<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="1" > ancient Chinese bronze sword</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="2" > the whole process of origin, development, and dissemination</h1>
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > archaeological research</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > Author: Sun Ruchu</h1>
International Society of Archaeology and Historical Linguistics
Senior Researcher and Director
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > overview</h1>
Archaeological evidence shows that the ancient Chinese Neolithic to bronze age, showing the authoritarian scepters of chiefs, tribal chiefs and kings, slowly withdrew from the stage of history after the appearance of chinese bronze swords. The bronze sword, which can show status and self-defense, has become a new form of scepter for those in power to show authority. From ancient texts, we can often see that the emperors after the Western Zhou Dynasty will have their own swords, and the most important bronze swords are often gilded with silver, and the handle of the sword is wrapped in gold leaf, and the sword scabbard is exquisitely made of luxurious materials. It is used to carve the round jade sword head behind the hilt, the jade sword grid at the junction between the hilt and the sword body, the jade sword with the string tie hanging from the waist belt on the sheath, and the jade sword with the top of the sword sheath to decorate the jade sword; there is a sword body that is first cast with low tin bronze with the secondary casting method, so that the sword spine is slightly soft and tough and not easy to break in battle, and then the two-sided composite sword blades on both sides of the sword ridge are cast on the sword ridge and the sword ridge are combined with the sword ridge, which can increase the sharpness of the sword. Some kings' swords also carved inscriptions on the body and grid of the sword, and seeped through the silver and silver. Therefore, the bronze sword has been commonly known as the "sword" by the Chinese since ancient times, which has the meaning of treasure.
Figure 1: The Zhejiang Provincial Museum of The Emperor of Zhejiang Province collects the firstborn son of the Emperor of The Yue Dynasty with a bronze sword, which is cast with a bird seal and inlaid with turquoise, and the length of the sword is 52. 4 cm, 4 at its widest point. 2 cm, in 1995, Mr. Ma Chengyuan, director of the Shanghai Museum, found it on a hong Kong stall, which was purchased from Hong Kong by the Zhejiang Provincial Museum and Hangzhou Iron and Steel Group for 1.06 million yuan. (The image selected from the Internet is copyrighted by the author)
As is the case with copper swords around the world, early bronze swords were one of the symbols of power of ancient Chinese kings. For example, the famous Spring and Autumn Period of the Warring States Period wu wang fu cha sword, Yue wang gou jian sword are the king's sword, a rare treasure in the Chinese cultural relics sword. They are all ceremonial items worn by the emperor, and they also have the meaning of royal power.
Figure 2: The name of each part of the Chinese bronze sword. Because the lacquerware is precious during the War Han Dynasty, the bronze swords of the War Han Dynasty file mostly use lacquered wooden sword sheaths, and the jade sword uses Hetian Jade to carve the sword head, sword grid, sword and sword to show the preciousness (the picture is selected from the network copyright belongs to the producer)
After the invention of the bronze sword, it was not until the Han Dynasty, and after the Han Dynasty, the steel sword was widely used; the sword has a long history of more than 3,000 years of use in China, which has a profound impact on ancient Chinese civilization. Therefore, the origin of the bronze sword has become one of the problems that Chinese historians and archaeologists are very eager to clarify. However, over the years, due to the inherent difficulty of tracing back to the roots, and the uninterrupted migration of ancient Chinese peoples due to the influence of climate change, the integration of east and west has caused various archaeological cultures to intersect, and you have me, I have your complexity; in the process of studying the origin of the copper sword, it has caused a variety of different views. Researchers stand by their own perspectives on the scope of their knowledge and the scope of the information they have. Therefore, like many other ancient problems in which the origin cannot be found, there are theories of Western introduction, indigenous self-creation, the same origin, the origin of many places, and so on, which cannot be integrated with each other. As a result, the question of the origin of the bronze sword has not been clear for a long time. However, things have a logical causal relationship that produces the order of development, and most of the things that human beings know can find the context when they study them carefully. Based on this idea, this paper relies on the results of archaeological excavations and museum collections as the basic basis, from the world's ancient bone horn tooth conical apparatus, bone tooth wooden spear, bone cone bone knife inlaid with stone tools, bone handle short sword and wooden handle flint sword, bow and arrow and other ancient tools and weapons; analyze their interrelationship with the origin of copper swords, to find the origin of the world and Chinese copper swords, trace the evolution and development of ancient Chinese copper swords in China, and demonstrate the evolution and development of the origin of ancient Chinese copper swords. It is hoped that from the archaeological point of view, the whole process of origin, development and dissemination of the ancient Chinese bronze sword will be reproduced.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" >, an exploration of the origin and development of ancient copper swords in the world</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="24" >1, the origin of the world's ancient copper sword originated from the bone handle stone blade sword or flint sword</h1> discussion
Looking for the origin of the bronze sword from archaeological excavations, we can first find the bone cone used by people at that time in the Natuv culture around 16,000 in West Asia. Neanderthals who lived in the colder parts of Europe in the middle of the Paleolithic Period were able to wear hunting animal furs with ropes to make simple dresses to protect themselves from the cold. To tie the fur together to make a dress, it is necessary to punch the connecting hole of the rope through the edge of the fur; from the bone spear and the stone-embedded wooden spear hunting that Neanderthals had already used at that time, the Neanderthals with developed brain capacity had been inspired by bone spears and inlaid stone wooden spears to learn the method of using antler tips and animal tooth tips to punch holes in the fur. In order to be more effective, the bone cone made by grinding the bones of animals after eating meat was subsequently produced. If we examine it carefully, we will find that the tool of cone played an extremely important role in the life of the ancients. Animal furs are interspersed together to make tent houses, leather coats and leather skirts, and leather shoes and hats. The needs of life will be from the various available materials at that time to invent a strong and durable bone cone and other tools for professional piercing. Perhaps bone products are tough and not perishable, or perhaps many other cones made of materials have decayed; the most common of the physical objects excavated by archaeologists are bone cones, stone cones and copper cones. The grinding of bone cones apparently became one of the most important tools of the time during the Neanderthal period of the Paleolithic period. Various cones can often be found in the burial items of human tombs at that time and in the tools that people carried with them. Among them, the bone cone is also the ancestor of the late Paleolithic eye bone needle.
Figure 3: Bone stalk stone cone around 15,000 years after the Shanatov culture. This technique of inlaying fine stone tools on bone stalks has promoted the progress of Neanderthal Moster small stone tools to fine stone tools, which is of great significance (image selected from the network copyright belongs to the producer)
Because the use of bone cones at that time could pierce the connection holes in the animal fur, but the animal fur was also very tough, and it was difficult to penetrate the holes after drying and stiff. Leather coats and leather shoes and hats will be damaged after use, and after damage, they need to be repaired with a cone, so the top of the bone cone is easily damaged. People use flint drill bits inlaid in bone tubes to make bone stem stone cones to strengthen the puncture performance of bone cones. Inspired by the bone cone inlay, the bone handle stone knife for cutting was invented on the basis of the bone stem stone cone. Because the stone chips inlaid on the bone stalk are very small and neatly arranged, the invention of the inlaid stone bone handle tool promotes the micro-forming of stone tools, which led to the development of human stone tools from the Neanderthal invention of the Mostelvarowa small stone tools to more elaborate stone leaves and fine stone tools.
Stone leaves are the most suitable fine stone tools for making bone handle stone knives, and the stone leaves are cut off from the stone core in segments to make rectangular blades with gum and arranged, embedded in the grooves pre-carved by the bone knife is a common method for making bone handle stone knives. The 35,000- to 33,000-year-old stone leaves unearthed in the Shanidal Cave near Turkey in West Asia predate the European stone leaves, and are considered the birthplace of the world's stone leaf fine stone tools. Human inventions are all contributed to by the needs of life. In order to pierce the need to invent a double-sided bladed bone handle stone knife from a single-edged inlaid stone bone knife, this stone knife because there are blades on both sides suitable for piercing the animal body; later people called this double-sided blade bone handle stone knife as the bone handle stone sword, people grind the animal bone into a bone ridge-like bone handle, and then pre-carved on both sides of the groove where the fine stone leaf stone pieces are placed, and the finely made miniature rectangular stone pieces are lined up with a special resin glue as an adhesive, and the glue is embedded in the grooves of the prefabricated bone handle. In this way, the true bone-handled stone-bladed short sword was born from the stone-inlaid bone vessel. If the age of stone leaves from West Asia is around 35,000, the stone bone knife should have been born in this period. Because stone leaves are necessary materials for making stone bone knives, the appearance of stone leaves means that the stone bone handle sword sutra is popular in West Asia.
Figure 4: The National Museum of Turkish In Western Asia exhibits the obsidian cores of Cchatarius and the leaves of stone that were ripped off by pressing around 9,000. Stone leaves are an important material for inlaid stone bone handles. (Image selected from the Network copyright belongs to the producer)
In addition to the bone-handled stone-bladed sword, there is also a wooden-handled flint-embedded short sword that originated from a Neanderthal inlaid wooden spear. Ever since the Neanderthals invented the inlaid wooden spear with the small stone tools of Mostelvarowa embedded in the top of the wooden spear, glued with gum and bound with a hemp rope leather rope, this technique has been used and passed down in the West for a long time. Around 20,000, during the European Solote culture, with the increasingly developed technique of making fine stone tools, wooden spears and wooden handle stone swords with shuttle willow leaf shaped flint inlaid with solut willow leaf-shaped flint tools appeared. In the small town of Clovis in the United States, embedded flint wooden spears and wooden handle stone swords have been excavated around 13500 to 11000, which have a longer history in Europe and West Asia. Among the archaeological excavations are the flint sword of Sicia chardhu around 9000 and the wooden-handled flint short sword carried by the "Iceman Oz" excavated in the glacier of the Italian Alps around 5300. It can be seen that at the same time as the invention and use of bone-stemmed stone-inlaid leaf ware, the traditional wooden-stemmed flint-inlaid stone tools are still developing and used at the same time. This in turn adds a prototype of a low-level tool or weapon to the origin of the Bronze Sword.
