In 1914, the British explorer Stein conducted his third archaeological expedition to Xinjiang. After passing through Hotan, Hami and other places, he completed the investigation of the ancient civilizations of Niya and Loulan, and then arrived in the Turpan area.Stein stayed in Turpan for a week. He first conducted a three-day inspection of the former capital of Gaochang and the ancient city of Jiaohe, and then entered the Kumtag Desert at the southern end of Shanshan County. The Kumtag Desert was known as the "City of Ghosts" during the Tang Dynasty.The Kumtag Desert is prone to wind and sand, and the wind is unbelievably long. The wind blows in from the Qijiaojing vent in the Tianshan Mountains and blows all the way to the Kumtag area. Standing inside is like entering a terrifying gray world, with no way to tell the direction at all.Also because of this, those travelers who blindly entered the Kumtag Desert eventually lost their way and were trapped to death in the desert, hence the name "Ghost City".

Stein and his party of more than ten people entered the Kumtag Desert under the leadership of local guides.They walked inside for two days and finally reached the center of the desert on the second night. The expedition camp was a dry riverbed.Stein's local guide, Ilabin, was using a small shovel to dig a hole in the riverbed to fetch water. The other team members set up tents in a circle, and they built a bonfire with dead branches in the middle of the tents.Three hours after it got dark, the temperature in the desert dropped sharply. While warming by the fire, Stein was looking at a wooden board engraved with Kluwen.This strange board was excavated by his guide Ilabin from the ruins of Jiaohe Ancient City, and Ilabin was rewarded with a gold coin for it.

Ilabin had dug more than seven feet deep in the river bed and was completely submerged in the bunker.Another team member assisted Irabuin to lift the sand upwards with a small wooden bucket.A small pile of sand soon formed beside the bunker.Ilabin dug for a while, but he didn't know what he dug up, and the thing made a few dull crashing sounds. Stein, who was looking at the Kaluwen plank, was taken aback. Almost out of intuition, he quickly put the plank away, packed it in his backpack, and immediately ran to the side of the sandpit.His guide, Ilabin, was squatting at the bottom of the pit, groping for something in the sand with his hands. The lantern hanging on the wall of the bunker gave off a faint light, illuminating Irabin's shadow.

Stein stared at Ilabin's shadow, feeling very strange.Before that, he had taken two adventures in Xinjiang, but he had never felt this way. Stein rushed down to Ilabin and said, "Dude, what did you dig?" Ilabin didn't answer for a long time, just continued to grope in the sandpit.Stein felt even more strange, and urged: "I said buddy, what's the matter?" Ilabuin turned his head and said, "Sir, it's a piece of wood. I dug up a big piece of wood." Stein remembered what he had harvested a few days ago—the Kaluwen wooden plank more than a thousand years ago. He immediately beamed with joy, and said, "Dude, touch it carefully and see if there are any scratches on the wooden plank. Maybe it's another A wooden tablet carved with ancient writing. If so, you will get a gold coin again."

The radius of the bunker was too small, so Ilabin enlarged it a lot, and finally figured out the situation underneath, and said, "Sir, it's not a plank, but a coffin." Stein's eyelids twitched, and he said, "A coffin?" Ilabouin sighed, "Yes, sir, God forbid, I feel we've hit a treasure." Stein nodded, told him to be careful, and arranged for two team members to jump down from the bunker to help dig the hole, while the others helped lift the soil up by the mouth of the bunker.After digging like this for more than an hour, they finally dug out a canoe-shaped coffin about five feet long and two feet wide from a ten-foot-deep sand pit.

The whole body of this coffin is painted with colorful paintings, from the middle to both ends, there are crows, firebirds, turtles and snakes in sequence.Of course Stein knew that the firebird was the Suzaku, and the tortoise and snake were the Xuanwu. They represent the sun and the moon in Eastern civilization, but what does the crow with dark and sharp eyes in the middle represent? There were two yellow lines drawn on both ends of the colorful coffin, and the yellow lines were covered with things the size of copper coins. A team member asked, "Gentlemen, who knows what these things are?"

The British officer said: "It's a copper coin, just like the 'auspicious' coins in the ancient city of Jiaohe, it symbolizes the power of the ancient king." Stein looked at his most trusted guide, Ilabin, and said, "Man, what do you think?" Ilabin brought the lantern closer and shivered suddenly after shining it for a while.He stretched out his trembling hand and touched the string of things. The closer he got to the pattern on the coffin, the more his hand trembled.When he finally touched the coffin, he froze all of a sudden, with a dull expression on his face under the light.

