Careful friends may find that whether it is in tomb robbery film and television dramas, or tomb robbery novels and literary works, when the tomb robber opens the coffin to take the treasure, he will take out a treasure in the mouth of the deceased. For example, when the warlord Sun Dianying excavated the cixi mausoleum, he took out a night pearl in his mouth.
Cixi was once the de facto ruler of the Qing Dynasty before his death, and it was normal for him to be buried with a night pearl in his mouth. But in ancient times, why did most of the deceased have something in their mouths? In fact, this is an ancient funerary custom, called "mouth" or "tongue press", also known as "jade".
In the "Spring and Autumn Sayings Inscription", it is recorded: "The mouth is known as containing, and the elephant is raw as food." "Mouth inclusions, this ancient funerary custom, originated in the Neolithic Age, the mouth of the deceased is mostly stone blocks, shells, mussel shells and other inclusions. The "Biography of Gu Liang" records that "Bei Yu Yue Han", only when the mouth of the deceased contains jade products, it will be called Jade.
The contents of the mouth are different, and its symbolic meaning is also very different, in addition to not allowing "the deceased to empty his mouth and take his precious companionship", there is also the desire to put a precious jade object into the mouth of the deceased. According to the information that can be verified now, the funeral customs of Yuhu first appeared in the Neolithic Age 6,000 years ago.
Among them, the mouth containing jade cicadas is the most common, because from the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, jade cicadas are mostly worn or played with by tomb owners before they die, and they must also be used as burial items after death.
In ancient times, if the ordinary mouth of ordinary people was only a funerary custom, then the jade of the aristocratic class had two meanings, one was a symbol of wealth and power; the other was a jade with a strong mouth, hoping to achieve the role and meaning of protecting the body from decay.
Of course, no matter what the object is contained, it comes from the traditional funeral concept of "being born and dying, and not allowing the deceased to empty his mouth".