The West Land Cicada sang, and the South Crown Guest thought deeply. Unable to bear the shadow of Xuan Sideburns, come and groan to the white head. --Luo Binwang, "In Prison Cicadas and Preface"
Compared with many animals, the life of cicadas is particularly short, this creature often only survives for a few months in the sun, and whenever the autumn wind sweeps, large and small cicadas come to the end of their lives.
Although the cicada is a very inconspicuous animal, it has always left a very positive and positive image for people throughout the ages.
We often say that "the golden cicada sheds its shell", in fact, before the metamorphosis, the cicada will lie dormant in the dirt for 5 years, 7 years or even longer, just for a certain day to climb out of the ground and offer a noisy summer for the world.
The ancients included cicadas as one of the funerary elements from a very early age, and most commonly, people would put elaborate jade cicadas in the mouths of the deceased and burrow them with them. The ancients thought that doing so would make people feel like cicadas, reborn after hibernating underground.
Under the guidance of this concept, various cicadas continue to appear in ancient tombs, and experts have excavated rare "golden cicada jade leaves" in a joint tomb of 1 man and 4 women in Jiangsu, and finally estimated that it is 900 million.
1. 1 male and 4 female burial tombs
Funeral culture is a very important part of traditional Chinese culture, from ancient times to the present, Chinese are quite particular about this, every word and deed at the funeral, every move must be in line with etiquette.
There are also some sayings about the regulation of tombs, and the regulations that can be enjoyed by people of different classes are generally different. For example, in some periods, the number of martyrdoms of emperors and the number of martyrdoms of princes is naturally different, for ordinary people, human martyrdom is almost impossible, the most common is the form of husband and wife burial.
The custom of husband and wife burial has existed since ancient times, and the earliest can be traced back to primitive society, just like the tomb found by experts in Wu County, Jiangsu Province, which is obviously also a joint burial tomb.
However, what surprises the experts is that there are 4 women in the tomb, while there are only 1 male, if they are the spouses of the male owners, this is enough to show that the identity of the tomb owner is not trivial, it must be rich or expensive.
Further research revealed that the male name in the tomb was named
Zhang Ann wan
He is indeed not an ordinary citizen, but a person during the Ming Dynasty
Scholars
。
The ancients, Yun, "Thirty Old Ming Classics, Fifty Young Jinshi", Jinshi in any dynasty is undoubtedly the leader standing at the tip of the pyramid, so Zhang Anwan can not only marry the wife of the main house, but also take 3 concubines.
At the same time, from the perspective of the position of the coffins of the four people in the tomb, the relationship between 4 women as companions, Zhang Anwan and 4 wives and concubines should be good, and the relationship is relatively harmonious.
Second, the golden cicada appears, accompanied by jade leaves
I think Zhang Anwan must be a powerful and powerful court official, so he should have a lot of precious burial items in his tomb. However, in the process of excavation, experts found that Zhang Anwan's tomb was really unremarkable, and the items buried with him were not only small in number, but also not rare treasures.
In fact, this is also expected, because in some periods of the Ming Dynasty, the wind of incorruptibility prevailed, and the imperial court's requirements for officials were extremely strict, so there would be a big official like Hai Rui with two sleeves and a clean wind, and the situation of Zhang Anwan should be the same.
Just when the archaeologists felt extremely disappointed, an unexpected discovery made everyone instantly interested.
It turned out that although Zhang Anwan's funeral goods were nothing to look at, one of his concubines had a treasure placed on his head.
This is a very exquisite gold and jade product, which can be divided into two parts, the upper part is a golden cicada made of pure gold, although it is not large, but the exquisite carving really makes the well-informed experts shine.
I saw that the golden cicada's wings were slightly stretched, its sides were tilted, and it was carved beautifully and vividly. The texture of gold not only makes the cicada more rich and atmospheric, but also adds a little brilliance, which looks more and more beautiful after being illuminated by light.
Under the golden cicada is a pure white leaf, carefully polished from high-grade Hetian mutton fat white jade, the carving technique is intricate, and the yin and yang lines alternate, making the jade leaf texture clear and interesting.
Such a pair of "golden cicada jade leaves" makes experts feel more and more rare the more they look at it, but everyone is curious, why does such a precious treasure only appear on the body of a concubine?
Experts speculate that this "golden cicada jade leaf" is not a simple burial item, it should be part of the woman's headdress, with the tomb owner buried may only be for the sake of beauty, rather than like the traditional jade cicada, in order to let the deceased into the ground for safety, re-transformation.
Although Zhang Anwan is a noble soldier, there are not too many rare treasures in his tomb, but this "golden cicada jade leaf" is the best.
However, this golden cicada jade leaf was only worn by a concubine, and even the main room was never possessed.
It can be seen that Zhang Anwan must have been very fond of this concubine before his death, and this kind of love is most likely like love in the modern sense, not under the feudal concept of possession.
If this is indeed the case, then Zhang Anwan is indeed a precious person, because the ancient people always maintained the concept of male superiority and female inferiority, and many men did not talk about love for their wives and concubines, more appropriately, it should be a joy after the satisfaction of possessiveness.
Therefore, the status of ancient concubines was extremely low, and their treatment in the family and the main room could not be compared at all, and Zhang Anwan's move was quite a sense of breaking the feudal ideology.
epilogue
This golden cicada jade leaf excavated from the ancient tomb in Wuxian County, Jiangsu Province, is a rare treasure, it is not only exquisite in material selection and exquisite craftsmanship, but also found that behind this treasure is very likely to hide the signs of ideological emancipation in the Ming Dynasty, so it is of extraordinary significance and extremely precious.
Experts estimate that the value of this golden cicada jade leaf is at least 900 million, and now it is properly stored in the Nanjing Museum, continuing to tell the story of the past to the world.