The expedition members all felt this strange atmosphere.Stein tentatively asked, "Dude, are you okay?" Ilabin moved his lips and said in a strange, crying tone: "Sir, this is not a copper coin, but two bunches of grapes. Look at the shape, isn't it just a bunch of individual grapes tied together? Here It's Turpan, the grapes in Turpan are the best grapes in the world, aren't they?" Stein shrank his shoulders and said, "Yes, buddy, but what do you want to explain?" Ilabin shook his head dully and said, "I'm sorry sir, I think my career as a guide is over. I...I want to go home!"

The British officer grabbed him by the collar, pulled out his pistol and pointed it at his head, threatening him viciously: "Dude, do you know what you're talking about? Our employment relationship hasn't been terminated yet, you're going back Home? This is the behavior of deserters, you know buddy, deserters should be shot!" Ilabin pleaded: "I will refund all the commission, and I want to go home..." Before he finished speaking, he was slapped by the British officer and fell to the ground. Stein stopped the British officer, helped Irabine up, and persuaded: "Man, you must be too tired today. Just get a good sleep, and you will continue to work hard for us tomorrow, right? I know You were joking, man, but our officer, who crawled out of the dead in WW1, doesn't understand your oriental humor. He behaved a little rudely, but I think you'll forgive him, right?"

Stein reassured Ilabuin with half-coaxing, half-frightening, and then sent an expedition member to accompany him back to his tent to rest.The others gathered in a circle, trying to open the colored coffin.Although Stein couldn't figure out what frightened his guide so much, perhaps after opening the colored coffin, everything would become clear. Amidst the slogans of the team members, the colored coffin was opened in response, and the lid fell off with a "bang".Stein held the lantern and looked inside, almost unable to believe his eyes.Others held up lanterns and ran over to look, only to see that there seemed to be a dead bone lying in the colorful coffin.

Why use the word "seems"?Because there are indeed human bones in the colored coffin, and there are complete skulls, spines, ribs and pelvis bones, but there are four arm bones and four leg bones each.Strictly speaking, it is difficult to say that this is "a" dry bone. Stein knew that there were burial rites in ancient China, but the ritual system was complete, and there was no emphasis on burying the person and the deceased in the same coffin. As for the burial of only the hands and feet, it was simply unheard of.But the dead bone in the colorful coffin in front of him has two arm bones and two leg bones, what's going on? Stein looked back at Ilabin's figure on the tent. He didn't know whether it was due to the wind or an illusion. The figure seemed to be twisting and shaking constantly, and he suddenly felt a little cold. Beneath the bones was a two-foot-long board covered with writing in a script he had never seen before.Stein took out the planks and immediately ordered the coffin lid to be closed again.He planned to take a brief rest in the camp, and then set off for Lukeqin before dawn, and then transferred to Dunhuang. But when Stein woke up again, he found that the two team members on the night shift had fallen asleep, the other team members were also soundly asleep, and his guide Ilabin and the colorful coffin were gone, and the missing There is also the tent he brought back, and the board he studied for half an hour. Stein has absolutely no reason not to trust his team members. He even knows the resumes of each team member clearly, but Ilabin alone cannot steal the colored coffin.And in order to hide it, Stein also buried the colored coffin in the yellow sand about a foot below the ground. Even if someone steals the colored coffin, it will definitely wake up others when digging up the soil. What's more, there is no one on the yellow sand that has been artificially touched. trace. Stein led the team to dig all over the nearby yellow sand, until the next night, they still found nothing.The food and water they brought with them were on the verge of exhaustion, and they had to retreat out of the desert in a hurry. Later, when Stein returned to England, he wrote down some words on the board from memory, and asked several sinology experts to decipher the words.Only some incoherent words were obtained, and only four words can be connected together: the ancient city of grapes. Stein stared at the translation in a daze. He couldn't understand the fear of Ilabin at the beginning, the disappearance of the colorful coffin, let alone the dead bones with extra hands and feet in the colorful coffin. Fifteen years later, Stein entered China again full of doubts. His goal this time was very clear, from Lukeqin Flame Mountain to Lop Nur through the Kumtag Desert.But this time, he was expelled by the Chinese government because of his bad record of stealing treasures in Xinjiang many times, and was finally ordered to refuse entry. The failure of the fourth Xinjiang expedition plan became Stein's lifelong regret.