How to drill holes with Luoyang shovel

The Luoyang shovel is a symbol of Chinese archaeological drilling tools. When using it, stand up straight, spread your legs, hold the pole with both hands, place it in front of your chest, place the shovel head on the ground, between the toes, and explore vertically downwards with force. Open the hole to the bottom, continuously rotate the shovel head, and hit alternately from all four sides to maintain the cylindrical shape of the hole. Dig out the soil from the edge of the back shovel and break it lengthwise to see the cross section. When looking at the soil, do not shovel back. Back shoveling is to hit the ground two or three times before lifting the shovel.

There are many types of soil underground in Luoyang, and the explorers roughly divided it into two categories: dead soil and living soil. Generally speaking, the dead soil was not there 10,000 years ago, otherwise it will not be possible to explore and pull it out, and the shovel will get stuck in the hole. When drilling with shovel on one side, the hole will be semi-circular; if shovel is on both sides, the hole will be elliptical; only if shovel is on all four sides, the hole will be round. The holes must be drilled straight. It is not crooked, it is straight and not crooked.

It is not very easy to drill vertical holes. For tools, the shovel head must be upright and the pole must be straight. Otherwise, it is easy to make crooked holes, or even make holes with small openings and big belly, which will make the hole unfamous. To test the straightness and curvature of the exploration hole, you can take a mirror and shine it down from the mouth of the hole with the help of sunlight. If the light reaches the bottom of the hole, the hole is straight. If the light hits the hole wall and cannot go down, the hole is curved and the tool must be trimmed before drilling. It is very laborious to make a curved hole. When pulling out the pole with both hands, you can also lean the top of your shoulders against the wooden pole to use force to pull up.