One of the major challenges in archaeological excavations is the 'unknown'. Archaeologists cannot predict the internal conditions of an ancient tomb or secret chamber that has been sealed for thousands of years - whether there are collapses, whether there are precious cultural relics, and how well they are preserved. Opening it recklessly may result in damage or even disappearance of cultural relics due to sudden environmental changes.
The intervention of endoscopy perfectly solves this dilemma. Taking the excavation of Tomb M1 of the Zhang Anshi family during the Western Han Dynasty in Xi'an in 2011 as an example, this is the most precious tomb in the family's tomb group that has not been looted. Before deciding to open the ear chamber door, the archaeological team decided to conduct a "survey" first.

At the excavation site of the Zhang Anshi family tomb, archaeologists used industrial endoscopes for visitation. The operation process is more precise. They only pry open a small gap on the sealing brick of the ear chamber, and then carefully insert a probe with a diameter of only 8 millimeters into the gap. The probe can rotate 360 ° internally and transmit the image to the connected computer in real time.
The exploration of the 'small incision' this time brought astonishing discoveries:
Confirm that it has not been looted: The image transmitted by the probe shows that no traces of human disturbance were found inside the tomb chamber, ensuring the originality of archaeological information.
Discovering exquisite lacquerware: The probe clearly captured the lacquerware with vermilion cloud patterns, with smooth and dynamic lines that exceeded expectations in terms of preservation. In northern regions, such complete lacquerware is relatively rare.
Lock specific cultural relics and materials: In addition to lacquerware, experts also identified metal rings (presumably copper or silver) and possibly completely charred bamboo artifacts through the images, providing key evidence for developing subsequent protection plans.
Based on these "intelligence", the archaeological team was able to customize detailed plans for fragile cultural relics such as lacquerware, including spraying protective chemicals and building protective greenhouses, before opening the door, achieving a transition from "salvage excavation" to "contingency protection".

Nowadays, professional endoscopic enterprises like Zhongke Intelligent (Wuxi) Technology Co., Ltd. are pushing this technology to a higher level. Mr. Kong Weibiao, the founder of the company, has over 30 years of experience in the field of endoscopy and has won the second prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award. His team has developed T3 series 3D measuring endoscopes and other products, which are not only widely used in harsh fields such as aerospace and petrochemicals, but also have high-precision 3D measurement, AI intelligent recognition and other capabilities. The deep integration of these technologies means that future archaeological exploration will no longer be simply "seeing", but will be able to achieve "precise measurement" and "intelligent analysis" of cultural relics and environments, making the balance between "protection" and "exploration" more scientific and calm.