So what caused the Shang and Zhou tombs to be so difficult to trace?
1. has a long history, and most of them have no literature (or more accurate literature) to test.
Only the Zhou Dynasty is about 3000-2000 years ago. Even though China people have always had the tradition of recording state affairs by historians, after so many wars and wars and the change of dynasties, the historical materials that originally recorded tomb information have long been lost, so future generations simply don't know where those Shang and Zhou governors were buried.
The loss of historical documents made the damage more serious, which caused resistance to the discovery of the tombs of Shang and Zhou Dynasties.
2. Crazy grave robbery made these Shang and Zhou tombs lost.
There have been several super-large-scale grave robberies in history, such as Cao Cao's well-known grave robbery army in the Eastern Han Dynasty and the proliferation of grave robbery gangs in the Western Jin Dynasty. And it is estimated that the tombs of Shang and Zhou dynasties are also doomed.
Since the extravagant burial system was opened in ancient China, the rich funerary objects of the underground rich made the poor on the ground desperate and began to steal. There have been several super-large-scale grave robberies in history, such as Cao Cao's well-known grave robbery army in the Eastern Han Dynasty and the proliferation of grave robbery gangs in the Western Jin Dynasty. And it is estimated that the tombs of Shang and Zhou dynasties are also doomed. From the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, it was even more chaotic, and countless cultural relics were smuggled out of the country and returned to foreigners.
Tombs in Shang and Zhou Dynasties may have been excavated, but only grave robbers know what they have dug and what they have got. Maybe in the future, we can look forward to discovering Shang and Zhou tombs!
At that time, the technology of society could not be preserved.
Let's just say that the tombs of Shang and Zhou kings escaped this robbery, and how many can be preserved. During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, even the feudal society did not enter, and it was still in a slave society with low productivity, which should belong to the social state where tribes and villages coexisted.
The ancients lived on the sky. Usually, some tribal villages are constantly moving, which makes it difficult for us to find a suitable excavation site now. At that time, productivity was extremely low, and metal products were rarely produced, so most of them were wood and ceramics, which were extremely difficult to preserve.
Not all tombs are as advanced as Mawangdui in Changsha. The most likely reason is that tombs disappeared under the impact of time.
Due to the burial custom, it is important to pay attention to the fact that the soil is not sealed without leaving any traces.
The tombs of later generations all like the tall mounds like mountains, and then the ground buildings should have everything. Shang and Zhou Dynasties were different. Tombs in Shang and Zhou dynasties were not closed with trees and lacked ground signs, so they were difficult to find. After the Spring and Autumn Period, the popularity of fiefs on tombs began to rise. After that, the tombs began to seal land on a large scale, the most famous of which was the mausoleum of Qin Shihuang.
Summary: Although foreigners are unwilling to acknowledge the existence of Xia Dynasty in China for various reasons, and some even question the existence of Shang Dynasty, this does not prevent us from having a long history in China. Compared with westerners who regard Homer's epic as a historical document and boast that ancient Greece has a long history but few cultural relics have been excavated, we are confident enough. The ruins of the capital were discovered in Xia Dynasty, countless Oracle Bone Inscriptions were unearthed in Shang Dynasty, and a large number of bronzes were unearthed in Zhou Dynasty. These bronzes were mainly unearthed in aristocratic tombs during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.