Original title: The Year of the Tiger Said Tiger 丨 Accident Is Not Accidental Two tails and a small bird on their backs are actually "tiger worship"
In the exhibition hall of the Jiangxi Provincial Museum, the largest surviving pre-Qin bronze tiger is treasured, the Shang Dynasty Fu bird double-tailed bronze tiger. Unearthed in 1989 from the Oceania Shang Tomb in Xingan County, this strange shape is a brilliant work of Shang Dynasty bronze art, revealing the tiger totem worship more than 3,000 years ago.
This artifact is 53.5 cm long, 25.5 cm high, weighs 6.2 kg, has a strange shape, double-tailed curls, and a bird with its back. The tiger's body is decorated with patterns, the face and abdomen are decorated with cirrus clouds, the back is decorated with cloud thunder patterns, the nose, the front ridge, the tail and the lower part of the four legs are decorated with deformed scales, and the upper part of the four legs is a striking thunder pattern. The tiger is large in shape and peculiar in shape, revealing a mighty and brave look on the outside, while the inside hides a devious and immortal aura, which fully shows the divinity of the tiger and the admiration of people for the tiger.
Tiger worship has a long history in China. Xu Changqing, secretary of the Party Committee of the Jiangxi Provincial Museum, said that in the tomb of Yangshao culture in Puyang, Henan Province, more than 6,000 years ago, a wizard used mussel shells to shape tigers and dragons on the left and right sides, which means that the wizard drove the dragon and tiger between heaven and earth. More than 4,000 years ago in Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, the jade artifacts of the Liangzhu culture are carved with intricate patterns of gods riding tigers, showing the scene of wizards riding tigers to the gods.
"In the source of Chinese tiger culture, the tiger worship of the Bronze Culture of Xingan Oceania in the Shang Dynasty has both inheritance and development, forming its own unique personality." Xu Changqing said that the tiger stripes of Shang Dynasty bronzes mostly appeared in the south, of which the tiger stripes on the Shingan Oceania bronzes were the most concentrated. The 27 flat feet of the 9 bronze dings are in the shape of a tiger, 10 have 20 tigers standing on the ears, 2 are decorated with tiger heads, 2 tiger stripes are on the bronze shovel handle, and 1 bronze staff is shaped by a tiger head. The double-tailed bronze tiger is one of the most amazing artifacts, known as the "Tiger King". This shows that in the bronze culture of Jiangxi in the Shang Dynasty, a unique tiger cult was formed, and the tiger became the symbol of the most regional culture.
Reporter: Yuan Huijing
Images courtesy of Jiangxi Provincial Museum
Source: Xinhua News Agency