Original title: Tiger Year: Tiger | Is it unexpected? Two tails and one bird on their backs turned out to be "tiger worship"
In the exhibition hall of the Jiangxi Provincial Museum, the largest existing bronze tiger in the pre-Qin period - the two-tailed bronze tiger in the Shang Dynasty. This cultural relic unearthed from the Oceania Shang Tomb in Xinkan County in 1989 has a unique shape and is a brilliant work of bronze art in the Shang Dynasty, revealing the worship of tiger totem more than 3,000 years ago.
This cultural relic is 53.5 cm long, 25.5 cm high, and weighs 6.2 kilograms. It has a strange shape, with a two-tailed curling curl and a bird on its back. The tiger's body is decorated with patterns, the face and abdomen are decorated with curly cloud patterns, the back is decorated with clouds and thunder patterns, the nose, spine, tail and lower parts of the four legs are decorated with deformed scale patterns, and the upper parts of the four legs are eye-catching thunder patterns. The tiger has a large body and a peculiar shape. It reveals a mighty and brave expression on the outside, while the treacherous and fairy-like spirit hiding inside, fully expressing the tiger's divinity and human admiration for tigers.
Tiger worship has a long history in China. Xu Changqing, secretary of the Party Committee of Jiangxi Provincial Museum, said that in the tomb of Yangshao culture more than 6,000 years ago in Puyang, Henan, a wizard used clam shells to shape tigers and dragons on both sides, which means that the wizard controls dragons and tigers to pass between the world. The fine pattern of gods riding and tigers carved on the jade artifacts of the Liangzhu culture more than 4,000 years ago in Jiangsu and Zhejiang Province, representing the scene of a wizard riding a tiger to heaven and reaching the gods.
"In the origin of the Chinese tiger culture, the tiger worship of the Xinkan Oceanian bronze culture in the Shang Dynasty has both inherited and developed, forming its own unique personality." Xu Changqing said that the tiger patterns of bronze ware in the Shang Dynasty mostly appeared in the south, among which the tiger patterns on the Xinkan Oceanian bronze ware were the most concentrated. The 27 flat feet of the 9-piece bronze tripods are in the shape of tigers, 10-piece tripod ears are 20 tigers standing on the ears, 2 spears are decorated with tiger heads, 2 tiger patterns on the bronze shovel handle, and 1 bronze stick head is shaped with tiger heads. The two-tailed bronze tiger in the Fu Bird is one of the most amazing objects and is known as the "tiger king". This shows that in the bronze culture of Jiangxi in the Shang Dynasty, a unique tiger worship was formed, and the tiger became the most regional cultural symbol.
Reporter: Yuan Huijing
Picture provided by Jiangxi Provincial Museum
Source: Xinhua News Agency
