(The above pictures are from the Internet)
In front of the Banpo Ruins Museum in Xi'an, there is a statue of a young girl half crouched on a stone pile in the center of the pool, holding a small pointed bottom bottle to draw water, which is the famous Banpo maiden. (See Figure 1)
Figure 1: The Half Slope Maiden
The small-mouth pointed bottom bottle is the most typical artifact of the Banpo culture, and there are many discoveries in the excavations of the Banpo site in Xi'an. The excavation report of "Xi'an Banpo" is as follows: water extraction vessel, fine clay pottery or fine sand hard pottery, red, exquisitely made, strong, part of the instrument decoration color; small mouth, short neck, drum belly, pointed bottom, abdomen on both sides of the abdomen, shoulders and above the middle abdomen decorated with left-leaning fine rope pattern, the shape of the vessel changes more, the mouth section is square, round, half-moon, flower bract, gourd-like, etc., the body shape is also short and slender; the shape excavated from the site is large and good, the average height is about 50 cm; the tomb excavation is small and thick, the average height is 30- 40 cm. (See Figure 2)
Figure 2: The pointed bottom bottle of the Banpo culture The most exquisite pointed bottom bottle inserted on the seat of the device
Since the advent of the small-mouth pointed bottom bottle, it has led to speculation about its function and use. Initially, it was recognized as a water collector: the small mouth can prevent the overflow of water, the fine texture can prevent the water from seeping out; when the rope is tied to the ear and put into the water to draw water, the cuspid first touches the water surface, and after continuing to put it into the water, due to the uneven effect of buoyancy, the ceramic bottle is flipped along the horizontal axis, so that the water is poured into the bottle, and when the bottle water is gradually full, due to the increase in weight, the bottle is restored to a vertical state in the water, and the water in the bottle will not spill out after the water surface is raised. The pointed bottom bottle filled with water is either inserted in a shallow pit on the ground, or in the ashes, or placed on a ring seat.
At the end of the 1980s, the Banpo Museum cooperated with the relevant personnel of Peking University to experiment, and the results showed that after the pointed bottom bottle was placed on the water, because of its heavy upper part, it could indeed begin to be automatically filled, but when it was halfway through, the center of gravity moved down, and the mouth automatically cocked out of the water, so it could not automatically fill the water. And when the double tether is lifted to a full bottle of water, it will also be dumped because the center of gravity is on the upper part. Therefore, the function and use of the pointed bottom bottle have been said to be wine vessels, sacrificial utensils, and burial utensils. The famous archaeologist Su Bingqi's sacrifice vessel theory is the most influential, he said: The "unitary" in the oracle bone is the latest form of hieroglyphic characters in the pointed bottom bottle, "酉" is an integral part of the stem branch of the ancient Chinese chronicle, and the meaning words composed of it such as "zun" and "dian" are related to the sacrifice. "The unitary vases and the faience pottery painted with fixed patterns of animals and plants are not all water-drawn pots and rice bowls used every day, but some are religious special needs and special offerings that adapt to the emergence of full-time clergy." There are also scholars who believe that the small-mouth amphora pointed bottom bottle is a vessel, the original name is "Youjiao", and the function of "Youjiao" is in "exhortation". Thus, the small-mouthed amphora "is an artifact that blesses the emperor or monarch from sitting on the throne for a long time." The claim that the small-mouth pointed bottom bottle is a burial tool is also more convincing, because in the Yangshao era sites in Henan Province, there have been many cases of the "urn coffin burial" of the deceased buried with the small-mouth pointed bottom bottle of the Miaodigou culture as a burial tool.
Although the functional role of the small-mouth pointed bottom bottle has not reached a consensus in the academic community, it is a standard of the Yangshao era, an "accurate" chronological ruler, and a common understanding of the archaeological community. The emergence of the small-mouth pointed bottom bottle marks the advent of the Yangshao era, and the disappearance of the small-mouth pointed bottom bottle marks the end of the Yangshao era; the small-mouth pointed bottom bottle itself has undergone the evolution from the mouth to the open, from thin to short, from the pointed bottom to the blunt bottom, from which the observation, archaeologists can clearly point out the specific period of the Yangshao era in which it is located.
The bottom of the pointed bottom bottle is pointed, usually placed or inserted on the ground, or sitting on the ring-shaped instrument seat; the table of the small-mouth pointed bottom bottle is generally decorated with a thin rope pattern (also known as a line pattern), and there are also unadorned surfaces, and the most exquisitely decorated piece of the table is the square continuous swirling faience vase excavated from Lujiaping in Longxi, Gansu. (See Figure 2)
【Description】This article is excerpted from Xu Yongjie's book: "Farming Spark", Palace Press, 2020. Welcome to forward, institutions or media reprint, please contact this public number. All reprints or quotations, please indicate the original source. If there is any discrepancy, please refer to the original book.
Archaeological detective