Ancient tools were weapons in battle and hunting. Because the bone-handled stone sword has a double-sided blade and has an effective stab insertion self-defense effect, and the wooden-handled short sword made of Shuttlet willow leaf-shaped flint has the same function as the bone-handled stone sword, so the sword is a tool that humans carry with them as a tool and weapon form for close combat self-defense. However, it should be noted that both bone-handled stone-bladed swords and wooden-handled flint swords were short at the beginning, called short swords and daggers, which is consistent with the early golden swords and bronze swords in the West. The early swords were all short swords.
Figure 5 Above the left picture paleolithic antlers, mammoth teeth grinding a variety of hunting spears, the original is a straight with a throwing function, now stored in the Museum of Ancient French Cultures; the upper middle and upper right picture is the ancient inlaid stone blade blade and bone handle stone blade sword; the lower left picture of the British Museum holds the American Clovis clay around 13500 with European Solut fine stone tools made of European Solut stone spears; the lower middle figure below around 9000 West Asia Chatar Hugh in the Trot willow leaf shaped stone tools made of Clovis stone tools in the United States The picture on the right below is the flint-inlaid flint short sword carried by the Iceman "Oz" around 5300 in Italy (the picture is selected from the Internet Copyright belongs to the producer)
Of course, there are also experts who believe that the bone handle stone sword is too thin and not suitable for humans as a close defense weapon, and the bronze sword does not necessarily originate from the bone handle stone blade sword. So what ancient tool weapons would the bronze sword have originated from? After the Neanderthals invented the spear-throwing and stone-embedded wooden spear assassination tools used for hunting with antlers or ivory, why did the human stone tools become smaller and more delicate? In the development of the Small Stone Tool to the Fine Stone Tool, many stone sword clusters were also found for embedding the top of the wooden arrow shaft of the bow and arrow. The invention of the (stone arrow) bow and arrow is an innovation in human hunting tools, providing a new safe tool for human long-distance hunting, and is often considered by experts and scholars to be one of the important inventions of human beings. Because the powerful piercing ability of the bow and arrow is imagined to be related to the origin of the human copper sword, could the copper sword have been inspired by the piercing function of the bow and arrow? There is no doubt that the bow and arrow was invented on the basis of throwing spears made of bone horns created earlier by neanderthals and long wooden spears inlaid with small stone tools of The Levalova technique. The javelins commonly found in Europe and the West were formed by the ancient bony tooth flying spear and the inlaid stone wooden spear thrown at a distance, which was a common way for Neanderthals to throw their prey with spears when hunting animals at long distances. Because there are piercing tools such as bone spears and stone-embedded wooden spears in front, bows and arrows can only be produced under the inspiration of the throwing gun. It is just that in order to make it launchable and converted to human throwing, people have invented a bow with elastic force; converting the arm force into the elastic force of the bow and then throwing the inlaid arrow shaft out. The reason for inlaid stone arrow clusters at the top of the bow and arrow shaft is the same as the inlaid stone wooden spear, the stone blade stone knife, the bone blade stone sword and the embedded flint wood handle sword. However, comparing the relationship between short spears, bone-handled stone swords, wooden-handled flint swords, and bows and arrows and the invention of human copper swords, it can be seen that bone-handled stone swords and embedded flint-handled wooden-handled short swords are more likely. At least the double-sided bladed forms of bone-handled stone swords and flint-handled wooden-handled shortswords influenced the double-sided blade forms of the earliest golden and bronze swords; their shortsword forms were also the reason why the first gold and bronze swords were short swords. As for whether there will be other ancient tools and weapons that can become the original form of the origin of the bronze sword, archaeology has not yet found it. Therefore, from the perspective of the origin of copper swords in the world, it is more reasonable that bone-handled stone-bladed swords and flint-handled wooden-handled short swords are regarded as the source of copper swords.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="42" >2, the birth of copper-stone and epoch bronze: from cold forging of natural copper and red copper blocks, hot forging to smelting and casting</h1>
The study of the origin of the bronze sword first of all cannot avoid two important conditions; all the tools and weapons of the First World are derived from the lower prototype of the tool. The Origin of the Bronze Sword necessarily has the prototype of a lower-level tool and weapon. The second copper sword is cast with copper liquid; the invention of the copper sword is inseparable from the smelting and casting technology of copper. The copper sword is first smelted from copper ore into copper liquid, poured into a prefabricated model and cooled and processed. The manufacture of copper swords must first have copper ore smelting, casting fan manufacturing and casting technology.
It is generally believed that the history of human large-scale use of the metal copper follows that of gold. In the process of searching for natural gold blocks, people picked up natural copper blocks from the surface and began to use cold forging to make copper beads. Because natural copper (that is, red copper) is soft, smashing with stones will become various shapes, so the earliest human processing copper with a stone hammer to smash the red copper block, so that it deforms to get the desired shape of the copper, which is the cold forging of natural copper. Because the natural copper block has a certain hardness and difficulty in tapping, sometimes it will break when it contains impurities when cold forging can not get the desired copper, so people in the practice of life found that the red copper block into the fire to heat the red will become softer and then smashed easier, which produces the hot forging technology of copper. Hot forging is like modern blacksmiths striking iron. From hot forging to putting natural copper blocks into the furnace and melting them into copper liquid to make copperware, from picking up natural copper for watching tables to smelting copper ore into copper liquid and manufacturing model cast bronze, human beings have gone through a long process of understanding and experience accumulation.
In the Western Asian region, copper and stone around 10,000 years ago began to use natural copper (red copper) blocks picked up on the surface of the earth to make copper beads sporadically; people began to use natural copper blocks to use cold forging or hot forging with stone hammers to process copper blocks into copper skins, and then rolled copper skins into copper beads and hung them on the neck to decorate the body. After the advancement of hot forging technology, people used copper blocks to be hot forged into copper cones or bone stalk copper cones instead of bone stalk stone cones. The Syark region of Iran, near Turkey, is rich in copper ore mines and is one of the world's earliest birthplaces of cast copper, dating back to around 7,000. Forged copper cones were unearthed in the first phase of Sialk. Copper cones were first made of copper, which was extremely precious at that time, showing the importance of cones in people's lives. And because most of the copper used for cold forging and hot forging copper at that time was a natural red copper block picked up on the surface, most of the heads were very small. It is to encounter a large piece of natural red copper block and because the copper ore is impure, the internal entrainment of other minerals and stone sand will crack and break, so it can not be used to forge a larger copper knife and copper short sword, so in the red copper forging stage can only forge copper cone, copper beads and copper rings and other small copper, copper sword will not be born.
Figure 6: Various copper cones and gilded copper needles forged and cast in the Bronze Age show that the ancients attached great importance to tools such as cones and needles.
In the process of natural red copper block hot forging, people found that the red copper block would melt when it was burned in the fire, and the copper droplets that melted into a copper liquid would form various copper blocks similar to the shape of the ground after cooling at the bottom of the furnace. Therefore, after long-term observation, there are craftsmen who deliberately put the natural copper blocks they picked up into the furnace to intentionally melt it, and put various shapes of mud or stone basins at the bottom of the furnace, so that the molten copper liquid drops into the basin to cool down to get the desired cone, knife, shape of a larger copperware, and then grinded to make copper cone, copper knife. After this method was regularized, human beings invented the use of special clay pots with burning charcoal and oxygen to melt copper ore to obtain copper liquid. Because the copper liquid had a temperature of 1084 degrees Celsius after melting, the only materials that could bear the copper liquid at that time were dirt and stone; and because the container made of soil would react quickly with the water in the soil when the copper liquid was injected, the air burst would cause the copper liquid to splash, so at that time, there was only one option for using stone chisels to make a stone basin in the shape of a copper to undertake the copper liquid. (This kind of stone basin is called Shi Fan, which is also the reason why the West first invented the stone fan copper casting technology, and there is a stone fan unearthed in the Sialk Phase II formation) The natural copper blocks and copper ore chips are put into the pot of fire charcoal to blow in oxygen to help burn and melt, and then remove the scum on the copper liquid and inject it into the stone basin to get the desired copper after cooling. By this time, the smelting of human copper and the casting technology of bronze stone fans had been born. Of course, this invention process and experiment from natural copper block cold forging to hot forging to casting took a long time. According to the evidence of archaeological excavations in the world, this stone fan casting bronze ware technology has appeared sporadically as early as around 8000 in the Western Mediterranean east Cyprus region. It developed two thousand years later in the Syark region of Iran and the Metallurgical region of the Black Sea, where there are many copper mines, and gradually affected Egypt, Europe and Central Asia, South Asia, and North Asia. Between 7,000 and 6,000 years, many of Iran's copper mines had been mined. There is no doubt that humans mined copper in order to smelt copper liquid and cast copper with stone fans. In the mines mined in the southwestern part of Kerman in the mountains of central Iran, a large number of copper droplets and mud crucibles have been found in the strata of 6,000 years ago, proving that 6,000 years ago, The Siark, Iran, was able to melt copper ore with crucibles and cast copper with copper and stone fans. (See Wang Xingyun's "Exploring the Origins of Ancient Iranian Civilization", the first edition of the Commercial Press, July 2008))
The Shifan copper casting technology originating in West Asia then spread from the Elbs Pass at the southern end of the Caspian Sea in Iran to the north to the east, and influenced the Qijia culture in northwest China and the Great Wall Belt area in the north along the Siberian passage of the Eurasian steppe. Around 4,000 years ago in the Ganqing region of northwest China, the Qi family culture and the Shanxi Tao Temple of the Longshan culture before the Xia Dynasty in the Central Plains, there are a small number of copper mirrors, copper axes and copper bells cast by shifan, and gear shapers representing the sun. By the late Xia Dynasty and the early Shang Dynasty, around the third period of the Erlitou culture, the pottery fan copper casting technology invented from the pottery manufacturing technology in the central plains of China was not yet mature, so it still used the stone fan imported from the West to cast a small number of small bronzes. During this period, there were still very few bronzes in the Central Plains, much less than in the northwest region. Among the 500 early bronzes in the country, more than 400 are in the northwest, only a few dozen in the Central Plains, and only small bronzes have been excavated.
