Unlike the Western alphabet, Chinese characters are ideographs, and the glyphs tend to carry some history, and it is very likely that Di Yao Zhi Yao also carries some of Di Yao's history, such as Di Yao's occupation.
Ancient Chinese artificial characters are very regular, there are "He" part of the text are related to "grain", there is a "Yin" part of the "Yin" part are related to water, there is a "宀" part are related to the house, there is a "Bei" part is related to treasure, etc., even if you do not know some of the text, but as long as you see the relevant head, you can guess the approximate meaning. But the characters containing the "Yao" part are roughly pouring, scratching, rao, winding, burning, xiao, you, stilt, 铙, 蛲, 硗, 荛, 桡, 桡, 哓, 骁, 峣, etc., and what do they have to do with? If we are associated with another title of Di Yao, "Tao Tang Shi", then these words seem to have something to do with pottery making, that is, Di Yao may have been a pottery worker or a pottery city administrator at first! After the oracle bone was unearthed, according to the "Yao" glyph above, this view can be further confirmed.
Di Yao is also known as Tao TangShi
Di Yao was one of the Five Emperors of the Ancients, the son of Emperor Zhao, surnamed Qi Fangxun, who lived about 4,000 years ago. Before the Zhou Dynasty, men were considered to be adults at the age of 13, King Wen of Zhou married his wife when he was 13 years old, Emperor Yao was enfeoffed in Qi di at the age of 13, and the princely states were all set in Tao Tang when he was 15 years old, so he was called "Tao Tang Clan". After Emperor Zhao's death, the throne was passed to his eldest son, Emperor Zhi, who was set at Yu Bo, and it is said that later Emperor Zhi, because he was not good at managing the country, suddenly realized that Hou Chan was located in his younger brother Emperor Yao, and the capital was set at Pingyang.
In addition to the title of Emperor Yao, he also had two titles, namely Qi Fangxun and Tao Tangshi, of which Tao Tangshi is mentioned in many literature, indicating that Tao Tangshi is widely known. Judging from the process of "Yao" becoming emperor, before Emperor Zhi Zen ascended the throne, "Yao" developed in Tao Tang and accumulated strong strength and wealth, and the "Records of History" said that he was "as rich as the sun, as he looked like a cloud, rich but not proud, noble but not comfortable", and showed the ability to govern the country, so Emperor Zhi would give him the Throne. Therefore, Tao Tang is the key place for the rise of Emperor Yao, so what does the word "Tao Tang" mean?
Pottery, in the modern context, represents pottery, but in the ancient period, "pottery, pottery pottery soil chamber also", is the "kiln" that appeared later, the pronunciation is also "yao", that is, there are pottery characters first, and then there are kiln characters, and after the kiln appears, the pottery characters often represent the product of the "kiln" - pottery.
From the glyph point of view, at first there was no "阝" on the left side of the pottery character, only the right part, which is very similar to the "kiln" character, of which the right "缶" represents the pottery, so the right part of the whole is the pottery is placed in the earthen chamber and burned. "阝" is placed on the left, representing a hill with a staircase, and the word "tao" is added to indicate the meaning of taking clay from a high slope when making pottery; as for "阝" on the right, it generally represents the city.
Tang, the glyph "Geng" under the "mouth" (above), indicating that it is related to speaking with the mouth, but what is the original meaning of this word, some say that "Geng" is a musical instrument such as a bell bell, some say that the word "Geng" is a wind cabinet for processing grain, and some say that "Geng" is only next to the sound in the word "Tang" and does not express its intention, etc., and has not been solved so far. Although the original meaning of tang characters is still a mystery, but most of the explanations are related to sound, which makes the author think of the skills of identifying ceramics, good ceramic organizational structure is tight, dense, and will make a more crisp sound when tapping, while poor, even cracked ceramics Have a loose structure, and the sound changes, sounding more low. Therefore, Tang characters may be a way of identifying pottery, and later slowly evolved into big words, big words and so on.
In short, from the title of Tao Tang, Di Yao is inseparable from pottery making.
The original meaning of Yao characters - pottery?
