Today we will get to know this golden bird spirit "Helmet Hornbill"
This is a work of art worth 800,000 yuan, the bird's beak is vivid, the carved figures are considered ingenious, the Maitreya Buddha above laughs at the ignorance of human suffering, and when you marvel at the exquisite techniques of the sculptors, you do not know that these literary games that are more valuable than gold are based on the pain of the helmeted hornbill.
Because these are precisely the "bloody play" carved from its skull. Everyone knows that rarity is precious, and there is a saying in the collection industry: "one red, two white, three black", white represents ivory, black is rhino horn, and red represents "crane top red". You think that red is a bright color or poison on the head of a red-crowned crane, but in fact, it refers to the handicraft made of helmeted hornbill skull, because its skull is large and solid, and the outer red and inner yellow texture are delicate and easy to carve.
In the words of an insider, it has both the feel of jade and the color of agate, and also has the value of gold.
As a "character" who was unfortunate enough to be chosen, the helmet hornbill did not expect that his head would be remembered.
As some antique lovers fell in love with bird bones, poachers discovered this "fast money" business, and since then, this helmeted hornbilly, famous for its Peking Opera singing voice, has a solid skull composed of hard keratin like a helmet, firmly attached to the protruding beak.
Especially during courtship, male helmeted hornbills will use their hard skulls to compete with each other, and after pursuing a mate, they will be paired for life, unless one of them dies.
For the helmeted hornbills with a body length of one meter, it is really a piaf who is innocent of his guilt, and in order to obtain this treasure, the hunters' methods are so cruel that the witnesses are sad and smell tears.
In order to prevent the helmeted hornbill's skull from being damaged at the time of retrieval, people first cut off its upper beak alive, what does this mean? It is equivalent to a person who has lost half of his mouth.
The result is that for the helmeted hornbill, pain and hunger torment it, even if the food is in front of it, the physical defects have determined that it cannot eat it until it starves to death, and then the skull is left to the body to be discarded.
Then after some polishing by the carving master, the bird bone of 9,000 yuan suddenly became a work of art worth 800,000 yuan.
The most ironic thing is that there are also some small statues of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas carved on them
It should be known that only male helmeted hornbills have rosy skulls, that is to say, every time a helmeted hornbill skull is taken, there will be a pair of helmeted hornbill families fragmented, and they can only breed 1 to 2 young birds at a time, and occasionally lucky helmeted hornbills escape, and the scope of the shotgun is still not as fast as the speed of the interest chase of interests by people with hearts. More than 6,000 helmeted hornbills are killed each year in the forests of Kaliman Island alone, although the helmeted hornbills still become "prison-wearers" In Singapore, the birds have also declared extinction, leaving scattered families to survive in the tropical rainforests of our country and Southeast Asia.
In 2019, when Indonesian customs inspected freight items, it found a large number of strangely shaped and brightly colored "thorn cups" that were later confirmed to be the skulls of helmeted hornbills.
On the road to beauty, only what you can't think of is not what they can't do, not only to helmet part of the skull of the hornbill is a bit cruel, even the most beautiful kingfisher is difficult to be alone.
The kingfisher is a species that is truly endangered by its beauty, and its blue color of the bird's feathers has a metallic feel, and the natural texture of the color is "gorgeous and simple".
The dot jade process is to take the kingfisher feathers alive, inlaid on the base of gold and silver jewelry, pay attention to the live take, if not taken alive, the color will be dim, let alone how painful it is to take the live, just take the kingfisher after losing the feathers on the head and neck The chance of survival is also minimal.
People can't help but sigh that the bird's otherworldly head was cut, the bodhisattva was carved on the top, the Buddha was carved on the top, and the sharp blade cut off the jaw of the mouth, and there was no helmet ever since.
If you were targeting a bird bone worth thousands of dollars, would you be moved?