htmlOn July 30, the audience visited the exhibition hall of "Zhuai China - Henan Xia, Shang and Zhou Three Generations Civilization Exhibition". Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Ren Long "Zhouzhai China - Henan Xia, Shang and Zhou Civilization Exhibition" held at Shanghai Museum , was jointly organized by cultural and tourism departments and museum institutions in Henan Province and Shanghai. It has been extremely popular since its launch, and citizens' enthusiasm for watching the exhibition seems to be higher than the rare hot summer weather.
"Zhaizi China" is a sentence bronze inscription , which appears in Western Zhou bronze He Zun, which means building a palace and building a home in the place "China". The "China" of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties is today's Central Plains region. This is an important birthplace of Chinese civilization and the core area of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties civilization.
There are many archaeological sites and cultural relics in the Central Plains region. The exquisiteness and preciousness of many utensils are always unexpected and amazing. Among them, I think bronze and jade can especially reflect the uniqueness and maturity of early Chinese civilizations, and are unique among the major civilizations of the early human period. In addition, many pottery, wood, lacquerware, , textiles, etc. are also very impressive.
Visiting the museum, you don’t have to be respectful and trepidated, and don’t regard cultural relics as cold and lofty objects. You should know that many of the things called "cultural relics" today are the life or leisure utensils of the ancients, which are closely related to their food, clothing, housing and transportation, and reflect their aesthetics and interests. We might as well watch them with the mood of "communication" with the ancients. In the "Zhaizi China" exhibition, you can see a vibrant "animal world", a lively Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, and the harmonious coexistence between Chinese and nature.
4000 years ago domestic livestock
summer "Mangmang Yu Trace" is the first hall of the exhibition. There is a "pig head" in the middle of the exhibition hall! Its official name is "Pig-headed pottery lid". This is a cultural relic from the early Xia Dynasty (21st century BC-18th century BC). It is 18 cm high and 23 cm in diameter. It was unearthed in 2000 at the Xinmi Xinbao site in Henan Province. According to rough estimates, it is about 4,000 years ago.
, the "pig head", can be described as vivid: first, its size is almost the same as a real pig head; secondly, it is a gray ceramic product with a dark surface and a color that is no different from a black pig ; furthermore, its appearance is highly realistic, whether it is eyes, ears, nose, or mouth. This is a fat pig head, showing its "pamperedness"; the pig's mouth is facing the sky, as if roaring, with a bit of rebelliousness - perhaps, the pigs were domesticated at that time, and they had not lost all their wildness yet?
This artifact is not a toy, but a lid of a pottery. Pottery may be used to store hot rice, vegetables and soup. What should I do if the lid is hot? The ancients also thought of this, and they "made" the bristle part into the handle of the lid. Although this part has been damaged, we can still understand the creators' ingenuity.
Pigs are one of the earliest domestic animals domesticated by humans, and Chinese people have feelings for pigs. The ancient name of pig was "pig". Given "pig" with a roof, that is "home".
In the collection of poems covering the three dynasties of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties and mainly based on Zhou, we can often see pigs. For example, in " Fengfeng·July ", it talks about hunting, "talking about private matters and offering sacrifices to the public", "天" is a small wild boar about one year old, and "天" is a large wild boar about three years old. "Zhao Nan·Zou Yu" writes, "There are reeds that grow up, and one is five birds that grow up", and "there are those who grow up, and one is five birds that grow up." To "translate" it in modern vernacular, it is roughly like this: in the dense reeds, five sows (Tong); in the lush basil, five pigs (Tong) were shot in one fell swoop - Hunter (Zuo Yu), you are so awesome!
Domestic animals are an important symbol of human civilization, especially agricultural civilization. Ancient Chinese successfully domesticated many animals. "The Book of Songs·The King's Wind·The Gentleman in the Soldier" writes: "The chicken lingers in the shrine, and the sun is sunny, and the sheep and cows are coming down." What a warm pastoral song! Among domestic animals, the most important ones are perhaps pigs, cows and sheep, known as the "Three Lives".In the "Zhouzi China" exhibition, there are many elements of cattle and sheep. There are several jade cows alone:
- In the exhibition area of Zhou's "Chengzhou Royal City" there is a jade cow-shaped toner, which is an early cultural relic of Western Zhou , which is hidden in Luoyang Museum . It is 3.5 cm high, 11 cm long, and 5 cm wide. This is a lying buffalo with curled feet, huge bullhead , gentle eyes and a very leisurely expression, as if "sucking a bath" in the pond under the shade of trees in summer. The cow's back is flat and has four holes on it. Staff from the Shanghai Museum said that residual cinnabar red was found in one of the holes. From this, this is a color toner. Perhaps, the owner of the tomb used it to draw in color; or perhaps, he used it to draw beauties and beautiful flowers.
