An archaeological discovery of this magnitude in the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes Sutra Cave should be considered rare in a thousand years. The Buddhist statues and murals in the cave alone are already priceless treasures, not to mention these thousand-year-old ancient scrolls.
In the archaeological world, the value of cultural relics with text and cultural relics without text is already very different, because text is the most important clue to record ancient historical information.
Among the cultural relics with texts, the value of multilingual ones must be greater than those of few languages!
For example, you discover a historical archive written in English two thousand years ago. This is of course very valuable, but if this historical archive is written in English, French, and Latin, then its value is even less valuable. Estimated.
Because multiple languages are written together, there is the possibility of mutual translation. By studying these words, you can restore the words and sentences used in these languages two thousand years ago, which is equivalent to a historical translation dictionary.
For example, the Rosetta Stone, the most significant discovery in Egyptian archeology, is a representative of this kind of cultural relic!
The Rosetta Stone is actually the enthronement edict of Ptolemy V in ancient Egypt, and the edict engraved on the stone was actually recorded in ancient Egyptian and Greek.
Moreover, ancient Egyptian script is divided into two categories: holy script and cursive script!
This is incredible. You must know that ancient Egyptian writing has been lost for generations, and ancient Egyptian civilization has also been lost in the long river of history.
Therefore, archaeologists can only speculate on the ancient cultural relics unearthed in Egypt but cannot directly interpret them from the text!
This stele is so important because Greek is not extinct! Greek still exists in the world, and the emergence of such a dictionary that can be compared and translated is simply worth celebrating for the academic community.
Because of the Rosetta Stone, ancient Egyptian texts were reinterpreted in modern times!
So what about the scripture cave in front of Samuel? This is a golden key to unlocking the culture of the ancient Western Regions!
Because these scriptures are not only written in Chinese, but also in Tubo, Uighur and Xixia scripts. Mongolian, Sogdian, Turkic, Khotanese, Sanskrit, Tocharian, Hebrew and other ancient ethnic languages!
The secret caves of the Dunhuang Grottoes contain the most Buddhist texts, but they also include astronomy, calendars, history, geography, local chronicles, illustrated scriptures, medical books, folk customs, famous books, account books, poems, poems, dialects, and travel notes. , miscellaneous writing, calligraphy...
You can tell how old this history is just by looking at the carriers that record words and pictures. Bamboo slips, silk, paper, sheepskin... almost all the carriers that can record words in the early days of mankind can be found here.
Although the scripture cave is only eight or nine square meters, the books are stacked on top of each other all the way to the top, as thick as a hill.
Samuel was crying. He was excited that he was lucky enough to experience such a large-scale archaeological discovery, and that he would definitely be able to leave his name in history.
But at the same time, he was still sad, how could these treasures be stolen! Spend money on it? Is King Shangtai short of money? Do you want to encourage the British government to send troops to rob it?
This is the interior of the Western Region, and the battleships can’t get on!
Wuwuwu... God, you are punishing me! If I see such a treasure but can't take it back to my country, I'll die!
This cry was more heartbreaking than the death of his own father. The simple people around him lamented incomparably, "Look at the consciousness of the foreign devil! He found other people's things, and he was even more excited than us Chinese!"
"This one brings snot and tears, it's really touching!"
Samuel cried for a quarter of an hour before he calmed down. When he saw King Shangtai counting the bamboo slips, he rushed over and grabbed the prince's sleeve.
King Shangtai and the guards around him were startled and thought that an assassin was coming. The dagger on the guard's waist was half withdrawn. When he looked back, he saw that it was Samuel who had stuffed it back again.
"Your Majesty the King... Let me discuss something with you... Let's jointly establish a research institute... No, no, no... How about a dedicated museum?"
"Ryukyu and London will each establish a branch library... How about we add these things to each other and display them separately for conservation and research?"
"How much money do you need, you decide... I guarantee that I can raise it from London..."
King Shangtai secretly groaned in his heart but still smiled on his face and said, "Ouch... Mr. Samuel, are you a bit mistaken... These cultural relics do not belong to our ancient Ryukyu country..."
"This should be regarded as the property of all Chinese people, and who can represent the whole of China? I think you should first choose one from the Qing government or the Chinese to discuss..."
"Sorry, I can't make the decision...I have to ask the Chinese Assembly and the Head of State for instructions on this matter! Come on, send troops to protect this place for me..."
"Discuss... let's discuss again..." Samuel Baker was still teasing King Shang Tai with a playful smile.
But while they were all running to the Buddhist Scripture Cave, no one thought that Liulichang's Ghost Eye Zuo Chaofeng would sneak into the British camp.
As expected, such a major archaeological discovery attracted sixteen British people away. After all, it is human nature to watch the excitement!
The person on the left transformed into a cultural relic thief and sneaked into the British camp. He rummaged around in the warehouse, but more than ten minutes passed without finding the notebook.
Just when he was at his wits' end, a hand suddenly reached out from behind and patted his shoulder. The guilty Zuo jumped up in fright and was about to scream.
A pair of big hands suddenly covered the left side of his mouth, and a soldier wearing a yellow desert camouflage uniform revealed his true appearance, "Be careful...it's me! Private First Class Xiao Liu..."
"Oh my god, you scared me to death...why did you appear like a ghost..."
On the left side, it felt like his heart was beating so fast that it was jumping out of his throat, and his whole legs were weak! First-class soldier Xiao Liu looked around and said with a strange smile, "Zuo Dachaofeng, Zuo Dabo... You are not a professional thief. It seems that you have not received professional training..."
"Go up and see what this is..." The soldier grabbed his hand from behind, and the familiar huge cowhide notebook appeared in front of him on the left.
"Ouch...you got it first?" The left man grabbed it excitedly.
"That's... I joined the expedition team through professional training... Look, I'll keep a lookout for you..."
In the British supplies tent, I opened the notebook on the left and started flipping through it quickly...
nervous! Stimulate! The rapid secretion of adrenaline made the excited waist on the left side feel itchy!
There are really treasures in this notebook. There are many maps recorded by Samuel. As expected, there are many maps of ancient cities in Central Asia!
The one on the left only had some rough knowledge of English. He took out his shorthand notebook and started copying. When he encountered a word he didn’t understand, he didn’t have to think about it, he just copied it!
