Luoyang shovel

Luoyang shovel

　　Although the Mangshan area of Luoyang is densely packed with ancient tombs, they are not easy pickings for grave robbers. Due to the passage of time, prolonged rain erosion, and leveling of farmland, apart from a few large tombs that still have burial mounds, most show no visible traces on the surface. Blind digging is not only inefficient but often yields nothing. To locate an ancient tomb accurately, one must find the tomb passage or entrance beneath the modern plow layer or loose soil. In the beginning, grave robbers used thick, sharp iron spades to dig square holes in the ground, relying on the soil scooped up by the spade heads to locate tombs. This method was very labor-intensive, as the spades often failed to bring up soil and could not probe very deep. By the 1920s, as the value of antiquities unearthed from tombs soared, the practice of grave robbing intensified. Driven by profit, Luoyang grave robbers became increasingly skilled at excavating ancient tombs, and the Luoyang shovel emerged during this period.

　　Legend has it that around 1923, Li Yazi, a villager from Mapo Village, went to Mengjin for a market day. He noticed that merchants, when securing tent corners, used a type of shovel to poke holes and drive in poles. This tool was both sharp and capable of extracting soil. Inspired by this, he improved upon it and forged a shovel for grave robbing. Since this type of shovel was first used in the Luoyang area, people began calling it the "Luoyang shovel."

　　The Luoyang shovel is a semi-circular shovel consisting of a shovel head, an iron handle, a wax-coated pole, and a rope. As grave robbers gained experience, some gradually developed the ability to distinguish soil colors and textures. By analyzing the soil structure, color, and contents brought up by the Luoyang shovel, they could determine whether there were ancient tombs underground. The manufacturing process of the Luoyang shovel is complex, and each small shovel can only be made by hand, involving nearly 20 steps such as forming the blank, firing, heat treatment, shaping, and sharpening the blade. Over time, improvements were made to the original design: the wooden rod connected to the back of the shovel head was replaced with a threaded steel pipe about half a meter long, which could be nested layer by layer for adjustable length, making it convenient to disassemble, assemble, and carry.

　　Shortly after its invention, the Luoyang shovel caught the interest and attention of archaeologists. The renowned archaeologist Wei Juxian began promoting the use of the Luoyang shovel in the archaeological community in his 1928 book *Chinese Archaeology*. The version used by archaeologists is called a probing shovel. The Luoyang shovel played a significant role in the excavation of famous ancient sites in China, such as the Yinxu ruins and the Yanshi Shang City. Today, the Luoyang shovel has become an essential tool for archaeologists. Learning to use it to analyze soil types is a basic skill every archaeologist must master, and the Luoyang shovel has become a symbol of Chinese archaeological drilling tools.

　　The magical Luoyang shovel is also an indispensable tool in the construction industry. It enables workers to accurately drill exploration holes of various sizes, which are then filled with cement and reinforced with steel bars to form solid cast-in-place piles that support various buildings as well as the foundations of highways and railways. A notable record of the Luoyang shovel is that Luoyang drilling workers successfully drilled a hundred-meter-deep hole for the Yiluo Coal Mine using the tool. Of course, the Luoyang shovel is not omnipotent—it can penetrate ordinary bricks and tiles but struggles with rocks. Therefore, it is better suited for use in flat areas with deep soil layers.

　　The "Luoyang shovel" is a lightweight detection tool used in archaeology to locate underground ancient tombs and in infrastructure projects to investigate strata. It comes in two types: one has a single tile-shaped shovel head at the lower end, with an arc of about half a circle, a diameter of around 7 cm, a shovel head length of 10–20 cm, and a slightly thicker rear end with a semicircular front blade. The shovel shoulder has an iron handle, and the upper end has a tubular shovel sleeve that can accommodate a wooden handle, with a total length of nearly three meters. Measurements can be marked on the wooden handle to check the probing depth at any time. The other type has an upper part similar to the first, except that the front end of the blade is modified into a clasping shape, known as a sleeved shovel. The Luoyang shovel is easy to operate, causes minimal damage to strata, is low-cost, and highly efficient. It has the ability to extract "original" materials from underground. Because the Luoyang shovel was created in Luoyang and first adopted in the Luoyang area, it earned its name.