——In the Zhou "Fengbian and Founding of the Country" exhibition area, there is also a jade cow, which is slightly smaller than the toner and has a similar shape. This jade cow is a piece of green jade . The jade is delicate and green and cute. Interestingly, although this jade bull was unearthed from the tomb of the Guo State in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, it is actually an artifact from the late of the Shang Dynasty. In other words, people during the Eastern Zhou period have treasured it as a "cultural relic" that has been passed down for hundreds of years!
There is a universe in "Henan": There are elephants in Henan
After talking about the livestock in the exhibition, let's take a look at the "Beast Sect".
In the exhibition area of Shang's "Dayi Shangdu", you can see a white pottery elephant priest from the late Shang Dynasty. It is 8.8 cm high and 15.8 cm long. It is collected by Xinxiang Museum . This is an exquisite elephant with a rolled up nose, as if she was sucking water and playing with it. Under her nose, there are two long saber teeth, which look majestic; her four legs are thick, and she looks like she is standing tall and upright. The elephant's body is covered with patterns, including phoenix patterns, kuilong pattern , etc. Although its material is white pottery, its shape and patterns are deeply influenced by bronzes of the same period. According to reports, Xiangzun is one of the rituals of sacrificial rituals used in the Shang and Zhou periods.
What first thought of when you see Xiang Zun? What I think of is: During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, were the Chinese in the Yellow River basin very familiar with elephants? At that time, would there be local wild elephants in Henan? Because in today's China, only in the southernmost part of Yunnan can wild elephants survive. Last year, Yunnan elephants also came to the "Elephant North" that attracted the attention of the whole nation.
There were elephants in Henan, and this is very likely. Ge Jianxiong, a famous historical geographer and professor at Fudan University, believes that the Yellow River Basin in history was warmer and more humid. The oracle bone inscriptions have recorded elephants many times, including the king hunting elephants; the "Book of Songs" also mentions bamboo , such as "Zhanbi Qiao, green bamboo yiyi " in "Weifeng Qiao"; what is more interesting is that the ancient part of Henan was called "Yu", and the original meaning of this word is that humans hunt elephants with bamboo spears. Cultural relics can speak, and they prove the changes in the earth's climate from one aspect.
The beast was the object of fear and worship by the ancients. The most familiar beast among Chinese people should be the tiger. During the "Zhaizi China" exhibition, you can find many tigers:
- In the exhibition area of Shang "Dayi Shangdu", there is a small and ingenious bone tiger, 5.2 cm long, 2.2 cm high, and 1.0 cm thick. Don’t look at this tiger, it comes from the famous Shangfu Hao Tomb of Xiaotun Anyang. Fu Hao is the queen of Shang Wang Wu Ding , and is said to be a female general. Many priceless treasures were unearthed in Fu Hao's tomb , including many lifelike carving animals.
A closer look at the bone tiger, with a big head, big ears, curly tail, and four claws tightly, looking fierce and cute. It is carved from animal bones, with a beige appearance and a warm texture like jade; the body is inlaid with turquoise pieces, which are pleasing to the eye with color combination. Speaking of turquoise, I have to mention one thing: the "treasure of the museum" of this exhibition - the bronze plaque of Xia beast face pattern, the surface is inlaid with turquoise, exquisitely processed and intimately, and has been intact for thousands of years.
—In the weekly "Sifang Yiyi" exhibition area, there is a green jade tiger, 16.5 cm long and 3.8 cm high, in the collection of Luoyang Museum.This piece of green jade itself is very special, with dark green on the upper part and light green on the lower part. The craftsman cleverly uses this material to allow the dark green to run through the tiger's ears to the buttocks, like a sharp arrow about to leave the string. Look at it, its mouth is wide open, its sharp teeth are shining; it is squatting, it seems to be rushing; its tail is curling, it seems to be gathering strength.
Seeing this jade tiger, I couldn't help but think of the stone statue of the Fuhu in front of the tomb of the Western Han Dynasty champion Hou Huo Qubing , which looks very similar to the jade tiger. From the perspective of age, "Huo Qubinghu" is still the younger generation of this jade tiger.
- In the Zhou "Feiying the Country" exhibition area, there is also a rare lacquered wood tiger, which is a mid-term cultural relic of the Warring States Period. It is 27 cm high, 52.5 cm long and 24.1 cm wide. It was unearthed from the ruins of Yangcheng, the former capital of Chu State in Nanyang, Henan. It uses a whole wood original carving, which is cut and shaped first, and then carves the details carefully and paints black paint throughout the body. The tiger's head is round, its limbs are lying on the ground and its hind limbs and buttocks are raised, as if it is about to jump up! It has square hollow slots on its waist, head and buttocks, which should be the socket for placing tables and other objects.
says this lacquer wood tiger is rare, because the material is made of lacquerware and woodware are prone to decay and are even more difficult to preserve; the second is because it is a product of the Chu culture and is very different from the typical Central Plains culture style. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Chu State, located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, was strong, and its sphere of influence was once approaching the Yellow River Basin. One of the " Five Hegemons in the Spring and Autumn Period" King Zhuang of Chu even "attacked the Central Plains". As a result, the Chu people also brought Chu culture into the Central Plains, especially the southern regions of the Central Plains such as Nanyang . Chu culture is dazzling, colorful and complex, and full of imagination, which is fully reflected in bronzes, lacquerware, silk fabrics and other cultural relics. of Hubei Provincial Museum , of Hunan Provincial Museum Mawangdui Han Tomb , etc. are all the essence of Chu culture. In fact, with this lacquer wood tiger participating in the exhibition, many cultural relics from Nanyang area have a strong "Jingchu charm".