Figure 7, the upper left picture of the ancient stone fan copper casting technology and excavated stone casting fan in European countries; the upper right picture of the former Soviet Union's various cast copper stone fan and stone fan casting copper diagram; the lower left picture of mongolia Chifeng Shang late Western Zhou hot water Tang Xiajiadian upper culture unearthed three handleless crank-bladed copper swords and three straight-handle crank-bladed swords and casting curved blade swords; lower right figure Xiajiadian upper culture unearthed stone knife fan and stone axe fan; proof that the West all used stone fan casting bronze, this technology was introduced from Central Asia to the Qijia culture in northwest China around 4,000 years ago, From then on, the Chinese Qiang people used to cast "northern copperware" until it was replaced by the Han Dynasty (the picture is selected from the internet copyright and belongs to the producer)
However, because Shi Fan could not cast larger bronzes, in the first three periods of Erli, the Central Plains Dynasty toasted to the gods in order to make a bronze wine glass for the gods, and finally used Tao Fan (rong fan of the cast bronze made of clay and then cooled and dried in the kiln invented in China) to cast the world's earliest copper container and flat-bottomed three-legged copper cup. Replace the pottery wine cup that was previously used to worship the gods with faience black pottery and white pottery vessels. Since then, the Central Plains pottery fan copper casting technology has gradually developed, can cast a variety of bronze wine vessels, eating utensils, water utensils and other sacrificial vessels, the shape of the vessel from small to large, ornamentation from simple to complex, from simple to exquisite, the process from the overall casting to the sub-casting and then combined casting, the formation of China's Central Plains unique Pottery Fan casting bronze technology. (Here are the Shang Dynasty rulers at that time in order to worship the gods of religious piety in the manufacture of copper ceremonial vessels to develop pottery and smelting casting technology at the expense of a large amount of state capital investment) beyond the centuries of Western invention of stone fan copper casting technology, and later became the world's first and famous. Since then, China's flexible and applicable Tao Fan copper casting technology has developed rapidly. And because the pottery fan production technology is complex and the West cannot master it, it has never been surpassed by the West.
Figure 8, the museum on the top left shows the multi-piece combination pottery fan used to cast the three-legged bronze Ding; the shanghai museum in the upper right shows the four-piece cast bronze yao pottery fan, the middle is the mud core loaded on the bottom fan, the left and right are the two pieces of pottery fan that are inverted after the yao, and the copper liquid that is combined when casting is injected from the inverted bottom; the lower left picture is the flat-bottomed three-legged copper wine cup that the "First Lord of China" cast by the "First Lord of China" cast by the Xia Wei Erli culture at the expense of the work of the pottery fan, and the bronze casting bronze of the Central Plains of China has entered a mature stage In the lower right, the Shang King cast the Simu Peng Dafang Ding 832 for his mother. 84 kilograms, cast in sections with Zhongyuan pottery fan and then cast together, marking that the casting technology of Central Plains bronze has greatly surpassed the Western stone fan casting copper technology to ascend to the world's first throne. Western stone fan technology cannot cast large bronzes. Since then, China has never been surpassed. (Image selected from the Network copyright belongs to the producer)
In the period of the settlement autonomous society ruled by theocracy, in order to express the devotion to the gods, people all over the world made precious bronzes to worship the gods, but the West that first invented the copper casting technology was influenced by the stone fan is too brittle and hard, not easy to carve fine patterns and the stone itself is too heavy to move, and it is impossible to carve a large stone fan to cast a large copper container, so the copper casting technology gradually lags behind China, and because the production process of the cast copper pottery fan in the Chinese Shang Zhou period is extremely complicated, the West has not been able to grasp the experience accumulated over tens of thousands of years without China's invention and manufacture of pottery So much so that Western copper casting technology never caught up with China in the next few thousand years.
Here is a brief introduction to the history of the world's copper casting technology, in order to illustrate that the world's copper casting technology was invented by the West and introduced to China; the earliest invention in the West to use Shifan casting bronze, and because of the long-term use of Shifan casting bronze development is restricted, The Chinese Central Plains Dynasty in order to manufacture copper ceremonial vessels offering wine and food to the gods, using the pottery experience accumulated in China for thousands of years to invent the pottery fan copper casting technology that can cast large bronzes, surpassing the Stone Fan copper casting technology invented in the West in one fell swoop. Since then, two different stone fan copper casting systems and Chinese Central Plains tao fan copper casting systems have been formed in the world. The bronzes they cast are very different and different from each other. Except for the Central Plains of China, the whole world will only use stone fans to cast bronze. (The West later invented the lost wax method and metal fan casting technology to supplement the deficiencies of stone fan casting, but it was far inferior to Chinese pottery fan technology, and western casting technology had been lagging behind China before the industrial revolution.) ）
3. Archaeological excavations have seen the spread of the world's earliest copper swords and the world's copper swords
Regarding the earliest examples of bronze swords in the world, Western archaeology is currently uncertain. We can only discuss the bronze swords excavated from the siberian steppe passages in West Asia, Europe and Central Asia, and Russia.
Judging from the chronological order of excavation of copper swords in archaeology, the bronze swords in the West are thousands of years earlier than in China. At present, the earliest physical age of bronze swords excavated by archaeology in the world is the gold short sword and sheath excavated from the tomb of the king of your in the two river basins of West Asia, dating around 4500. Judging from its mature form, it has taken a long time from the bone-handled stone blade sword and the wooden-handled flint sword in West Asia to the mature king's golden sword; because the copper sword is cast, its birth must have been after the western copper smelting and casting technology was successfully invented and the use of stone fan casting bronze. According to the time when stone fans were used to cast copper in the Siyark and Black Sea copper smelting regions of Iran around 6,000 years, it took at least a thousand years in the West from the bone-handled stone blade sword and the flint sword with the handle to the birth of the copper sword.
After the release of the West Asian bronze sword, it spread rapidly to all parts of the world because of its superior practical performance and the authoritarian display and self-defense effect of the king. Bronze swords unearthed in Egypt near Western Asia date slightly later than in Western Asia. The Amu Darya civilization, which began in Central Asia in 4300, has unearthed a willow-leaf-shaped copper sword from West Asia. According to the first volume of the History of Civilizations in Central Asia compiled by UNESCO, a bronze sword has been unearthed in the Anno-Namazga Oasis Cultural Belt around 4300 years ago in the Kopit Dag Mountains of Central Asia and the Karakum Desert in Central Asia. This is one of the evidences of the spread of the Western Asian bronze sword through Central Asia to northern China. (See History of Civilization in Central Asia, Vol. 1, compiled by UNESCO, China Foreign Translation and Publishing Corporation, January 2002, first edition, p. 160, Khorasan and the Bronze Age of the Trans-Amu Darya Region))
This was followed by the tomb of Lion Gate IV, the Acropolis of the Mycenaean civilization on the Greek peninsula, where many bronze swords were unearthed, among which there was the Sword of the King, which was beautifully decorated with gold with a hilt sheath, dating back to around 3550. This is physical evidence of the spread of the Western Asian bronze sword to Europe.
There are many short bronze swords in Egypt around 4000 on the Nile River in North Africa, and two gold-ornamented swords have been excavated from the mausoleum of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Tutankhamun, dating around 3300, proving that the West Asian bronze swords spread to North Africa in large quantities at this time.
Originating from the copper mines of the Ural Mountains in Russia around 4200, the Seima-Turbino culture is the combined name of the Seyima Cemetery and the Turbino Cemetery in the Ural Mountains. They are believed to be the culture of the migration of people from the Western Black Sea Copper Smelting and Foundry Area to the northern Ural Mountains copper mining area after the completion of copper mining in the Black Sea region. It was this culture that introduced the earliest animal-handled copper swords, ring-first copper swords and willow-shaped copper swords from the southern passage of Siberia in the Eurasian steppe to northwest China. Later, between 3900 and 3500, the Andronovo culture introduced more beast-headed bell-headed ring-headed bronze swords to northern China; Mongolia also saw the emergence of many two-sided bladed beast-headed short swords. This is the second evidence that the bronze sword invented by West Asia was introduced to China by relaying from Central Asia. These are the earliest copper swords unearthed in the world except China, but it should be noted that their early copper swords are very short, and they are all short swords like the early copper swords of West Asia.
Figure 9: Evidence of the golden shortsword and scabbard excavated from the tomb of king Ur of West Asia in 4500; copper shortsword and sheath evidence excavated from Egypt in North Africa around 4000 years ago in the upper right, proving that the West Asian copper sword spread to northern Africa; the 3550 Greek Mycenaean shaft tomb in the upper left shows that the copper sword spread to Europe; the lower left figure shows that the willow leaf-shaped ring-headed copper shortsword and the sessile willow leaf copper sword of the Central Asian Amu Darya civilization around 4300, proving that the West Asian copper sword spread to Central Asia The picture on the right is a short sword with a handle unearthed from the Seima-Turbino culture around 4200 years ago in the Ural Mountains region of the Eurasian steppe, and the picture below is a willow leaf-shaped sessile short sword excavated from Seima-Turbino, dating from 4200 to 3900 years ago, far earlier than the Chinese copper sword. They are the source and prototype of the Chinese bronze sword. (Photo from "Seima - Turbino Culture and the Prehistoric Silk Road" edited by the Network and Lin Meicun)
It should be noted that the works and papers of some predecessors and researchers of ancient bronze sword research in the past were limited by insufficient archaeological excavation evidence and data at that time, and all believed that the Shang Dynasty around 3600 in China was the birthplace of the world's copper swords; it was the copper sword invented by the Shang Dynasty in China that spread the copper sword invented by the Shang Dynasty to Mongolia and the Karasuk culture in the Minusinsk Basin of Southern Siberia. The fact is that there is no copper sword at all in the Shang Dynasty of the Central Plains of China! The beast heads, bell heads, ring-headed copper short swords and willow leaf-shaped copper swords of the Shang Dynasty unearthed in northwest and northern China in the past are all Western copper swords introduced by the Qiang people around the Central Plains from the Eurasian steppes and imitated and modified using Western stone fan technology, which are different from the copper weapons cast by the Central Plains Shang Dynasty using Tao Fan technology, in fact, they are not the copper swords of the Central Plains Yin Shang Dynasty. People mistakenly regard the bronze swords cast by these stone fans as the bronze swords of the Yin Shang Dynasty, and according to the Age of the Karasuk Culture Beast Of the Minusinsk Basin of the Eurasian Steppe, which appeared in northern China, and the Minusinsk Karasuk cultural population has Mongolian ancestry, it is inferred that the copper sword originated in the Shang Dynasty in the Central Plains of China. This is just an incorrect speculation, and this error has long misled the history of Chinese bronze swords, which is corrected and clarified here according to the physical evidence of copper swords unearthed by archaeology around the world.
