, from the Shang kings to the common people, was full of alcoholism.

According to archaeological evidence.

Among the Neolithic pottery products unearthed in modern times, there are already exclusive wine vessels.

It shows that in the primitive society, Huaxia winemaking was very popular.

And the businessman pushed the brewing to a peak.

Among all the unearthed Shang Dynasty sites, bronze wine vessels account for a considerable proportion of bronze vessels.

Moreover, the bronze wine vessels of merchants are very rich and varied.

Six of the ten bronze vessels were used for drinking.

Of the remaining four, two can also assist in drinking.

And the businessman is very good at brewing wine.

At that time, there were not only rice wine brewed from grain, but also medicinal wine, fruit wine, and even wines similar to modern beer brewed from wheat.

In 1980, a sealed jar was found in an ancient tomb unearthed in the late Shang Dynasty in Henan.

Analysis showed that the liquid remaining in the jar was wine.

The history of wine making by Chinese people is earlier than that of Europeans.

In addition, jujubes, plums, peaches and other fruits were found in a brewery site in the mid-Shang Dynasty.

This also shows that in the Shang Dynasty more than 3000 years ago, merchants were already proficient in using various fruits to brew fruit wine.

Since the early Shang Dynasty, merchants' ritual utensils have been heavy on wine vessels and light on cooking utensils.

The combination of wine vessels centered on Dendrobium and Jue almost ran through the entire Shang Dynasty.

This ritual system of heavy wine vessels lasted until the late Shang Dynasty.

A total of 210 bronze vessels were unearthed in the Fuhao Tomb of the Yin Ruins, of which wine vessels accounted for about 74%.

In fact, alcoholism among businessmen was a common phenomenon in the society at that time, and it was a kind of social atmosphere.

Not only the nobles love to drink, but also the common people.

In "Shangshu·Jiugao", it is described in this way: "We are only panicked by wine, and the common people drink by themselves. The smell is on the top, so the heaven is lost in Yin."

It can be seen that in the eyes of Zhou people, the reason why Shang was destroyed was because of wine.

Because everyone is addicted to alcohol from top to bottom, it will naturally lead to chaos in the country and society, and government affairs cannot be handled normally, which eventually leads to the disaster of national subjugation.

This is not a crime imposed by Zhou people in order to discredit the businessman.

Because Zhou people used "Zhou Li" to strictly restrict the right of nobles and common people to drink after they changed the tripod.

The Duke of Zhou believed that alcoholism and tyranny were the main reasons for the demise of the Shang Dynasty, so the Western Zhou Dynasty began to restrict the drinking of nobles.

And the people are not allowed to drink alcohol, and it is not allowed to use grain to make wine.

For two weeks and 800 years, the nobles of the Zhou family strictly controlled drinking, especially drinking in crowds.

It is to prevent Zhou people from repeating the mistakes of businessmen, and the whole society is addicted to alcohol.

Until the Qin and Han Dynasties, restrictions on drinking alcohol were still very strict.

The law of the Han Dynasty stipulates that if more than three people drink in groups without reason, they will be fined four taels.

And this Han Law is actually a replica of the Qin Law.

In the Western Han Dynasty, ordinary people could only drink secretly by themselves, and it was absolutely not allowed to gather together to drink.

Like in the TV series, a few people find a restaurant and let Xiaoer serve two or two drinks. If they are caught in the Western Han Dynasty, they will be severely punished!
Only when the emperor ascended the throne, the crown prince was appointed, the queen was appointed and other national celebrations were the people allowed to gather and drink.

This is the so-called "Tianxia Dajiu", which means that all the people in the world are happy to drink.

In the records of the Zhou people, it is very serious that the Shang Dynasty died of alcoholism.

Modern archaeological excavations have also proved that the wine-making culture of the Shang Dynasty was indeed very superb, with a variety of grain wines and fruit wines.

Moreover, from the nobles to the common people, drinking is a pleasure, and they attach great importance to wine vessels.

This also shows that the records of the Zhou people are indeed correct, and the destruction of the country by merchants is absolutely inseparable from wine.

However, the advancement of modern science has also opened up the cause of the demise of businessmen for modern people, and has another angle of exploration.

Through modern scientific methods, researchers of scientific and technological archeology have detected serious excessive lead content in a large number of merchant bones in Shang Dynasty sites.

That is lead poisoning.

As we all know, the main casting components of bronzes are made of alloys such as copper, tin, lead, and zinc.

Moreover, because the productivity of the Shang Dynasty was still relatively primitive, and tin resources were relatively scarce, sometimes a large amount of lead and copper were used to cast bronzes.

Businessmen like to brew and drink wine.

Alcohol is more likely to cause lead precipitation than other foods.

Especially when the ancients drank, they often had to heat the wine before drinking it, which was called "warm wine".

After the bronze was heated, the lead precipitation in the wine was even more serious.

A businessman who loves to drink, boils wine with bronze wine vessels every day, and lead passes through the wine in this way and enters the human body in large quantities.

Over time, the merchant nobles naturally fell into the quagmire of lead poisoning.

Moreover, lead poisoning is still a chronic poisoning, and the onset is slow, and it will not make the businessman suspect the wine.

What is certain is that the merchant did die of wine.

And "lead poisoning" also played an important role.

Because merchant nobles like to use bronze vessels to cook wine, the average age of merchant nobles should not be high, and they may die of lead poisoning at the age of three or forty.

In this way, the ruling class is too young, which hastened the demise of the merchants.

The Zhou people who killed the merchants strictly controlled the drinking culture of the nobles in the Zhou Dynasty because they saw the horror of the merchants' alcoholism.

This also allowed the nobles of the Zhou Dynasty to avoid severe lead poisoning by mistake.

At least the Chinese did not perish due to lead poisoning like in ancient Rome.

This is also a fortune in misfortune.

Reminds me of a businessman who ended up in ruins because of alcoholism.

Zhuang Yunpeng couldn't drink beer as water any more.

I had no choice but to smile sarcastically, and changed the subject and said, "How is it? How is the excavation of the outer coffin chamber today? Did you find any big treasures?"

(End of this chapter)