The Book of Songs·Daya·Han Yi" describes the fief of a great nobleman in this way: "Kong Le and Han Tu, Chuan Ze, Feng Qifufu, Lilu Chen, bears and crotch, cats and tigers." There are fish in the water, deer in the mountains, bears and big bears, and bobcats and tigers...and there are some in the poem, and there are also in "House in China".
has dragons and phoenixes, "Divine Beast" Zhaizi
After talking about the animals in reality, let's talk about the "Divine Beasts" in the exhibition - dragons and phoenixes.
Let’s talk about dragon first. The dragon totem in Chinese culture originated very early, from Stone Age to the Bronze Age, it has been reflected in the ruins and cultural relics of each period. In the "Zhaizi China" exhibition, many bronze ware decorations are dragon patterns, and the animals that climb on the utensils are also dragons. Among them, I discovered it - in the "Fengbian and Founding of the Country" exhibition area of the 1-week period, there is a bronze square inlaid with turquoise diamond-shaped patterns from the mid-Warring States Period, which is 21.6 cm high and 30.8 cm wide. Jian is actually a water tank, and the calm water surface can reflect human figures, so there was a saying in ancient times that "mirror". This censor is generally square, with a small dragon on its four walls. The little dragon's four claws were grasped on the wall of the bronze ware. It stretched its neck, as if it was protruding its head and looking at the water surface inside. It was vivid and cute. What's more exquisite is that these four little dragons are not pure decorations, but handles of vessels, which are easy for people to lift.
also has a turquoise bronze divine beast inlaid with late spring and autumn . It is a dragon's head, tiger's neck, tiger's body, tiger's tail, turtle foot . You can say that it is the " four-dimensional " among the divine beasts. And on its dragon head, the device that looks like a dragon horn is actually six small dragons; on the back of the divine beast, there is a small divine beast standing; in the mouth of the little divine beast, there is a snake-shaped dragon... Such a layered and complex device makes some viewers sigh that the ancients really spent a lot of time on useless and beautiful things; some viewers said that this divine beast has the flavor of " Rococo " art, but in fact, the Western "Rococo" art will not appear thousands of years later.
The "dragon" I want to introduce more is a jade artifact - a snake-shaped jade pendant in the exhibition area of Zhou's "Fengbian and Founding the Country".Dragons are a collection of many animals, and their main trunk is derived from snakes. Among the twelve zodiac signs, we always call snakes the little dragon. The little dragon has an arc shape and a very round body; its body color is between "Xiaobai" and "Xiaoqing", and it is warm and transparent; the little dragon spits out a snake's mouth, has three rows of scale patterns on its body, and its tail is curled inward. I think only those who are innocent in their hearts can devote themselves to polishing a piece of uncensored jade into a little dragon and turning it into a magical one.
After talking about dragon, let’s talk about phoenix. The second most popular is the phoenix-patterned square pot from the late Western Zhou Dynasty. The square pot is 47.8 cm high and has exquisite patterns all over the body. What attracts people the most is the phoenix bird pattern all over the body. The body of the pot is three layers from the neck to the abdomen, with four phoenix birds on each layer. These phoenix birds have a large head, round and large eyes, and a hooked beak with a large shape. What is more prominent is the phoenix crown, which is long and large. They are not like the gorgeous and timid rooster , but more like the "full of martial elf" and even the Kunpeng !
In addition to this phoenix bird pattern square pot, the exhibition also displays a number of exquisitely carved jade phoenixes. According to the staff, Feng is the "mascot" of the Zhou people. Indeed, the "Book of Songs·Daya·Volume" writes, "The phoenix is flying, and its feathers are gathered and stopped", "The phoenix is flying, and its feathers are also thrust into the sky", "The phoenix is singing, and it is on the high hill. sauna is born, and it is on the morning sun. The phoenix is lush and the pride is rosy and silence is rosy." After singing and sighing, how much they love Phoenix. The rising sun is rising, and the phoenix is flying. How come such a scene is not fascinating!
to see! Jade Bear , Jade Deer, Jade Rabbit , Jade Cicada, Jade Swallow, Jade Eagle, Jade Parrot, Duck-shaped pot, Tiger-headed Sacrifice, Beast-headed Simu Xin Gou, Fu Hao Owl ( Owl )... Cultural relics have never been "dead", they are lively in front of us. In "Zhaizi China", you can see the biodiversity on this land of China and the joy of symbiosis between human beings and all living things! (Reporter Yang Jinzhi)
Source: Xinhua Daily Telegraph
