In an ancient tomb outside the West Gate of Changzhi in Shaanxi Province, archaeologists once found a special Tang Sancai object, but for one reason, it was actually defined as a first-class cultural relic. What's going on here? If you want to know, let Xiaobian reveal the secret for you:
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In May 1987, an archaeologist came to the Jianhua Community outside the West Gate of Changzhi, Shaanxi Province, to conduct a scientific investigation on the construction site, and strangely enough, when they came to the cemetery, there were not too many people around, because there were not too many funerary items in the burial chamber, except for a burial chamber that looked like a black hole cave. Through in-depth excavations of the burial chamber, archaeologists found that the burial chamber was a domed brick chamber tomb, sitting northeast to southwest, rounded square, and according to the text on some of the remaining objects in the tomb room, the owner of the tomb was Li Du, a tang dynasty celebrity.
According to the epitaph in the tomb, the owner of the tomb, Li Du and Zi Rencai, were the shangzhu states in the Tang dynasty court, and the official residence was a lieutenant of the Fold chong Province. The so-called "Shangzhu State" is actually a person who has made great military contributions to the imperial court, so it is also compared to "a pillar of the Southern Heavens" or a "pillar of the imperial court", which shows that Li Du's own life experience is very extraordinary. Unfortunately, Li Du only lived until the fourth year of Jinglong, that is, in 710 AD, and was buried here until the tomb was stolen and then excavated by archaeology. From the early excavation, the tomb's burial chamber unearthed 5 pieces of celadon pots, copper spoons, copper chopsticks, copper noodles, bone gui plates, epitaphs and other objects.
I have to say that in the early stage of tomb excavation, there was indeed little gain, and even only some cultural relics of low value. However, as the excavation progressed, archaeologists suddenly discovered that there were many special artifacts hidden in the water in the burial chamber, including some pottery and porcelain. However, due to the different nature of the various cultural relics themselves, most of the utensils were damaged by water immersion, leaving only many Tang Sancai works, including some noble women's figurines, maid figurines, servant figurines, music and dance figurines and so on. Through research, it was learned that the quality level of Tang Sancai's works unearthed in the tomb this time was very clear, so after they were cleaned up, they were also sent to the Changzhi Museum in Shaanxi for the next step of research by experts.
The process of studying Tang Sancai is very complicated, but the archaeologists have gained greatly, because in the process of research, they actually noticed a special Tang Sancai product - Tang Sancai holding a duck figurine. The size of Tang Sancai's duck figurine is not large, but the color is very distinct, there are 7 colors, namely red, black, white, orange, green, blue, and yellow. The image of the duck girl is a young girl, who sits peacefully on her knees in Bibi, with a duck tightly wrapped around her chest, which looks particularly fat due to its short stature. From the point of view of clothing, although the girl is dressed in a chinese costume and has exquisite makeup, she is still a servant's dress, which naturally reminds us of the image of the maid of the Li Du family.
At this point, the question arises, why are archaeologists so interested in the duck-hugging figurine? In fact, the reason is very simple, it has almost become an important boutique in Tang Sancai culture. As we all know, the elements depicted in Tang Sancai's works are mostly utensils, such as Tang Sancai jars, wine glasses, etc., emphasizing practicality, while a small number of Tang Sancai tend to express their intentions and focus on ornamentation, such as the famous Tang Sancai camels, etc., the purpose is to win the favor of the viewers with the shape of animals. Of course, there is also a kind of Tang Sancai artifact that is specially shaped by people, focusing on depicting various actions of Hu or Han people at banquets or in life, and its essence is of commemorative significance. Interestingly, the figurine holding the duck combines the above three points, which is not only a practical artifact used to accompany the burial of the deceased, but also vividly depicts the demeanor and movement of the characters, and cleverly places animal elements in it, which can be called the "set of masters" in Tang Sancai's utensils.
Speaking of this, we also have to sigh that the ancients did have infinite wisdom, and when they made Tang Sancai, they poured almost all their artistic efforts into order to let us have the privilege of viewing such exquisite cultural relics, which is really admirable and revered.
Reference: Tang Sancai, by Huang Wei, published by Jilin Publishing House
Wen xiucai, editor-in-chief of Wenlan Hairun Studio, written by: Special history writer: Changshan Zhao Zi worm