The "cup" is a tool for everyone's daily drinking and is the most common item. However, it turned out that strictly speaking, the word "cup" did not appear until the Warring States period, so how did the ancients drink water? Friends who are familiar with Chinese, have you noticed that many ancient vessels containing water or wine, such as "horn", "yao", "觯", "觥", "觞", etc., are related to the word "horn"? This time, we look for the changes in Chinese civilization's dining culture from the "cup".
"Cup" is also known as "cup", "cup", mainly wooden drinking utensils, this word only appeared in the literature of the late Warring States period, and the relics that were identified as "cups" were only jade, silver, copper, pottery, and lacquerware after the Warring States ("pottery cups" with similar shapes to later wine vessels appeared in the Stone Age, which can be regarded as the prototype of "cup"), and Xu Shen of the Han Dynasty referred to "cup" in the "Shuowen Jiezi", (the "Shuowen" interpreted this word as "small cup") also. The Qing Dynasty Duan Yu interpreted this sentence to refer to "ancient cup soup, cup circle is also." The Warring States Period book "Mencius Zhizi Shang" records that when Zhizi and Mencius debated, they said, "Sex, Juqi Liuye; righteousness, Juju Cup, Jubei Yiye; human nature as benevolence, Juqi Willow as a cup and plate (Translation: Human nature is like a willow tree, righteousness is like a cup and plate, and human nature is like benevolence, just like using a willow tree to make a cup and plate." "Cup" may be the decommissioning form of "cup (cup)".
That ancients would not drink water in a "cup"? Of course, it is impossible, there is a view that the cup is a first utensil, and then slowly evolved the name "cup", which refers to the commonly used utensils used to hold liquid or liquid food, round and simple structure.
Jade cup unearthed from the tomb of the King of Nanyue in the Han Dynasty (picture taken from the encyclopedia entry)
The earliest natural drinkers came from animals
We are now generally known as the "cup", in the era of the Shang Zhou heavy etiquette, different drinking utensils have different names according to different shapes, and the medium used to make written records at that time, such as oracle bones and bronzes, are valuable, only the nobles are eligible to write records on them, and the engraving is mostly related to ceremonial matters, only the drinking utensils used by the nobles can be recorded; it is possible that the wooden utensils "cups" used by the common people are just ordinary daily necessities, so they are not in the list of records, and they can only be recorded after the appearance of the cheaper writing medium bamboo jane.
So let's look at the "cup" used by the earliest nobles.
Ancient drinking utensils are mostly from the "horn", the common "jue" is also called "horn" and "觥", the first is also made of horns made of wine glasses. The excavated drinker "horn" is similar to the "jue", but it is homomorphic and has no "column", "flow" and "tail" and other parts, these ancient drinkers use the word "horn" or are related to "horn", reflecting that the ancient drinkers are developed from animal horns, mainly cattle horns. Before the invention of the drinker, the "horn" was a natural drinker, and later the "horn" was improved to make it easy to place, and evolved into other drinkers as a prototype, such as adding two feet and two columns, so that the two feet evolved from the original horn tip to the three-legged "Jue"; and the "horn" added the base into "Yao", and after sawing, the bottom gear became "觯", and the horizontal position was called "觥". （1）
What is the general title of "Jue" in ancient wine vessels?
"Jue" is a wine vessel used by the nobles in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and it is also a ceremonial vessel at that time, which is used to indicate status symbols, and "Jue" also refers to identity, so there is also the saying of "adding officials to the lord".
As a wine vessel, the "jue" refers to a special form of wine vessel with a long "stream" in front, a pointed "tail" in the back, and a handle on the side, with two pillars on the top and three feet on the bottom. The name of the knight is set in the Song Dynasty, when people took the shape of the bird and the meaning of the bird's song. (2) There is a view that the design of "Jue" in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties had to use extremely complex technology to create this shape, when people were still obsessed with this appearance, or related to its culture: after the merchants were said to be xuanbirds, the clans in the east also used birds as totems, and the bird-shaped shape of jue may be related to this cultural background. （3）
Description of each part of the "Knight". (Online image)
Although it is a drinker, its design has two columns and three legs under the abdomen, which is actually inconvenient to drink. The two pillars are lifted by hand or tool when the knight is heated, and the wine is poured onto other vessels, or it is slightly warmed before it is used to drink.
Shang Dynasty poisoning because of drinking utensils?
Shang Yi (stills from the TV series "List of Fengshen Gods")
Merchant culture is good wine, literature often records that merchants have alcohol habits, and noble tombs also have a large number of wine vessels such as knights. In 1969, the Freer Museum of Art in the United States tested 30 bronze wine vessels of the Shang Dynasty and found that the average proportion of bronzes was 77.2% copper, 12.5% tin and 7.2% lead.
According to scientific research, lead in alloys is more soluble in wine, and if the lead content in the solution reaches 7% to 20% and is often used for drinking, it can cause chronic poisoning. There is a record of the merchant's alcohol disease in the oracle bone, and the "History" also says that the last monarch of the Shang Dynasty, Shang, had a tyrannical personality and abnormal behavior in his later years, contrary to the talents and talents of his youth, so it is said that Shang Yi may also have been poisoned by lead, and it is abnormal!
During the Warring States period, the above-mentioned types of wine vessels gradually lost the role of ceremonial vessels and were repeatedly simplified, and some were no longer made, and the Han Dynasty began to be fixed into four categories: wine storage vessels (壸), wine containers (樽, 罍), wine takeers (杓) and drinking vessels (cups, 觞). In ancient times, the wine drinking vessel was called "觞", and in the Tang Dynasty, the cup had become the main drinking vessel, so the wine glass filled with wine was also borrowed as "觞", and Li Bai had a poem "If you want to do not do what you want to do", it refers to the meaning of drinking dry wine in a dry cup when you are difficult to leave with people.
exegesis:
(1) Wang Fengyang's "Ancient Words"
(2) Rong Gengzhang maintains the "General Theory of Yin Zhou Bronze Ware"
(3) Xu Jinxiong's "Miscellaneous Talks on Ancient Affairs"