Speaking of the name Xu Li, not many people may know. In fact, Xu Li has a great future, he is the fifth grandson of Xu Da, the founding hero of the Ming Dynasty. He was a man of great stature, and had been in charge of the affairs of the Chinese military governor's office and garrisoned Nanjing. In the 1960s, a special treasure was found in Xu Li's tomb, which was definitely a man's favorite at that time. What is this special treasure? Why is he said to be a man's favorite? Next, let Xiaobian reveal the secret for you:
Outside the Taiping Gate of Nanjing is Nanjing Forestry University, part of the school's campus, which was once the family cemetery of Xu Da, the founding hero of the Ming Dynasty and the king of Zhongshan. In May 1977, in order to cooperate with the university's infrastructure, the cultural relics department excavated the joint burial tomb of Xu Da's fifth grandson, Xu Li and his wife Zhu Shi at about 100 meters east of Xu Da's tomb. Perhaps because of the masonry tomb built by lime pouring, the joint tomb of Xu Li and his wife is well preserved, and a large number of treasures such as gold and silver utensils used by Xu Li and his wife have been unearthed.
Among the many unearthed treasures, there is an amber hair crown that is extremely precious. This hair bun is carved from a whole patch of reddish golden yellow translucent amber. The entire crown is 3.7 cm high, 6.7 cm long and 3.2 cm wide. The crown is half-moon-shaped, posteriorly higher than the front, decorated with five straight beams and raised edges. There is a small hole on each side to insert a golden hairpin to fix the bun.
We all know that the ancients generally believed that "the body hair skin, by the parents", so they all keep the hair, easy not to cut, but always can not wear the head to distribute it, so, ancient men in order to sort out the long hair, they made dozens of crowns, hats, and various turbans such as beam crowns, cage crowns. As one of these, the hair crown appeared in the Five Dynasties period. In the Ming Dynasty, men found that the hair crown was a very luxurious outfit. Wearing a hair crown can not only handle the hair well, but also appear very relaxed and leisurely, and importantly, with a strong sense of poetry, so that the whole person looks very cultural. Therefore, the hair crown developed into the Ming Dynasty, and became a must-have jewelry for men, basically equivalent to the watch on men's wrists today.
Hair crowns were popular in the Ming Dynasty, and there is another reason. That is, the Ming Dynasty had a strict crown system, and the number of beams on the crown worn by officials corresponded to the rank of officials. For example, for an official of Yipin, the beams on his beam crown are seven, while the two pins are six, and there can only be one beam in eight or nine pins. However, because the hair crown is a casual dress, it is not included in these requirements. Therefore, wearing the "beam number" casually carved hair crown is equivalent to fulfilling his official dream in one step (no one cares about carving 99 beams), and the world is under control.
The material of the hair crown also showed a state of a hundred flowers in the Ming Dynasty. There is bamboo wood, do not think that the wood is very simple, people in the use of wood is also very exquisite, there are the use of precious precious wood, there is the use of gall wood, not only pay attention to the shape of the wood, even the grain of the wood should be exquisite; according to the excavation situation, the gold bundle of hair crown unearthed more physical objects, and mostly for the tombs of noble officials, the gold bundle crown is made of gold, but it is necessary to use jade hairpins to match; in the tomb of Qiucheng in Nanjing Waigangzi Village, a silver bundle crown has also been unearthed. Interestingly, it was originally gilded on the surface. I really don't know what this Qiu Daren originally thought, wouldn't it be better to be a gold person directly? These gold and silver wood and other materials of the hair crown is finished, xiaobian went on to say that the hair crown carved with jade, agate or crystal, these interesting crown ornaments are more in line with the aesthetic taste of the literati and celebrities. The hair crown of these three materials, the texture is lustrous and delicate, mostly loved by literati and celebrities, and it is more elegant and outstanding.
However, Xiaobian feels that the most precious hair crown (the words of the family, purely liked by everyone, does not represent the majority), to belong to this amber material hair crown excavated from the tomb of Xu Li and his wife. Amber is a resin fossil that has evolved over a long period of time, it is transparent like crystal, bright and pearl-like, and the color is like agate. The amber for this hair crown excavated from the tomb of Xu Li and his wife is slightly reddish golden yellow, and the transparency is very high, which is one of the rareest treasures in terms of material and workmanship.
A small hair crown, from the material, to the style, to the workmanship, everywhere the ancients gave more artistic connotations. The reason why the culture of the Chinese nation is so powerful is by no means a simple assumption, but the hard work of countless people, the creation and invention, and then after thousands of years of accumulation and precipitation, it has been formed. The splendid civilization of the Chinese nation is enough to make those of us who come after us proud.
Wen Xiucai, editor-in-chief of Wenlan Hairun Studio, this article is written by: Special History Writer: Zhang Hongguang