Underground - Chapter 4

“A pit of around two hundred heads;” Julian stared straight into my eyes as he enunciated each word, “homo sapiens caputs.”

 

My friend leaned back in satisfaction as he watched the realization sank into my expressions. I must admit that this was certainly not the answer I had expected. It could have been one, two, or even a full pit of bronze pots, but certainly not a burial ground for human heads. I frowned at the mental picture of a massacre of all those pathetic people. Suddenly, an idea hit me.

 

I have to say that they appear in the blink of an eye, always bringing a light into the most perplexing situations; and I believe that it is most certainly why they are represented by a light bulb. These answers almost never show up when you are desperately searching for them; but pop up when the subject they are concerned with are only briefly glazed upon. I had one of those moments exactly then as a crazy possibility jumped into my train of thought.

 

“Could there be,” My eyes narrowed with uncertainty, “possibly, a large-scaled imperial tomb somewhere nearby?” It was not an entirely fabricated possibility given the objects discovered in the area. It is important to note here that bronze objects were creations of Shang and Zhou, the earliest dynasties in China, and were only commodities the nobles and royals had access to. The largest one discovered so far was the Simuwu Ding, a large tub-like object used for imperial sacrifices. It is 1.33 metres high, 1.10 metres long and 0.78 metres wide. The height of the object the government team discovered was not that far off, but it definitely was not a Ding, given the length and width of the article. I pondered at the possibilities of what it might have been used for.

 

Returning to my theory of a tomb, there was also the chilling pit of heads, likely a site of sacrifice to the tomb’s owner. If one was of noble birth, or have gained a high ranking in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, she, but more likely he might have obtained the honour of receiving a sacrificing ritual of humans or animals before being laid into the final resting grounds. Animal sacrifices were more common for holiday rituals and nobles, while human sacrifices were reserved for highly significant events such as communication with the deities or in the honour of the emperors. If I was to link these two discoveries together, there would rather have been a major sacrificial ground for a nation’s rituals; or there was a tomb of very important individual, perhaps even of an emperor, somewhere nearby.

 

“Not bad…” Julian raised one eyebrow and slowly broke into a smile before nodding with acknowledgement, “Not bad at all Samuel. I was thinking the same thing when I heard about it.”

 

“The government people…”

 

“They realized that possibility the instant they saw that massive pit of heads. However,” Julian fiddled with his empty cup, “after informing positions higher up in the government and having them send an archaeological team to the area, the villagers refused to grant them permission to excavate the tomb, or even probe around for it.”

 

“The government was, of course, not happy to hear this. They tried negotiating,” I chuckled when Julian mentioned the term, “bribing, and even threatening; but nothing was able to change the village chief’s mind. It actually had the opposite effect; remember how the chief gave them a trespassing warning a while ago?”

 

I nodded for him to continue, “Well he insists that the government has gone too far and has infringed upon their oath to not disturb the area again. Even though the government didn’t go to that specific place, that old man claims the government had searched around for other things having archaeological value. So…”

 

“So the villagers threw the government team out.” I finished off for Julian.

 

He gave me a look that questioned my sanity before shaking his head, “Sam, we’re not talking about Canada here; you think that government’s wishes would be stopped by a village that’s not even visible on Google maps?”

 

“Right;” I flushed at my simplicity before taking another shot, “So they didn’t get thrown out and went right down to digging.”

 

“That’s a better guess. But they didn’t do that;” Julian took out his phone and started going through something, “not before investigating this area first. It was quite annoying by them for doing that because we had to stop our filming for two weeks. The officials completely ignored the protests of the villagers and camped about two metres away from the village.”

 

“Did they find it?”

           

“Not the tomb, no;” Julian seemed to have found the thing he was looking for, “But they did find a cavity in the sacrifice pit that held some of the tools the ancient people used to perform their rituals. Take a look.” Julian held his phone out to me from across the table.

 

I took the large touch-screen and flipped through the photographs. The pictures were taken of the artefacts when they were first labelled and measured, right outside of the pit. There were a few Ding, all similar to the Simuwu Ding (I think all of them looked alike) in design, though clearly smaller in size. It was at most two-thirds the size of Simuwu, and held carvings of traditional value on its legs and sides. There were also a few delicately built knives, with some still looking sharp enough to cut.

 

My heart skipped a beat at the sight of the next photograph.

 

This picture was taken in the forest, for the image had an overall dark lighting from the lack of sunlight and from the thick and lustrous vegetation in the background. It captured the entire sacrificial ground. If not for the person standing on the other side of the indent, I would have easily underestimated its immensity -the area was the size of a football field, right in the middle of a thriving forest. The roots and vegetation at the sides of the ground were probably cut and cleared away in order to reveal an empty space of this size. An elevated platform rose to level the height of the opening in the centre of this magnificent pit, likely the place where sacrifices were made.

 

“The audience sat on the steps, kind of like bleachers, that were carved into the sides of the pit.” I looked up to see Julian walking back, though I was not aware that he had ever left, with two new cups of coffee in his hands, one of which he placed in front of me, “The priests walked on pre-existing bridges to the centre, where they slaughtered the sacrifices on that platform.” Looking at the photograph again, I found a series of steps, much like bleachers, cascading down each side of the pit and forming the shape of an inversed pyramid. There were no signs of bridges though, probably due to erosion.

 

“So…” I returned Julian’s phone and thanked him for the coffee, “It was a sacrificial ground, and there was no tomb after all?”

 

“The government seems to think so, as they left a week after cleaning out the pit.” Julian answered as he looked through the photographs again. My friend seemed to think otherwise, for he sounded quite uncertain about the idea and looked unconvinced.

 

“But you think…” I tilted my head and looked at Julian.

 

“I don’t think;” Julian’s eyes darted up and focus on mine though his brown forelocks, “I know there’s a tomb somewhere in that forest.”