The Year of the Tiger is approaching, and museums are preparing exhibitions related to tigers.
Held at the National Museum of China, the "Inner Mongolia Cultural Relics Jinghua Exhibition" held at the National Museum of China was launched on September 28, and the exhibition is divided into three parts: "The Early Form of the Combination of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry", "The Construction of the Great Wall and the Integration of Nationalities" and "The Fusion of Diverse Cultures along the Great Wall", which systematically reveals the historical context of the integration and sublimation of farming and nomadic cultural exchanges in Inner Mongolia for thousands of years, and shows the process of the formation and development of The pattern of Chinese pluralism.
From the many articles published, the interviews of the curators and the feelings of the audience, it is an exhibition that has nothing to do with the culture of the Year of the Tiger. But among the more than 240 pieces (sets) of cultural relics, there are many related to tigers, and I accidentally photographed as many as six or seven. For example, "Tiger Pattern Bronze Plate", "Tiger Bite Beast Pattern Bronze Plate", "Tiger Bite Sheep Bronze Plate", "Tiger Bite Sheep Bronze Plate", "Tiger Head Shaped Silver Saving", etc., the golden tiger on the cover of the promotional poster is from the "Standing Tiger Shaped Gold Decoration Plate".
On the occasion of the Year of the Tiger, I would like to present these tigers to everyone and wish you all good luck in the Year of the Tiger.
The "Standing Tiger-shaped Gold Jewelry Plate" on the poster is a Warring States cultural relics excavated from the kiln of the Tara Trench Township Mill house in Dongsheng District, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, and is collected in the Ordos City Museum. It is a molded band ornament, and the overall shape is a relief of a standing tiger. With its head held high, its back hunched over, and its tail hanging down, it uses local hollowing techniques to express the details of the tiger's face and claws. Between the tiger's head and forelimbs is also connected a small animal with the same expression.
"Tiger Bite Sheep Bronze Plaque", "Tiger Bite Beast Pattern Bronze Plaque", "Tiger Sheep Bronze Plaque", etc. are all belt decorations, showing the tiger and sheep fighting scenes in the life of the nomads, and also reflecting the nomadic people's aggressive and fierce folk style.
The gold belt plaque of the tiger bite bucket pattern is in the ordos bronze museum. The overall decoration is slightly rectangular, surrounded by a rope pattern, the theme pattern is a bas-relief tiger and a wild boar entangled in a bite fight scene, the tiger is underneath, the abdomen lands, the forelimbs try to support the upper torso, the head opens its mouth and bites the root of the wild boar's hind thighs, the hind limbs flip to the sky to pedal the wild boar, the tiger's tail droops through the crotch from back to the back and rolls to the back; the wild boar is on, although it is at a disadvantage, it still bites one of the tiger's hind limbs, struggling to resist, and the two sides fight inextricably. Originally two, only one was exhibited this time, but the contents of the two cards were shown in a line drawing picture.
Tiger head shape silver saving, length 5.5 ~ 6 cm, width 2.6 ~ 2.9 cm. "Saving" is not what we now mean by thrift, but an ancient harness whose main purpose was to gather the reins or pimps of the horse. The two "thrifty" pieces on display are unique in shape and exquisitely made, with cross-shaped buttons on the upper part of the back, and the crossed leather strips are retained in the buttons when they are excavated. The lower part is engraved with inscriptions such as "Shaofu 224 Zhu" and "□ Gong 222 Zhu", which provides a direct basis for determining the age of the tomb. The "two" characters in the engraving are the same as the "two" characters on the cloth cast in the Warring States period. This saving is of great value for the study of the weights and measures system of the Warring States period, calligraphy, and the cultural exchanges between the steppe peoples of the northern region and the farming peoples of the Central Plains.
The tiger is the king of a hundred beasts, and in the hearts of the chinese people, it is a symbol of majesty and power. The ancients often used the image of the tiger to show their power, and the custom of worshiping the tiger became the common cultural imprint of the Chinese nation. The appearance of so many tiger-shaped cultural relics from the "Inner Mongolia Cultural Relics Elite Exhibition" in the "Inner Mongolia Cultural Relics Exhibition" is also related to the existence of a large number of tigers in the local area. The admiration, admiration and attachment of the early northern peoples to tigers were deeply rooted, and in the process of observing the current situation of the weak and the strong in nature, they tried their best to imitate the tigers at the top of the food chain. Therefore, they wear ornaments with tiger predation patterns in daily life, sacrifices, and wars, regard the white tiger star as spiritual sustenance, and develop the tiger complex to the extreme.