The Eastern Han Dynasty Xu Shen's "Commentaries on the Interpretation of Texts" records: "Yao (traditional Character for "堯"), Gao Ye. From Yao on the Vulture, Takato also. After Xu Shen, ancient scholars generally interpreted the Yao character as "gao", such as the "Customs and Customs and Emperor", which says "Yao, Gao Ye, Rao Ye." "Di Yao is one of the Five Emperors of the Ancients, and it seems that he can indeed explain the original meaning of the Yao character in this way. However, the Yao character in the oracle bone is difficult to see the meaning of "high and far".
Judging from the above figure, Xu Shen and others should see the evolved Yao characters, the most typical of which is the third left of the first row, as if people are on the mound, naturally high. But if you look at the oracle bone Yao characters, it is clearly "upper and lower earth", that is, a crouched person with two mounds on his head.
Of course, the mound is higher than the ground, and it can also be reluctantly explained that Yao has a certain relationship with "high". However, there are already high characters (above) in the oracle bones, and the glyphs are similar to today's, and have nothing to do with the Yao glyphs. Since the Shang Dynasty already had a high character, why did you create another Yao character to indicate high? Moreover, compared to some other texts, the creation of high characters is relatively simple. Therefore, the original meaning of yao is unlikely to be "high".
In addition, the reason why the Yao character is "earth" or "mound" above, rather than pottery, or something else, may wish to look at the earth character in the oracle bone (below), the two are highly similar.
That being the case, what is the original meaning of the yao character? In ancient Chinese characters, chinese characters with similar or identical pronunciations often have a close relationship, such as the relationship between Shang and Song, because the "wood" under the Song character is mulberry wood, mulberry and Shang homophony, so King Zhou Cheng sealed the remnants of the Shang Dynasty in the Song, and the Yao character is consistent with the ancient sound of the kiln and tao, combined with the word "Tao Tang", the two mounds above the Yao character should be the earth kiln built above the ground by the pottery, and the following is a person or in the fire, that is, The Emperor Yao is good at making pottery. Later, it may be that the use of Yao characters to express the pottery process is too general, so the ancients added three points of water to become pouring on the basis of Yao characters, and then became burning next to the fire characters.
Tao Temple Ruins - Yao Du?
In 1978, in Taosi Village, Xiangfen County, Linfen County, Shanxi, the archaeological discovery of the "Tao Temple Ruins" is 4300-3900 years ago. Compared with the literature, many discoveries of the Dow site can confirm the history of Di Yao, such as the earliest astronomical observation system of heliostats, the world's oldest observatory (pictured above), and the dragon totem, so today the Dow site is now positioned by many people as the "capital of Yao". In the ruins of the tao temple, the pottery making technique is breathtaking.
Through archaeological restoration, there were three kinds of pottery making techniques in ancient China, namely "paste molding method" or "mud sheet sticking method", "mud strip plate construction method", "wheel making type method", of which "wheel making type method" is the most advanced, which not only greatly improves production efficiency, but also creates pottery with regular shape, thin and hard tires, and the ancestors of the pottery temple use this kind of pottery technology.
The pottery kiln of the Tao Temple site has a more perfect structure and better sealing, and the temperature in the kiln can be increased to about 1000 °C, which is in the leading position in technology in the contemporary ruins. At the same time, the pottery excavated from the Tao Temple site not only commonly uses accessories such as bag feet, circle feet, three feet, ears and handles, but also has a wide variety of pottery styles, such as cooking utensils, storage utensils, food utensils, drinking utensils, etc., each of which has many shapes, like a piece of exquisite art.
It can be seen that if the tao temple site is the "capital of Yao", then it will further confirm that there is a close connection between Di Yao and pottery making.
From today's point of view, pottery does not have much technical content, but 4,000 years ago, pottery was a high-tech technology, and at that time, the ancients could not do without pottery every day, and pottery making and selling pottery could quickly become stronger. Di Yao mastered advanced pottery-making technology, perhaps because of this, he quickly became stronger, stood out among the crowd, and eventually became one of the five ancient emperors.