Figure 10, this chart is the carbon 14 chronology of various archaeological cultures in the Eurasian steppe of northern Russia, carbon 14 dating data is recognized as the most reliable dating data in the world, from the table it can be seen that the Seima-Turbino culture is dating between 4200 and 3900 years, and their copper short sword age is much earlier than that of the Chinese Shang Dynasty copper sword; Figure 21 to 23 Petrovka-Araku culture belongs to the Andronovo culture, and the carbon 14th century is also between 3900 and 3700. Carbon-14 data tells us that the Chinese copper sword originated from the imitation of the northern steppe peoples to the West Asian and Eurasian grasslands to introduce the Chinese copper sword. (From Russian Lyudmila Kryakova Andrei Yepimakhov, Chen Xiangze, "The Eurasian Gate: The Urals and the Bronze and Iron Age of Western Siberia", Life, Reading, Andynzo Triptych Bookstore, March 2021, First Edition, p. 18)
As in all countries and regions in the world, the physical evidence unearthed by archaeology will always overturn the research conclusions formed by predecessors for many years and return the facts to history.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="83" > second, the origin and development of ancient Chinese copper swords</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="84" >1, Chinese Stone Age bone handle stone blade and fine stone tool</h1>
It is generally believed that the world's copper sword originated on the bone-handled stone-bladed sword or the flint-handled flint sword, and is a natural product that is continuously updated and replaced by human beings in order to improve the strength and durability of the bone-handled stone-bladed sword and the wooden-handled flint-knife sword. What about in China? According to the physical evidence excavated by archaeologists, this technique also spread to China early when fine stone tools and stone blade bone handle swords and wooden handle flint swords inlaid by fine stone tools were popular in West Asia. The Heilongjiang Museum in northern China has a collection of 21,000-18,000-year-old European Solote culture willow leaf-shaped flint sword stone tools excavated from Xiaonanshan, and 6,500-year-old bone handle stone swords excavated from Ang'angXi; the Shangzhai culture stone blade bone blade bone handle stone blade sword around 7,000 years ago appeared in the Yanshan area of Beijing; and many bone-handled stone blade swords and bone-handled stone blade swords were unearthed in the Majiayao culture around 5500 in northwest China.
After the invention of the bone-handled stone-handled stone-edged flint tool technology, the world stone tool industry further developed from the Neanderthal-invented Mostert small stone tool embedded in the top of the wooden spear to a fine stone tool suitable for embedding on the bone handle. Around 20,000 years ago, the Solut culture of Solut culture willow leaf-shaped laurel leaf-shaped fine stone tools are very suitable for embedding in the handle of the flint sword, northern China is the eastern end of the Eurasian grassland passage, the western small stone tool, fine stone tool technology with the crowd along the Eurasian grassland passage eastward migration continues to reach northern China and the Americas, for the Chinese bone handle stone blade knife, bone handle stone blade sword, wooden handle flint sword to create conditions. And wooden-handled flint swords and spears made of Solut willow leaf-shaped flint tools have also been unearthed in large quantities in the Americas around 10,000 years ago.
Although the Shanxi Zhiyu culture after 30,000 years of the late Paleolithic period in China and the Shangzhai culture around Yanshan in Beijing around 7,000 years have appeared in the true sense of fine stone tools. However, from the suppression method of Western fine stone tools and the technology of cutting stone leaves from stone cores, as well as the selection and processing methods of Chinese fine stone tool materials are basically the same as those in the West, and the West is earlier than China, (Zhiyu culture 29,000 years, West Asian Shanidal cave leaf culture 35,000 years) it is believed that the world's fine stone tools and bows and arrows are based on the Chinese Zhiyu fine stone tools as the center of the invention and then spread to the world, (see the "Archaeological Journal" in 1972, the first issue of the "Shanxi Zhiyu Paleolithic Site Excavation Report" and "Xiachuan—— Late Paleolithic Cultural Site Excavation Report" there are many problems that cannot be solved. Neolithic and previous Chinese did not reach West Asia and Europe, (it is generally believed that the time Chinese to Central Asia and West Asia was around 2000 AD when Zhang Qian traveled through the Western Regions and the Silk Road) How was it possible to spread the fine stone tool technology centered on China around 30,000 years ago to West Asia, North Africa and Europe? If China did not spread the fine stone tools and bows and arrows invented by Zhiyu to West Asia, North Africa and Europe, then how can it be proved that fine stone tools were first invented in China and spread to the world? Where did the fine stone tools and bows and arrows from West Asia, North Africa, and Europe come from? If the chinese fine stone tool technology through cultural dissemination influenced the western fine stone tool, then where are the channels and evidence of dissemination? It seems difficult to convince the world of the idea that fine stone tools were invented in Zhiyu, Shanxi, China, until these problems are solved. If the fine stone tool technology was created and developed independently by China and the West, then why are the materials selected, the processing technology, the shape of the fine stone tool, and the bone handle stone blade ware wood handle flint sword exactly the same? Are there so many coincidences? Also because Western stone tool technology has been more advanced than Eastern China since the Paleolithic Age. The stone leaf fine stone tool technology in West Asia was thousands of years earlier than in China. An orphan stone arrow cluster found in Zhiyu without a trace of use proves that China is the earliest birthplace of the world's bow and arrow, and also has to provide more archaeological evidence such as the traces of stone clusters glued to the arrow shaft, adhesive evidence and bow evidence, and answer many related questions in the world. As with an application for a UNESCO World Heritage Site, comprehensive and original evidence must be provided. Archaeology is science, with evidence and materialist principles, no room for sloppiness and arbitrary self-speculation. Therefore, the conclusions of some Experts and Scholars in China still need to be deliberated.
Fine stone tools are related to the origin of bone handle stone blade swords and wooden bing flint swords, so China's production of willow leaf-shaped guiye-shaped flint swords after 20,000 years and the fine stone tools technology and sources of stone leaves from the core around 7,000 years ago determined the source of The willow leaf-shaped flint swords of Xiaonanshan in Heilongjiang and the inlaid stone bone handles around 7,000 years ago and after China.
Figure 11, from left to right 1 and 2 are inlaid stone bone handle knives and bone handle swords excavated from the Shangzhai site in Pinggu County, Beijing around 7,000 years ago; the above 3 pictures are willow leaf-shaped flint tools excavated from the Xiaonanshan site of the Heilongjiang Museum, which may be the relics of the European migratory American Solote cultural group and are the main materials for the wooden handle flint sword; the above 4 pictures are the 6500-year-old stone blade bone handle knife excavated from the Angpengxi site in Heilongjiang. The second picture below is the core of the stone leaf of the stripped fine stone tool excavated from Inner Mongolia in China. Stone leaves unearthed in China are thousands of years later than in the West. (Image from the network copyright belongs to the producer)
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="96" >2, the origin of the Chinese bronze sword</h1>
We know that the invention of the copper sword is inseparable from two important conditions; one is that there must be a prototype tool or weapon form of the origin of the copper sword. The second is that it is necessary to have the metal copper mining, smelting, casting technology and casting technology for making copper swords. Judging from the actual Chinese bronze swords excavated by archaeology, the earliest bronze swords in China are a bronze short sword with a handle and a body that was jointly used to cast a bronze short sword with a sword body and a body that was once cast by Shi Fan in the Early Shang Dynasty of the Ordos Zhukaigou Culture in Inner Mongolia. This bronze sword has long been known as the "First Sword of China" by the Chinese bronze sword research community. According to Tian Guangjin's research, the third and fourth phases of the Zhukaigou culture may be related to the remains of the Qijia cultural population of the Qiang ethnic group in northwest China. The Qijia culture is the earliest copper-stone combined culture in China around 4000 years ago that introduced copper mining and smelting technology from Central Asia and used Western stone fans to cast copper ware. (The Qi family culture belongs to the successor culture of the Majiayao culture.) The Majiayao culture has 5,000 years of bronze knives, and its later horse factory and Mid-Levels culture also have copper knives and copper blocks of copper slag excavated earlier than the Qijia culture, but they do not have evidence of copper mine smelting like the Qijia culture. Compared with the tin bronze knives unearthed in Xinjiang, the Majiayao tin bronze knife is likely to be only the bronze vessel left behind after the Sharp Hat Cypriot craftsmen of the East Iranian-speaking nation of Central Asia brought copper ingots and stone fan to northwest China from the Eurasian steppe for trade purposes and cast copper knives in China. Therefore, the "first sword of China" of ZhuKaigou culture should have nothing to do with the Shang Dynasty culture of the fifth phase of Zhu Kaigou introduced in the excavation report. Because the Shang culture used tao fan to cast bronze, it belonged to two completely different copper casting systems than the use of stone fan casting bronze in the northern grassland region. The "First Sword of China" unearthed in the fifth phase of zhukaigou culture was cast by Shi Fan, so it is closely related to the Shi Fan copper casting system and copper sword technology introduced to northern China by the Central Asian grassland and Eurasian grassland cultures.
