In the Erya Wing Shrew, it is said: "The shrew, the great one of the turtles, is as wide or as wide as one or two feet." ”
The collection of cultural relics found the most precious treasure, a bronze ware of the late Shang Dynasty in the shape of a large shrew
In 2003, when the National Museum of China in Beijing was collecting cultural relics from various places, an eye-catching collection unexpectedly appeared — a bronze vessel shaped like a large shrew 21.4 centimeters long, 10 centimeters high and about 16 centimeters wide.
This bronze was later named album-like bronze shrew, a rare late Shang bronze. The vessel is shrew-shaped, crawling, with an outstretched head, a left-winged tail, exposed four legs, and a button under each of its claws as a support foot.
There are four arrows inserted on the side of the neck and on the lid: 1 on the left shoulder, 2 on the left side of the dorsal nail, and 1 on the right posterior. All are the parts of the arrow feathers that are exposed after the arrow is shot into the body of the shrew, and this bronze is jokingly called the "Four Arrows of the Turtle Heart" because of its unique shape.
What kind of creature is the great shrew that once fought a tiger?
What kind of animal is the giant shrew? In fact, it is commonly known as sand turtle or blue ball fish, which is the largest type of turtle family and currently belongs to China's national key protected animals.
Xu Shen of the Eastern Han Dynasty said in the "Explanation of Words and Characters": "The beetle is the largest, so the characters are from the yuan, and the yuan is also the big." ”
The dorsal carapace is round, its dorsal carapace is covered with soft leathery skin, the head is small, the snout is short, the nostrils are at the front of the snout, its limbs have developed webs, the tail is short, and the head and neck can be completely retracted into the shell.
It inhabits rivers and lakes, is good at drilling sediment, and feeds on snails, frogs, fish, shrimp, etc. The shrew is very fierce and powerful. In the Tang Dynasty's Xuanbaozhi, it is also recorded that the shrew in the Xuanzhou River once came ashore to fight with the tiger.
The bronze shrew was created for a hunting expedition, and the inscription on it indicates what happened
However, it is curious that the Shang Dynasty, who has always liked to make bronze containers, how could they want to create a bronze shrew? Moreover, this bronze shrew also had four arrows inserted obliquely into its back, each deeply penetrating its body, what does this mean?
Because the Shang Dynasty people advocated force, successive Shang kings were keen to expand their territory, and hunting was an indispensable part of the life of the Shang Dynasty. This "album-like bronze shrew" is related to a hunting trip.
In the early Shang Dynasty, inscriptions began to be cast on a small number of bronzes, and the number of words was small.
In the late Shang Dynasty, the number of bronzes cast markedly increased, and it was not until the last year of the Shang Dynasty that several long inscriptions of several crosses appeared. The bronze inscriptions, also known as the "Jin Wen" and the "Zhong Ding Wen", basically maintain the form of brush writing, which is the orthographic script of the time.
Therefore, scholars soon found several lines of clearly marked inscriptions on the back of this bronze shrew from the late Shang Dynasty, which read: "BingShen, Wang Garlic Yu Huan, Obtained." The king shoots one shot, praise shoots three, and the rate is not wasted. Wang Ling's bedchamber is like a book, that is, playing in Yong, as a female treasure. ”
It turned out that this big shrew was hunted by the Shang King when he arrived at Huanshui on the day of The Day of Prophecy.
More than 3,000 years ago, Emperor Xin of the Shang Dynasty and his party performed a shooting salute on the banks of the Huan River in Anyang, Henan. The Shang Dynasty hunted for a long journey to show grandeur. Shooting salutes.
It was a hunting activity in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and the reason why it was called a ceremony showed that there were strict rules for archery: the prescribed type of prey, strict movement norms, and all those who competed on the field had to be trained.
The inscription on the bronze vessel records that this big shrew was hit by a total of four arrows, and the first arrow can be determined to be shot by Di Xin, but the next three arrows were shot by the Shang King himself, or by other courtiers?
Scholars still have different views today.
But in any case, these four arrows accurately shot through the body of the great shrew, and the shrew had such divine power, so the Shang King captured the shrew and felt glorious, so he gave the shrew he had captured as a treasure.
"Album" is the name of the historical official of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the earliest historical official known to china so far, and it is also a "general" position. The term "bookkeeping" shows that his daily work was to record the words and deeds of the Shang king.
The pictographic meaning of this "book" in the oracle bone is a row of wood chips, which shows that the Shang Dynasty people have been using bamboo and other writing carriers in addition to engraving words on oracle bones and bronzes.
And the housekeeper who was ordered to hand over the reward also told the booklet with words and asked him to make this an heirloom. Therefore, this album made it into a bronze vessel.
The appearance of the inscription has brought us a glimmer of light to understand this mysterious bronze shrew.
brief summary
The album-like bronze shrew is only seen in the shape of a shrew, and it is also made according to the shape of the shrew shot by the Shang King, which has a realistic expressive style, so it is very precious.
The special system of album-like bronze shrews not only enriched the bronzes of the likeness, but also provided an important basis for the study of archery in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.
References: EryaYi, Shuowen Jiezi, Xuanbaozhi
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