introduction
"Mencius Zhizi Shang" has a saying: "Everyone has the heart to love beauty." "Everyone wants to dress themselves up beautifully, but beauty also needs moderation. If, in satisfying one's own demand for beauty, it causes harm to other beings, then this beautiful mind is also full of sin. Ivory, this ancient art and ornament, was gradually withdrawn from the market because humans were so greedy that they affected the reproduction of elephants.
Ivory is an ornament that we are very familiar with, and it was circulated as a commodity as a commodity as early as the pre-Qin period. In the Book of Poetry, there is a saying that "Yuan Gui Elephant Teeth, Great Bribe NanJin". According to the "Zuo Chuan", the ivory carving technique was already very mature during the Zhou Dynasty, ranking among the "eight materials" of handicraft industry. According to the Rules of the Zhou Dynasty, only nobles above the level of local princes were eligible to use ivory wats, and by the Time of the Tang Dynasty, officials below the level of five pins were also allowed to hold ivory wats, and all subsequent dynasties of the Liao Dynasty regarded ivory as an important royal tribute.
▲ Ivory crafts
It should be pointed out that ivory carving is one of the ancient traditional arts in China, with a history of nearly 10,000 years. In 2006, ivory carving was included in the national intangible cultural heritage list, and there are inheritors of ivory carving technology in several ancient ivory production areas, and the ivory shallow carving technology in Jiangsu Province has the reputation of "A world". In addition, in archaeological excavations, experts also found that the People in the Cave on the Top of Zhoukoudian in the Neolithic Era had ivory carving ornaments, and some of the ivory ornaments had become the burial items of the nobles at that time.
▲Jinsha ruins
According to the data, China's successive archaeological excavations have unearthed a large number of ivory ornaments, such as the Jinsha site in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, which is the capital of the ancient Shu Kingdom, the center of ancient civilization in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. According to experts, the existence of this civilization is about the late Shang Dynasty to the Western Zhou Dynasty, which is one of the important sites of the pre-Qin period in China, and has an important role in the ruins of the ancient Shu State in Sichuan. Since its discovery in 2001, a large number of jade, bronze, gold, etc. have been excavated from the Jinsha site, of which jade is particularly exquisite, with micro-carved patterns as fine as hair on the surface, and some are decorated with cinnabar.
▲ Archaeological experts explore the site
During the excavations at the Jinsha site, it was discovered that one of the deep pits was buried with thousands of tusks, the longest being nearly two meters long, a discovery that shocked everyone present. After careful exploration, experts excavated about 1 ton of ivory, some of which have been made into molded columnar vessels, and some of which have been cut into blocks or flakes, which can be understood as "semi-finished products". These ivory tusks excavated from the Jinsha site confirm the development history of ivory carving in China and support the documentary records of the time. After analyzing some of the tusks unearthed, experts determined that the tusks should be items used for sacrifice.
02
Curiously, when only half of the excavation was not finished, archaeologists stopped the excavation and demanded that the ivory be buried. This move caused many people to be puzzled for a while, and experts explained that these ivory have been buried in the ground for a long time, and if they dig again, they will cause a big incident, and these ivory are likely to be destroyed by a large influx of oxygen, turning into fine powder, causing immeasurable losses We will regret. Therefore, it is better to study this part of the excavation first, and when there is sufficient technical ability, then dig out the rest and study it carefully.
▲The site of the Jinsha ruins
This approach of experts is the embodiment of the spirit of archaeology. In the history of new Chinese archaeology, there are many examples of damage to cultural relics caused by improper preservation, such as the archaeology of the tomb of the Wanli Emperor, the thirteenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty, which is a complete failure. The bones of the Wanli Emperor and the two empresses were burned during the Cultural Revolution, the coffins that had lasted for a hundred years were thrown into the ravine, the large number of silk fabrics unearthed in the Dingling Tombs were rapidly weathered, and the murals were mostly discolored by oxidation. It is precisely because of this archaeological event that China decided not to excavate the tombs of emperors from now on, and the Ming Ding Mausoleum has become the only mausoleum in the Ming Tombs that has been excavated.
Ivory artifacts excavated from the Jinsha site
On the one hand, these ivory products should be protected in an archaeological sense, and on the other hand, ivory products should also be protected in a practical sense. As a result of the tusk grazing, a large number of adult male elephants were hunted. According to statistics, there were 1.3 million elephants on the african continent in 1979, and today only 415,000 remain, and an average of 20,000 elephants are illegally poached every year. This is related to the excessive consumer demand for ivory and the high price of ivory.
▲ African elephants
To this end, China and the United States, the world's two largest ivory markets, jointly issued a pledge in 2015 to ban ivory exports and trade, which is of great significance for the protection of the world's elephant population. On December 29, 2018, China officially banned the commercial processing and sale of ivory products. In the following two years, China's customs department investigated no less than ten cases of special ivory smuggling, destroying more than 20 tons of ivory. Governments have also issued orders banning the ivory trade and cracking down on ivory smuggling.
epilogue
"Lü's Spring and Autumn Reward" has a saying: "If you fish with all your might, you will not get it, and next year there will be no fish." "It is precisely because people are too greedy to obtain it that they have become a situation of "no fish next year". Whether it is ivory or fishing, everything in the world pays attention to "degree". Therefore, the "Left Biography" requires people to "act according to their ability", and if the force cannot be reached, they will retreat. No matter what kind of situation, we must measure our own ability on the one hand, and on the other hand, measure the endurance of the surrounding environment and then act.
Resources:
Mencius
The Book of Verses
"Lü's Spring and Autumn Rewards"
"The Left Handbook"