Figure 12: China's first bronze short sword with a ring head excavated from Zhukaigou in the Ordos Yijinholo Banner in the Inner Mongolia Loop region, with a length of 24. 6 cm, from its casting process to see the two fan fan Hefan casting, the process is simple, dating in the early Shang Dynasty about 3500 years ago, is China's earliest bronze sword object, known as "China's first sword", its ring head sword handle and sword body with a convex ridge form in central Asia and Eurasian steppe Liao Ima -Turbino culture, Andronovo culture have existed, because its age is in the Eurasian steppe culture, so it can only be Zhu Kaigou people imitate the Eurasian steppe copper sword self-cast products. (Image from the network copyright belongs to the producer)
Around 4200 years or so, the Seima-Turbino culture of the Eurasian steppe once expanded southward to reach the northwest and northern grasslands of China, leaving their stone fan casting copper technology and bronze swords in the northwest and northern grasslands of China. (See Lin Meicun, editor-in-chief of "Saima Turbino Culture and prehistoric Silk Road", Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, December 2019, first edition) The "first sword of China" of Zhukaigou culture is the Qi family cultural group that moved east to rely on the Western stone fan casting copper technology and copper mine refining technology they have mastered in the north of Hetao, absorbing the concept of Seima-Turbino culture copper sword, and casting the earliest Chinese bronze sword according to its own needs, which is well deserved as the source of Chinese copper swords. It is important to note here that this copper sword is one of the origins of the copper sword in northern China.
With the continuous eastward expansion of the Siima Turbino culture and the Andronovo culture of the Eurasian steppe and the infiltration into the grasslands of northern China, the animal heads, bell heads, and ring heads of bronze swords that were popular in the Eurasian grasslands of the Shang Dynasty appeared in the vicinity of the River Loop in the northern Region of Shaanxi, Yulin Jianjian in Northern Shaanxi, BaodelinShayu in Shanxi, and Qinglong Cundaogou in Hebei Province, all of which were cast with stone fans. Regarding the origin of many Central Plains Tao Fan casting Shang Dynasty bronzes excavated at the same time in these areas, it is because the residents here were originally descendants of the Xia Dynasty, (called "Ghost Fang" by archaeologists such as Mr. Guo Shuruo, who retained the cultural traditions of the Qiang ethnic group such as decorating the neck with gold reeds and divination with pig, cattle and sheep shoulder blades) These Xia Dynasty remnants mastered the Central Plains Tao Fan copper casting technology when they ruled the Shang Dynasty, and they were the remnants of the Xia Dynasty and the subjects of the Shang Dynasty during the shang dynasty to replace the Xia Dynasty, so they appeared in this area more special, It is normal for a small number of Bronzes cast in the Shang Dynasty of the Central Plains to cast bronzes and a small number of bronzes cast in China. However, these remnants of the Xia Dynasty also mastered the stone fan copper casting technology, and could use the stone fan to cast the beast heads, bell heads and ring heads of copper swords and copper swords imported from the Eurasian steppe.
Figure 13, the first five figures in the first five figures 1, 2, the picture is the Saima - Turbino culture ring head short sword, the third picture is the Zhukaigou culture ring head "China's first sword" can be seen that the Zhukaigou copper sword is imitating the Eurasian steppe copper sword; the 4th, 5th and lower 1 figures are the Seima - Turbino culture of the beast head sword and copper sword, which can prove that the next 2 figures Shanxi Baodrin Chayu's bell head short sword, the lower 3 figure Hebei Qinglong Cundaogou sheep head short sword, the lower 4 figure Shaanxi Yulin Qingjian sheep head sword, In the picture below 5, the Mongolian Xicha Lingshou Sword These late Shang Dynasty beast-headed swords, which are hundreds of years later than the first sword of Zhu Kaigou, adopt the thinking of the Eurasian steppe beast-headed bronze sword, and from the fact that they are older and have two protruding small sword grids, they are influenced by the first sword of Zhu Kaigou and were self-cast by the Chinese Qiang people and the remnants of the Xia Dynasty of the Shang Dynasty using Shi Fan. (Image selected from the Network copyright belongs to the producer)
It can be concluded that the early bronze swords in China were related to the direct introduction of copper swords from the Eurasian steppe and the introduction of Shifan copper casting technology to China. It has nothing to do with the possibility of the Spontaneous Creation of Copper Swords for prototypes by Chinese bone-handled stone swords and wooden-handled flint swords. Evidence is that the earliest use of Shifan copper casting techniques in China began with the Qi family culture. However, no bronze swords were found in the Qi family culture bronzes. In the hundreds of years after the birth of the Qi family culture, except at the Xichang Dayidui site, they did not invent copper swords from the bone-handled stone blade swords they had been using.
By the time the earliest Zhukaigou bronze sword appeared in the early Shang Dynasty in 3500, the West Asian copper sword spread to Central Asia and Siberia, Russia. The Eurasian steppe, Russia's Ural Mountains Seima - The Beast Head Copper Sword and ring head copper sword of the Turbino culture are the earliest copper swords and bronze swords in the Eurasian steppe, hundreds of years earlier than the "first Chinese sword" unearthed in the fifth phase of the Zhukaigou culture. Therefore, the first chinese sword can only be born under the influence of the Eurasian steppe Seima-Turbino culture and its successor culture, Andronovo culture, and was not invented from the stone blade bone handle sword he used for a long time.
The willow leaf-shaped bronze sword of the Seima-Turbino culture has a relationship with the willow leaf-shaped bronze sword excavated from the tomb of the Qi family culture in Xichang, Sichuan Province, and can be dated back to before the Shang Dynasty; it is also related to the willow leaf-shaped jade sword of the early and middle Shang Dynasty in the Chengdu Plain. Although the culture of Xiaonanshan in Heilongjiang, Shangzhai in Beijing, Angangxi in Heilongjiang, and Majiayao in northwest China was very early, there was no copper casting technology in China at that time, so it was impossible to promote the birth of copper swords in bone-handled stone swords and wooden-handled flint swords. It was not until the introduction of the Beast Head, bell head ring head and willow leaf shaped copper sword of the Pre-Shang Dynasty or early Eurasian steppe Seima-Turbino culture, Andronovo culture into the northern Grasslands of China, that the Qi family cultural talents with Shifan copper casting technology imitated the copper swords introduced to northern China in the Eurasian grasslands and cast the first Chinese Zhukaigou copper sword and the earliest willow leaf-shaped copper sword in Xichang.
The Qi family cultural group with Shifan copper casting technology is the earliest group of people in China who have the ability to cast copper swords. The Qi family culture group mastered the technology of copper ore mining, smelting and casting. One of them migrating to the east and migrating to Inner Mongolia invented and forged the first Chinese sword in Zhukaigou, Ordos, imitating the Eurasian steppe copper sword, and became the source of the copper sword in northern China; one of them, one of the Qi family cultural branches who migrated to the south, imitated the willow leaf-shaped copper sword of the Eurasian steppe during the migration to western Sichuan and the Chengdu Plain, invented the Chinese willow leaf-shaped copper sword, which became the source and center of the willow-leaf-shaped copper sword in southwest China.
The Seima-Turbinyu culture and the later Andronovo culture of Southern Siberia have both a sword body and a hilt, and the handle of the animal beast's head, the handle of the bell and the first of the ring are unearthed using the stone fan at one time. These Shi Fan forged beast-headed swords Lingshou Sword Ring First Sword from the north to the south to influence the Zhukaigou culture in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. It also contributed to the production of the beast-headed copper sword and copper sword cast in Shaanxi, Shanxi and Hebei in northern China in the late Shang Dynasty. It needs to be emphasized that they are both the result of the influence of the Seima-Turbino culture and subsequent cultures of the Eurasian steppe to spread eastward to south. It was not the result of the Shang Dynasty's copper sword spreading north and west. Because the Shang Dynasty of the Dongyi nation did not have such a weapon as a copper sword. Otherwise, the Shang Dynasty's conquest wars were frequent, and the war was a major event of the country, and the oracle bones that recorded the war would not be without a bronze sword.
Judging from the fact that the early Chinese bronze swords were concentrated in the northern and southwestern regions of China, and all used stone fan casting, the origin of Chinese bronze swords was imported from the West through the Eurasian steppe. It was not created Chinese imitating the bone-handled stone blade sword and the wooden-handled flint sword form. Archaeological objects provide us with a lot of real evidence that does not need to be debated.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="118" >3, the development and spread of the northern Chinese Shifan casting copper sword and the Central Plains Taofan casting copper sword</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="120" > copper swords cast by Shi Fan in northern China and their development and dissemination</h1>
The development and spread of ancient Chinese bronze swords in China has experienced the introduction of the Western beast head bell ring first copper sword into northwest China, and further eastward was accepted by the Qi family cultural group of Zhu Kaigou IV with Shifan copper casting technology, and the "first chinese sword" was cast in Zhu Kaigou in Inner Mongolia. Since then, it has spread to northern China, and was imitated by the remnants of the Xia Dynasty in shaanxi, Shanxi, and Hebei in northern China, imitating the beast head and the ring head short sword of the late Shang Dynasty; the first stage of the first center of copper sword stone fan casting in the upper culture of Xiajiadian in northeast China was formed; after that, the willow leaf-shaped copper sword of the Seima-Turbino culture developed the second stage of the second center of casting willow leaf-shaped copper swords with stone fan from northwest china to Sichuan and Chengdu Plains As well as the central Chengdu Plain Shi Fan casting willow leaf shaped copper sword spread in the Central Plains and the south, the Central Plains Western Zhou Dynasty used the willow leaf shaped copper sword of the Qiang people to develop the third stage of the Central Plains Tao Fan casting round stem ring hoop handle and straight copper handle for the original form. And then the Central Plains copper sword spread and developed in the Central Plains, replacing the northeast center and the Central Chengdu Plain copper sword when the Qin and Han unified China, the Central Plains standard copper sword dominated the world, and then developed the steel sword until the whole process of the Republic of China.
It should be noted here that in the past, most of the chinese experts and scholars' bronze sword research monographs and papers lacked archaeological evidence, most of them first originated and developed the bronze sword in the Central Plains of China, and then influenced the spread so that the copper sword of the surrounding Qiang ethnic group was born as the mainstream view, and this view of the Central Plains centrism has a long history, and the long-term occupation of the majority of the majority of the people's understanding has become a public opinion. Based on archaeological excavations, this paper shows that the Central Plains Bronze Sword was influenced by the copper swords of the surrounding Qiang peoples and developed the Zhongyuan Copper Sword from the Chengdu Plain Willow Leaf Sword in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. Because the viewpoint is completely different from the traditional saying, relevant readers and researchers are asked not to rush to conclusions and read patiently, and to make correct judgments based on the facts proved by archaeological objects, rather than being bound by traditional concepts and stagnating. Because the hypothesis that the Chinese bronze sword originated from the shang dynasty copper sword does not exist.
