This large-mouth statue on display at the Renhuai City Museum was excavated from a cave on the cliff of the Dongmen River in Renhuai City (now where the Yunxian Temple is located), and is identified as an artifact from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.
▲ Big Mouth Zun
This large mouth is a long trumpet-shaped piece made of thin sand and stucco strips, with a thin wall, an epitaxial pile of rope, and a thin line reticule on the abdomen. Because it is purely handmade, the shape of the utensils is not completely regular.
At the same time, there are also stone scrapers, stone hammers, pottery cups, clay pots, clay pot lids and so on. Archaeological excavation data say that this is the earliest heap pattern merchant Zhou Dakouzun found in Guizhou.
The Shang Zhou ruins on the cliffs show that above the Dongmen River Gorge, the terrain is relatively gentle, the land is fertile, the water is sufficient, and the sun is sufficient, which meets the conditions required for early human activities. Around the time of the Stone Age, there was more human activity in the area.
However, due to the small size of the cave, the small cultural accumulation layer, and the location on a cliff, the cave should not be a permanent residence, most likely forced to shelter from natural disasters, or war, etc., forced to take shelter. Early humans in the area, the main place of activity, are presumably elsewhere above the canyon.
The dongmenhe cave site is the second time that the site of the Shang and Zhou dynasties has been found in Guizhou Province, bringing people unlimited reverie.
Zun, which first appeared in the early Shang Zhou Dynasty, was a kind of vessel. Other sources are more detailed, suggesting that it may have been used to hold wine (or replace wine with water). Baidu and other sources clearly state that ren huai's large mouth is used to hold wine.
▲Some of the excavated cultural relics drawn by the archaeological team that year
Archaeological data believe that the Dakouzun excavated from Renhuai is similar to similar artifacts to a Shang Dynasty site in Xia County, Shanxi; the pottery cover is similar to the characteristics of the Sanxingdui site in Sichuan; and the other heaped pottery and fragments excavated with it have typical characteristics of the Shang and Zhou dynasties in the Central Plains.
Chinese pottery firing technology appeared in the late Neolithic period. Limited by technical conditions, until the beginning of summer, the heat of the pottery produced is not high, and there is an uneven heating phenomenon. In the late summer, the "steamed bun kiln" appeared, which greatly increased the temperature in the kiln and significantly improved the quality of the fired pottery.
The Large Mouth Zun and other pottery excavated by Renhuai have been fired to a certain extent.
▲The site of the Shang Zhou kiln excavated by the Chishui River
These phenomena show that during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, Renhuai and even the entire Chishui River Basin had extensive communication, the "circle of friends" was constantly expanding, and the culture from the Central Plains and the Cuban Shu region had penetrated into the Chishui River Basin in the southwest mountainous region.
So, is this large mouth zun and other pottery produced by RenHuai?
In the area of Dongmen River, there are no traces of fired pottery in the same period, and it still needs to be investigated and excavated. But there is reason to believe that these pottery is more likely to be "native products" of the Chishui River Basin – in 2015, the archaeological team of the Guizhou Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology found the first Shang zhou kiln site in Guizhou Province along the Chishui River, which contained many fragments of pottery from the same period.
The discovery of the earliest Shangzhou kiln site in Guizhou confirms that the early Renhuai area and the Chishui River Basin have been "very open". People living here bravely accept new technologies and new things, and use them to improve their lives and production, promote the process of local civilization, and become an indispensable part of the brilliant Chinese civilization.
Author: Huang Qianhua