Dahe Daily·Yu Video Reporter Yuan Min
When it comes to Luoyang Shovel, everyone may be familiar with it. We can often hear its name in some film and television dramas. Because of this, many people associate Luoyang shovel with tomb robbing. In fact, Luoyang shovels are not only used in archaeology, but also in many aspects such as exploration, construction, and agricultural production. Not long ago, we interviewed Sun Yinying, the inheritor of Luoyang shovel forging skills. She said: "The Luoyang shovel is just a utensil. There is no good or bad class of utensils. The most important thing is the person who uses the utensil and what he does with it. "
Luoyang shovel forging skills are passed down within the family.
Luoyang shovel is named after its origin in Luoyang . It is an important tool for archaeological exploration in my country and plays a very important role in the archaeological community of my country. It accurately detects the characteristics of soil layers and has made a huge contribution to archaeological work.
The front end of the Luoyang shovel is semicircular, with a special arc, and the front end is slightly narrower than the rear end. This ensures that when it is driven into the ground and lifted up, the original soil in the ground can be brought out from the inner arc surface of the shovel.
At the "Sun Qingwa Luoyang Shovel" production base located in Zhanghe District, Luoyang City, Henan Province, we saw Luoyang shovels of different lengths and shapes, as well as Sun Yinying, the fifth generation inheritor of Luoyang shovel forging skills.
"I have lived in a blacksmith shop since I was a child and grew up listening to the sound of tinkling. Our entire family is engaged in the forging of Luoyang shovels. However, this craft has been passed down to our generation, only My brother and I persisted," Sun Yinying said.
The first generation of Sun Yinying's family's Luoyang shovel forging skills is her grandfather's uncle, Mr. Chen Yinwa, the second generation is Sun Qinghe, the third generation is Sun Qingwa, the fourth generation is Sun Fengan and Li Junwen, and the fifth generation is She and her brother Sun Kaiqiang.
The past and present life of the Luoyang shovel
When studying the Luoyang shovel, someone mentioned the tool used to dig salt wells in Sichuan during the Ming Dynasty. This tool was found in "Tiangongkaiwu" by Song Yingxing, a scientist of the Ming Dynasty. There are many "pictures of making salt" in this book, among which there is a picture in "Well Salt in Shu Province", which depicts a man standing by a small river, holding a bamboo pole in both hands, drilling holes in the ground. There is a triangular sharp object at the lower end of the bamboo pole, similar in shape to today's exploration shovel. Therefore, some people believe that the Sichuan well-drilling tools operate in the same way as the Luoyang shovel, and there may be some connection between them.
The current Luoyang shovel has become perfect after several generations of improvements. On the basis of retaining the original forging skills, the most suitable method has been found to eliminate the wax wood pole, and other components have also been improved in practice. The structure of the modern Luoyang shovel is: shovel head, counterweight rod, extension rod, lifting ring, special rope, etc., and the rings are connected with threads.
Luoyang shovel is hand-forged from high silicon manganese steel and quenched. The shaping of a Luoyang shovel requires about 28 processes, mainly including hammering the pi, lighting the iron, trimming the edges, grinding the edges, hand-kneading, unique quenching, and furnace firing. Luoyang shovels mainly include four categories, namely soil shovels, sand shovels, brick breaking shovels, and sand shovels.
Luoyang shovel forging requires young people to join
"To hand-make a Luoyang shovel requires more than 400 hammer blows. This is indeed a test for a girl's physical strength, but it also saves me the money to go to the gym to pound iron. ." Sun Yinying said with a smile. The temperature in the workshop remains at around 60 degrees all year round, and Sun Yinying's skin is often burned by sparks flying during the forging process, but she has long been accustomed to this.
As an intangible cultural heritage of Henan Province , Luoyang shovel forging skills have been passed down to the fifth generation, and only Sun Yinying and her younger brother Sun Kaiqiang took over. "We are also currently doing some innovations in cultural and creative fields, mainly to let more young people get close to and understand Luoyang Shovel. Only in this way can we have fresh blood and let modernity and this traditional and ancient industry collide. Then something more fresh can be produced, so that Luoyang can really move forward," Sun Yinying said.
At the end of the interview, Sun Yinying faced the camera and said that in addition to exploration, the Luoyang shovel can also be used to plant trees and dig yams.It is just a utensil, and there is no good or bad distinction between utensils. The most important thing is the person who uses the utensil and what he does with it. Therefore, I hope everyone will view Luoyang Shovel dialectically, because it has done nothing wrong.