The first stage of the Chinese bronze sword is the sheep's head copper knife and the beast head copper knife left by the earliest copper sword introduced to China from the West, the Saima-Turbino culture in Tacheng, Xinjiang (see Professor Lin Meicun's editor-in-chief "Seima Turbino Culture - and the Prehistoric Silk Road"). The sheep's head copper knife of Tacheng was introduced to Inner Mongolia in northern China and Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei and other regions along the Yellow River channel. The "First Sword of China" of the Zhukaigou culture was invented by the Qi family culture group based on the bronze sword transmitted from the Eurasian grassland. Its handle is a ring head that can be found in the Seima-Turbino culture bronze sword diagram. The first sword of Zhu Kaigou and the beast head sword and bell head sword of the late Shang Dynasty in northern China differ from the Eurasian steppe bronze sword in that the figure-of-eight sword grid is cast, and this change has nothing to do with the stone blade bone handle sword and the wooden handle flint sword. It can be seen that the Chinese bronze sword was not invented from the original form of the bone-handled stone blade sword and the wooden-handled flint sword. It may be related to the knife grid carried by the Eurasian steppe copper knife, in order to be safer to use, and the Zhu Kaigou crowd first noticed this when casting the copper sword.
The Zhukaigou culture copper sword and Shifan sword casting technology spread with the migration of the Qiang people from the Yellow River Loop area to the northeast through Baotou to the Chifeng area of Inner Mongolia. The mountain passes in the Chifeng region are important passages for the Eurasian steppe peoples and the Northwest Qiang peoples to cross the Daxing'anling Mountains and Yanshan Mountains into the Northeast Plain and the Korean Peninsula. The upper-class cultural group living here is one of the Qiang ethnic groups that migrated eastward to the Qi family culture, which is mainly a nomadic economy, using pigs, cattle, and sheep shoulder blades for divination, believing in primitive shamanic religions, decorating the body with gold huang, gold earrings and spring-shaped arm bracelets, and using stone fan cast bronze mirrors, yang flint, straight-handle crank-edged copper swords and curved-bladed copper swords imported from the West. Judging from the sarcophagus burial tombs of the upper cultural chiefs and leaders of Xiajiadian, which are often excavated with copper swords and bronze mirrors or copper swords and yang flints at the same time, it is proved that at that time, these tribal chiefs and leaders used copper swords as symbols of military power, and used copper mirrors or yang flint (yang flint is a concave copper mirror that can take an open flame from the sunlight. The use of bronze mirrors and yang flint is a tradition of the Qi family culture) as a symbol of religious power. Chiefs and chiefs have the functions of both administrative heads and religious priests, and are messengers of the gods who govern the people of their own tribes on behalf of God, and the bronze sword has the nature of a scepter as a symbol of military power and a staff.
This kind of stone fan casting copper mirror Yang flint and copper sword in the upper culture of Xiajiadian Ningcheng Xiaoheishigou M98 sarcophagus tomb, Shenyang Zhengjiawazi M6512 wooden coffin tomb, Chaoyang Twelve Yingzi copper mirror tomb, Jianping Shuiquan Chengzi M7701 tomb, M7801 tomb; Jianping Dalahangou M851 tomb, Ao Han Qishan Wanzi and other sub-mountain reservoir construction site Xiajiadian upper cultural tombs have been excavated. Among them, the six bronze swords and cast sword stone fan excavated from the Wanzi Tomb of Ao Han Qishan have received special attention. Three of them are straight-knit curved blade swords with sword handles cast in one piece, dating back to the late Shang Dynasty and the early Zhou Dynasty. The other three curved-edged swords that cast only the body of the sword and do not cast the hilt resemble a gourd, also known as a gourd-shaped sword. It is worth noting that these three gourd-shaped copper swords are the ancestral source of the gourd-shaped copper swords of the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago. Gourd-shaped bronze swords and stone sword fans unearthed from Shanwanzi have also been unearthed on the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago. Judging from the situation of the copper swords of the stone slab tombs and dolmens of the Korean Peninsula and the yang flint bronze mirror cast by Shi Fan in the same tomb, the ethnic groups on the Korean Peninsula who use Shi Fan to cast gourd-shaped copper swords are from northeast China. During the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Warring States Period, due to the strength of the Qiang people, they often went south to harass the Central Plains peoples, and the northern countries of the Central Plains built the Great Wall to prevent the invasion of the northern ethnic minorities and to guard against each other, so that the northern nomads lost the source of the necessary materials for life from the Central Plains and were forced to migrate to the eastern Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago.
Figure 14, Part 1, 2, Figure 1 of the Liaoning Provincial Museum excavated the stone fan and gourd-shaped curved bladed copper sword of the early Western Zhou Dynasty; the stone fan and gourd-shaped copper sword of the Spring and Autumn Warring States period excavated from the Korean Peninsula can prove that the korean peninsula nation has a relationship with the upper cultural population of Xiajiadian in northeast China; the middle 1 picture is the curved blade copper sword and cast sword stone fan unearthed from Japan from the Warring States to the Western Han Dynasty, which can prove that the upper cultural group of Xiajiadian in the Yayoi Period entered the Japanese archipelago from the Korean Peninsula. At this time, the curved blade sword changed its form; the middle 2 figure was the common form of the copper sword in the north and north of Northeast China; the lower 1, 2 and 3 pictures were the Xiajiadian upper culture copper swords south of Yanshan Beijing Baifu, jade emperor temple and Hebei Fengning area left behind the Shanrong Shifan short swords, which together with the Korean and Japanese copper swords belonged to the Xiajiadian upper culture Northern copper sword series. (Image from the network copyright belongs to the producer)
In the Zhangjiakou area of Hebei Province, Zhangjiakou is another passage for the Qiang people to cross the Taihang Mountains into the Hebei Plain from Shanxi and southern Inner Mongolia, and different branches of the Qiang ethnic groups from the northwest region have successively camped in the Yanshan Mountains and the Fengning Mountains of Hebei Province, and these northwestern ethnic groups known as "Shanrong" have left a large number of vertical pit tombs and sarcophagus tombs in the Yuhuangmiao area of Jundu Mountain in the Yanshan Mountains and the Fengning area of Hebei Province. (Tomb customs and burial stone Fan copper sword Yang Flint can prove that they came from the northwest) The tomb unearthed a copper short sword and yang flint cast with a stone fan casting sword body handle. It should be noted that the blades of these Shanrong short swords are straight blades, which are different from the curved blade swords of the upper culture of Xiajiadian, and some sword handles are cast by the lost wax method, the sword body is cast with stone fans, and then the sword handle body is combined into a straight-bladed short sword used by the nobles. The study believes that this kind of Shanrong short sword is a variation of the short sword influenced by the upper culture of Xiajiadian in the north, and there are also Shifan straight-bladed swords and Yang flint excavated together with the Tomb of the Female General of the Wooden Tomb in Baifu Village, Changping, Beijing, and the golden-handled short sword handle excavated from the Tomb of Xiaoheishigou in Ningcheng, Inner Mongolia is the same as that of the Shanrong Shortsword after it. The Shifan shortsword of the Shanrong people, which is later than the upper culture of Xiajiadian, and some sword styles that absorb the short swords of the Xiajiadian upper culture of the Ningcheng in the south of Chifeng and the Xiqiang people in the Jianping area developed their own Shanrong shortsword forms.
The second stage of the Chinese bronze sword began after the willow leaf-shaped bronze sword cast by the Northern Eurasian steppe Seima-Turbino culture Shi fan was introduced to northwest China, and then spread to the Chengdu Plain and Sichuan in the south through Gansu. The age of willow-leaf-shaped jade swords that appear in the Chengdu Plain can be as early as the early and middle Shang Dynasty. The willow leaf-shaped bronze short sword excavated from the Xichang Long Dayangdui site has been verified by pottery to have Qi family cultural factors, and the age can be as early as before the Shang Dynasty. (See Archaeology, No. 10, 2004, "Excavation of the Site of Jingjiu Dayidui in Xichang City, Sichuan" and "Sichuan Cultural Relics" No. 3, 2007, Jiang Xianjie, "Comparative Study of Xichang Longying Dayidui Site") This also proves the fact that a group of Qi family culture in Ganli, Northwest China, accepted the willow leaf-shaped copper sword from the northern Eurasian grassland and migrated south. The willow-leaf-shaped copper sword of sanxingdui Chengdu Plain then spread to the surrounding areas, spreading south to Yunnan and Guizhou Plateau, and continued to be adopted by the Luoyue ethnic groups in Guangxi, Guangdong, northern Vietnam and the Baiyue ethnic groups in Fujian, and spread west to Wenchuan, Maoxian and Tibet in the yuanyuan of western Sichuan, where the bronze swords unearthed in these areas were cast using stone fans and the shape was related to the bronze swords of the Chengdu Plain. The willow-leaf-shaped copper sword of the Chengdu Plain spread north to Gansu, Shaanxi, and Beijing, and east along the Yangtze River to Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The north and east are the areas ruled by the Western Zhou Central Plains Dynasty, the Western Zhou Dynasty used its own Tao Fan sword casting technique to cast willow leaf-shaped copper swords, so that the copper swords cast by the Central Plains Tao Fan began to appear in the Western Zhou Dynasty, which was the influence of the willow leaf-shaped copper swords in the Chengdu Plain plus the Western Zhou Dynasty itself had a Qiang blood lineage, so from the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Central Plains had its own use of the copper sword cast by Tao Fan.
Figure 15: The national museum in Gansu Lingtai Baicaopo western Zhou dynasty pottery fan cast willow leaf shaped copper sword and copper sheath. The early Chinese copper short sword scabbard imitates the golden short sword sheath unearthed from the Western Royal Tomb of your, all of which are cast in copper hollow form; the above picture is excavated from Baoji Zhuyuangou in Shaanxi Province, and the willow leaf-shaped copper sword scabbard is the same as that of Baicaopo, and the willow leaf-shaped copper sword and hollowed out sword sheath unearthed from the Western Zhou YanGuo Cemetery in Fangshan Liulihe, Beijing, and from their same shape system, it can be proved that the willow leaf-shaped copper sword from the Chengdu Plain in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty was adopted by the Western Zhou Dynasty and cast with Tao Fan, and the princes of the Western Zhou Dynasty arrived at the Yan Kingdom and other Zhuhou States in Beijing The spring and autumn hollow willow leaf copper sword sheath excavated from the Spring and Autumn Ship Coffin Tomb of the Twelve Bridges of Chengdu in the middle and left figures; the spring and autumn hollow willow leaf copper sword sheath excavated from Qujingzhu Street in Yunnan in the middle and middle figures proves that the copper sword cast by Tao Fan of the Western Zhou Dynasty of the Central Plains reached Yunnan; the middle right figure and the following three figures are the willow leaf-shaped swords and sword sheaths excavated in Chengdu Northwest Bridge, Sichuan Ya'an, Chengdu Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, sichuan Maoxian County, and a large number of bashu willow leaf-shaped copper swords. It proves that the Bashu region has a tradition of using willow leaf-shaped copper swords from before the Shang Dynasty to the early Shang Dynasty, and the earliest and largest number of willow-shaped copper swords unearthed here proves that Mr. Duan Yu and other experts and scholars believe that the Bashu region is the birthplace of Chinese willow-leaf copper swords. (Image from the network copyright belongs to the producer)
Subsequently, the Chinese bronze sword entered the third stage of the Central Plains Tao Fan casting. The Western Zhou Dynasty of the Central Plains adopted the willow leaf-shaped copper sword of the Chengdu Plain to cast the Zhongyuan copper sword as the prototype. In order to fit the pottery fan casting, the Central Plains craftsmen transformed the willow leaf-shaped copper sword form without a handle and flat stem into a sword handle, sword grid, and sword body and then assembled into a round-stemmed copper sword. This kind of sword hilt has a straight and ring hoop handle type, the sword body has a straight blade type and a partial curved blade type, the length is mostly extended to 60 cm or more, which is longer than the flat-stemmed willow leaf-shaped sword cast by Shi Fan, which is more suitable for combat combat. Because the Central Plains Dynasty Tao Fan copper casting technology has reached its peak, in addition to the reasonable proportion of copper and tin copper sword rigidity and softness, the Central Plains craftsmen's superb quenching, tempering technology and sword ridge blade cast with different alloys of the two-color sword technology, coupled with grinding and polishing technology to refine the copper sword cast by the Central Plains Tao Fan into a new type of weapon that can cut iron like mud, blow hair and break hair, so that the Central Plains copper sword forms a unified standard copper sword shape system, and has since become a treasure valued and pursued by all nationalities, with the reputation of the sword. Perhaps it was the coincidence of the Emperor of the Central Plains and the King of the North, or perhaps it was the inheritance of the authority of the Western bronze sword that made them have the habit of using the bronze sword as a symbol of military power.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="141" > the development and spread of copper swords cast by Tao Fan in the Central Plains in China after the emergence of the Western Zhou</h1> Dynasty
Tao Fan cast copper sword is the invention of the Central Plains Dynasty, the only Central Plains Dynasty in the world to use Tao Fan cast copper sword. When examining the origin of the copper sword cast by the Central Plains Tao Fan, we will find that in the Xia and Shang Dynasties of the Central Plains Dynasty, the Xia Dynasty did not have a bronze sword, because the Xia Dynasty was dated from 4070 to 3600 AD, when the Eurasian steppe Seima-Turbino culture had just been born, and its bronze sword did not affect the Central Plains. By the time of the Shang Dynasty from 3600 to 3046, the Shang Dynasty was a dynasty composed of dongyi peoples, which was different from the Xia dynasty. Different clans are different ancestors, so the gods believed and worshipped in the Shang Dynasty were slightly different from those in the Xia Dynasty. The Chinese "Zuo Chuan Gong Gong" says: "God is not of the same kind, and the people are not of the race." That is to say, the gods of all nationalities only accept the sacrifices of their own people, and the peoples of all nationalities only sacrifice their ancestral gods. It proves that Chinese has had the tradition of recognizing ancestors and returning to the ancestors since ancient times. The Shang Dynasty composed of the Dongyi ethnic groups on the eastern coast and the Yangtze River Basin was different from the gods worshipped by the Xia Dynasty composed of the Qiang ethnic groups in the northwest and southwest, so although the Shang Dynasty, which came to power in 3600 AD, knew that the copper swords of the Qiang people were introduced into the Northern Eurasian steppe, but because the Shang Dynasty wars were mostly car battles standing on horse-drawn carriages, the distance when fighting with the enemy was far, and the Shang Dynasty had its own long weapons suitable for car warfare, such as pecking hammers and handle-type short weapons suitable for close combat. Therefore, the nobles of the Shang Dynasty were not interested in the bronze swords of the Qiang people. In the Yin Ruins of Henan Merchants' Hometown, the Shang Dynasty Tombs of Dongdi in Anyang Garden Village, the Shang Dynasty Tombs of Guojiazhuang in Anyang, and the Tomb of the Female General Anderson, the wife of King Wuding of the Shang Dynasty, there are no bronze swords cast by the Shang Dynasty using its own Tao Fan. During the Shang Dynasty in the entire Central Plains, there was no such weapon as a copper sword. (There are very few beast-headed copper swords and beast-headed bronze swords that are not cast by the Central Plains Tao Fan and are not products of the Shang Dynasty.) It is a small amount of copper swords from the northwest, southwest, southwest and northern Qiang peoples around the Central Plains that flowed into the Shang Dynasty, and they cannot be counted as Shang Dynasty copper swords cast with stone fans) So there is no sword character in the oracle bone. This also proves that the bronze sword was not a weapon invented by the Central Plains people.
In the Western Zhou Dynasty, King Wu of Zhou defeated king Shang in the shang dynasty's capital of present-day Hebi, Henan, in a battle to destroy the king of Shang. Because the nobles of the Western Zhou Dynasty themselves came from the northwest region, were related to the Qiang people, and had long used the bronze swords cast by Shi Fan as weapons, it was inevitable that the Western Zhou Dynasty would unify the old lands of the Shang Dynasty in the Central Plains and obtain the Shang Dynasty's use of Tao Fan to cast bronze ware. The bronze sword therefore began to enter the Central Plains during the Western Zhou Dynasty, and gradually became the advanced weapon of the Western Zhou Dynasty. And because of the division of the princes, the war for hegemony between the Spring and Autumn Five Hegemons and the Warring States Seven Heroes was pushed to the countries of the Central Plains. It played a great role in the War of Hegemony between the Princes of the Central Plains during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. It also made the Central Plains Bronze Sword famous in one fell swoop, and it was famous in the world.
Figure 16, The sword of King Wu cast by Tao Fan of the State of Wu during the Warring States period, pay attention to the inscription engraved on the body of the sword. This sword body is full of tin, and after more than 2,000 years, it is still silver and shining, and it is a model of the Central Plains Tao Fan casting standard sword. (Image selected from the Network copyright belongs to the producer)
The earliest Western Zhou bronze swords in the Central Plains seen in archaeological excavations are willow leaf-shaped bronze swords from Changxing in Zhejiang, Zhangjiapo Cemetery in Shaanxi, Baicaopo in Lingtai in Gansu, and Liulichang in Fangshan, Beijing. Among them, the short sword of Changxing Tongtu in Zhejiang Ishito is cast with tao fan, the sword handle is exquisitely decorated and the willow leaf-shaped sword body is cast and assembled. Gansu Lingtai because of the upper reaches of the Jing River in the north of the Chengdu Plain, Sichuan Chengdu Plain imitated the Saima - Turbino culture willow leaf shaped copper sword manufacturing Chinese willow leaf shaped copper sword spread to Gansu Lingtai Baicao slope, was used by the Western Zhou Dynasty to cast tao fan. The human face on the human face pattern copper halberd excavated from Baicaopo is the same as that of the Qiang people in Sichuan and Yunnan, which is one of the evidences that the original form of the copper sword of Baicaopo comes from the Chengdu Plain. The Baicao Slope of Lingtai in Gansu is not far from fengjing and hojing, the capitals of the Western Zhou Dynasty on both sides of the Feng River in Chang'an, Shaanxi. The willow-leaf-shaped bronze sword of Baicao Slope spread eastward along the Shunjing River to the surrounding areas of the Western Zhou Dynasty such as Zhangjiapo in Chang'an, Shaanxi, Hejia Village in Qishan, Shaanxi, and Baoji Zhuyuangou in Shaanxi, and then brought the willow-leaf-shaped sword to the northern Yan kingdom, Luoyang, Henan and other central plains jurisdictions with the western Zhou Dynasty. The earliest copper swords unearthed in these areas are willow leaf-shaped swords.
Figure 17: This is the earliest bronze sword cast by Tao Fan in the Central Plains in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, on the edge of Taihu Lake in northern Zhejiang, on the edge of Taihu Lake, a national first-class cultural relic. This sword is 21 years long. 6 cm has the common short sword form of early bronze swords, and its sword body willow leaves are slightly triangular, which is a deformed form of willow leaf sword in the Chengdu Plain in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. It should be noted that this sword has been divided into three parts of the sword body, sword grid and sword handle after being assembled together, and the convex hoop ring of its sword handle is the earliest source of the round-stemmed copper ring hoop handle cast by the Central Plains Tao Fan in China, which proves that the copper sword of the Western Zhou Dynasty of the Central Plains developed from the willow leaf shaped copper sword to the original form, and the Wuyue area is the birthplace of the Central Plains Tao Fan casting standard copper sword. So this sword is precious and unusual. (Image selected from the Network copyright belongs to the producer)
During the Western Zhou Dynasty, the time, place and direction of circulation of the willow leaf-shaped copper sword developed with a round stem with a ring hoop handle, a sword head and a sword grid have always had various opinions in the Chinese copper sword research community. Mr. Li Boqian, a famous archaeologist in China, believes that the round-stemmed straight-bladed bronze sword of the Central Plains Dynasty with a ring hoop handle and a straight handle was invented by the indigenous peoples of Wuyue in the south before the arrival of the Chu culture. Evidence is Tomb M3 and Tomb M7 of Tunxi, Anhui Province; a round-stemmed bronze sword with a hoop handle and a sword grid head has appeared in the Tomb of the Western Zhou Dynasty in Changxing, Zhejiang. In the Spring and Autumn Period, Zhongzhou Road in Luoyang, Henan, Hengyang in Hunan, Changzhi Watershed in Shanxi, and Lucheng Luhe in Shanxi were all excavated with round stems with convex hoops, round cake-shaped sword heads, and typical Central Plains copper swords with sword grids. The round-stemmed straight-bladed copper sword of the Central Plains Dynasty with convex hoop handle and straight handle and sword grid originated from the Southern Wuyue people, and then spread to other regions during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. (See Mr. Li Boqian, "The Temptation of the Origin of the Copper Sword in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in the Central Plains", Cultural Relics, No. 1, 1982))
Mr. Li Boqian is a famous archaeologist in China, and his views have the foresight to oversee the overall situation and surpass others, and are undoubtedly one of the most correct views in the study of Chinese bronze swords for decades.
Judging from the bronze swords excavated from archaeology across the country, a 21.6 cm long sword unearthed in Changxing, Zhejiang in the 1980s, with a willow leaf shape, and a beautifully cast sword handle with a circular convex hoop in the middle and a sword grid. It can only be cast by Tao Fan. The age of this short sword can be as early as the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty. (See "Cultural Relics", No. 11, 1979, "Five Shangzhou Bronze Artifacts Unearthed in Changxing, Zhejiang") It is the earliest bronze sword cast by Zhongyuan Tao fan in the Central Plains of China, developed from the flat-stemmed willow leaf sword with a sword head, a sword grid, and a convex ring hoop on the handle. Judging from the fact that its sword body is still relatively short, it is the ancestral type of the Zhongyuan Copper Sword cast with a sword head, a sword grid, and a sword handle with a convex ring hoop.
Zhejiang is located in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River rice farming area, since ancient times has been an economically developed, cultural gathering place. Outstanding. Here the Kingdom of Yue and the State of Wu existed during the Shang Dynasty and have a long history. Wucheng, Jiangxi and Xingan Oceania under their jurisdiction mastered the mature Copper Casting Technology of central Plains Pottery Fan during the Shang Dynasty. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, it was one of the seventy-one princely states divided by the Zhou Dynasty. Influenced by the willow leaf-shaped copper sword of the Chengdu Plain in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, the willow leaf-shaped copper sword cast by Tao Fan appeared in Changxing, Huzhou, Zhejiang, here in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty. Judging from the copper sword excavated from Shaoxing Lizhu in the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the No. 14 bronze sword unearthed in Changxing in the late Western Zhou Dynasty, the bronze sword unearthed in Lishui in the early Spring and Autumn Period, the No. 9 bronze sword unearthed in Changxing in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, the bronze sword of Wu Wang Fuchai in the late Spring and Autumn Period, and the famous Yue Wang Gou Jian Sword in the Warring States period, the Wuyue region has copper mines, developed economy, and the copper sword casting technology ranks first in the country. From the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, the complete Central Plains Tao Fan casting series of standard copper swords have been excavated. These provide conclusive evidence that Wuyue became the origin and central area of the Tao Fan casting of copper swords in the Central Plains Dynasty. It is also one of the famous Chinese Wuyue bronze mirror casting centers in the Warring States period, and the Wuyue Warring States Yang Flint and Han Dynasty bronze mirrors belong to the most exquisitely decorated and well-cast Yang flint and bronze mirrors in China. In particular, the most famous bronze swords in the Central Plains of China, the Wu Wang Fu Cha Sword, the Yue Wang Gou Jian Sword, and the bronze swords of their descendants and kings, are concentrated in the Wuyue region, which is related to the long history of Tao Fan casting copper swords in the Wuyue region, and also provides sufficient evidence for the correctness of Mr. Li Boqian's assertion.
The standard bronze sword cast by The Central Plains Tao Fan originated in Sichuan and Chengdu in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and was invented by Wu Yue. From the wu wang fu cha sword and the Yue wang gou jian sword are both kings' swords, the bronze swords in the Central Plains at this time also have the function of the scepter displayed by the king's authority. During the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, the war for hegemony was carried out throughout the country with the princes, and the bronze swords cast by the Wuyue tao fan in the Central Plains spread to the whole country due to the needs of the war. From the bronze swords unearthed from the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shi Huang, the swords of the Qin warriors at that time were all Wuyue-style bronze swords, which also reflected the fame of Wuyue's casting copper sword technology from another side. After the unification of China by the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Wuyue-style copper sword, along with the Central Plains Tao fan copper casting technology in the country to replace the surrounding Qiang ethnic stone fan copper casting technology, the Wuyue style copper sword spread to all parts of the country to replace the northern stone fan casting curved blade copper sword and the Chengdu Plain willow leaf-shaped copper sword, since then unified the whole country.
Figure 18: Physical evidence of the development and evolution of Tao Fan casting copper swords in Zhejiang from the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Warring States period proves that the Wuyue area is the birthplace of the Central Plains Tao Fan casting copper swords. (Image selected from the Network copyright belongs to the producer)
Figure 19, the above picture shows the Wuyue Warring States standard bronze sword Wu Wang Sword; the upper left picture, the right picture of the Hubei Provincial Museum Wu Wang Fu Cha Sword and the Yue Wang Gou Jian Sword, the Warring States of Wu was destroyed by the State of Yue, the State of Yue was destroyed by the State of Chu, and all the famous swords of Wu Yue belonged to the State of Chu; the bronze swords of the Warring States system unearthed in the Zhejiang region of the lower middle left; the warring states standard sword of the Changde Museum in Hunan; the Central Plains standard sword worn by the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shi Huang in the lower left, indicating that all the Qin army used Wu Yue pottery model casting standard swords The central plains-style copper swords unearthed during the Warring States period in the Sichuan region below prove that the stone fan-cast willow leaf-shaped copper swords that originated in the Sichuan and Chengdu plains during the Warring States period were all replaced by the Central Plains Wuyue-style copper swords. (Image selected from the Network copyright belongs to the producer)
The willow-leaf-shaped stone fan casting copper sword originating from the Sichuan and Chengdu plains spread to the southern Yunnan Region during the Spring and Autumn Warring States period and mutated into a Luoyue-style short-handled copper sword, and continued to develop and spread to Guizhou, Guangxi, Guangdong and northern Vietnam, forming a more special form of the southern Luoyue copper sword. Due to the previous domestic research on the Central Plains culture and insufficient research on the Baiyue culture, the research on Luoyue bronze ware started late, and now the research on Luoyue copper sword is waiting to continue to be developed.
Figure 20, the yunnan provincial museum above collects the war Han snake-shaped handle curved blade short sword excavated from Shizhai Mountain in Jinning, and this kind of one-character lattice copper sword cast by Shi Fan has been excavated in the south; the left middle figure is excavated from Qujing, Yunnan Province; the right middle picture is the Guizhou Provincial Museum's Collection of Luo Yue One-Character Grid Curved Blade Copper Sword; the lower left figure Guangxi Provincial Museum is storing Luo Yue One Character Grid Curved Blade Copper Sword and Copper Ge; the lower right figure Guangdong unearthed a one-character Grid Curved Blade Luo Yue Copper Sword. This bronze sword also has a variety of deformed forms, and its distribution range can reach the Luo Yue ethnic settlement in northern Vietnam. (Image selected from the Network copyright belongs to the producer)
The steel sword technology that began to appear in the Central Plains from the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Warring States spread in the Han Dynasty and gradually replaced the bronze sword. Because steel swords perform better than bronze swords, one of the two golden swords unearthed from the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Western Egypt is cast in iron. Early steel was less precious than copper saw fewer steel swords. In the Han Dynasty, iron began to replace copper swords, and iron mirrors also appeared in the copper mirror system, although Han Dynasty iron still belonged to precious metals, but the number gradually increased. The iron swords of the Han Dynasty are slenderr than the bronze swords, most of them are decorated with jade tools, and there are also copper-handled copper lattice iron swords, and the length and form of the sword are constantly changed according to practical needs, slowly departing from the traditional form of the Wuyue standard copper sword. But in the following 2000 years the form of the sword has always existed. We know that the president of the Republic of China once forged the "Zhongzheng Sword" and issued it to important military generals, which shows that the ideology of representing military power in Chinese history has existed in the Chinese nation for a long time.
Figure 21: Two gold-ornamented short swords excavated from the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, one of which is an iron sword, although older, but the Turkish Hittite Kingdom has used iron weapons around 4000 (picture selected from the Internet copyright belongs to the author)
Figure 22: The jade-handled iron sword excavated from the Sanmenxia Western ZhouGuo cemetery in Sanmenxia, China, dating back to around 3,000 years ago, is said to be the earliest iron sword in China, and it is very precious made of meteoric iron. (Image selected from the Network copyright belongs to the producer)
Figure 23: An iron sword with a golden handle unearthed from Baoji, Shaanxi Province, proves that the iron sword was still precious in the Spring and Autumn Period (The picture is selected from the network copyright and belongs to the producer)
Figure 24: The zhongzheng sword in the Nanjing Anti-Japanese War Museum, the last chinese sword representing a symbol of military power. (The image is selected from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the producer)
Although this form of weapon in modern times withdrew from war, it continued to exist in world sports fencing and folk fencing activities. The impact of the sword invented by the ancients from tools on human history has not been indelible. Due to the long-term influence of ancient bronze swords on Chinese culture and civilization, the task of tracking the origin, development and dissemination of ancient bronze swords has the practical significance of historical evidence, which is one of the purposes explored by this article.
The process of origin, development and dissemination of ancient Chinese bronze swords is written here for the time being. Limited to my limited knowledge and mistakes and omissions are inevitable, please seniors and colleagues axe correct, hereby thank you in advance.
This article has been published by the author with the permission of the Music Club
Graphics and text provided by the author
The illustrations in this article are partly taken by the author and partly archaeological report material.