Study on the excavation of wood tools and their uses in the Turpan Yanghai Cemetery

Study on the excavation of wood tools and their uses in the Turpan Yanghai Cemetery

Paritum Sardine

Abstract: The unique geographical environment and natural resources of the Turpan Basin have created its very individual human history. The dry and rainy climate has allowed a large number of wood utensils to be well preserved. Through the careful study of the wood excavated from the Yanghai Sea, the use and use of most of the wooden tools have been determined, and then compared with the classification of the remains in the surrounding areas to find out their similarities and differences, it can be clearly shown that not only the Yanghai people, but also the prehistoric humans in Central Asia have a very high degree of dependence on wood tools, and they are indispensable in many aspects of production and life, but there are still relatively few places where prehistoric wood tools can be preserved.

Keywords: Turpan Yanghai cemetery Woodware Nomadic culture Animal pattern

Because of its unique geographical environment and natural resources, Turpan has created a very individual human history. The dry, rainy and windy climate has preserved a large number of cultural relics resources above and below ground, and the rich prehistoric wood ware of the ocean and sea is one of its highlights. There are many factors that cause this miracle, one is that Turpan is located in the center of Eurasia, with little rainfall and a dry climate; the second is the dry sandy soil of the basin, with high salt content; the third is that there is enough space in the tomb to keep the woodware from touching the fluvo-aquic soil for a long time.

In the mainland, or specifically in Xinjiang, the wooden structure of tombs only began in the Bronze Age. The most famous and earliest is the Peacock River Ancient Tomb Ditch Cemetery and the Xiaohe Cemetery. In yanghai cemetery tombs, the use of logs as building materials and the making of burial utensils are very common from beginning to end. At the same time, the mound tombs in the Ili River Basin, the stone enclosure stone chamber tombs of the Jingcha Wuhu culture, the Tomb of The Zoharuk and the Hami Wubao Cemetery also used a large number of processed wood as tomb building materials.

1. Wood for burial chamber sheds and funerary utensils

There are three basic forms of Yanghai tombs: two-story platform tombs, vertical cave tombs and partial chamber tombs, and the three have a progressive development and evolution process. These tombs, whether morning or evening, were covered with log sheds at the entrance (Figure 1). The wood species are mainly poplar, but also some pine, fir, and tamarind. Both poplar and tamarind grow in arid desert areas, and wild species are still found in the Turpan Basin, while pine and fir trees grow on the northern slopes of Bogda Mountain, 70 kilometers nearest to the Yanghai Cemetery. At that time, the range of activities of the yanghai residents had reached the north of the mountain. They never went there just for the sake of logging, but for grazing and hunting, and came back with some useful wood.

Fig. 1 Log canopy of a two-story terrace tomb and a partial chamber tomb

The wooden bed is to bury the bones of people, in this sense, and because it is too low, it can also be called "corpse bed", which is stretched and contracted according to the size of the tomb, and the style is almost the same. Four short and thick wooden legs, in the middle of the wooden legs with a mortise and tenon to join a rectangular wooden frame, the wooden frame is equally distanced, also with the mortise and tenon installed 2 horizontal folds, on which the sticks or branches are laid vertically, and wrapped with cowhide strips to fix the horizontal brace and the bed frame. The number of backrests is relatively small, all of which are single-person designs, that is, the 2 wooden legs on the same long side of the flat wooden bed are lengthened, and 2 horizontal wooden sticks are installed on the wooden legs that are higher than the bed surface as the basic form. Some of the beds also have rectangular arched curved bedspreads tied with furred cowhide strips and willow branches, all of which are poorly preserved (figure 2).

Fig. 2 High backrest wooden bed and leg of the bed connected to the mortise and tenon on the bed gang

2. Funeral wooden container

The number of foreign and sea wood tools is large and varied, covering all aspects of people's production and life, and the number is far more than the sum of pottery, stone tools and metal tools. The most commendable of these are wooden containers, including plates, pots, beans, mortars, cups, barrels, spoons, etc., all of which are processed from poplar logs. The basin and the disc are divided into shades, but the bottom is very flat, and almost all the utensils have obvious blade scratches at the bottom. The wooden plate is obviously used to hold meat, the secret of the bottom of the wooden plate is that there is no "case" such artifact in prehistory, the wooden plate is buckled, the bottom plane is used as cutting raw meat, cooked and placed in the container, and the excavated wooden plate has seen an example (Figure 3). By the Han and Jin dynasties, wooden cases were prevalent, and the Astana and Yingpan cemeteries were excavated, and often mutton was preserved (Fig. 4).

Fig. 3 There are obvious knife marks on the bottom of the wooden plate

Fig. 4 A wooden plate containing lamb was unearthed

Yanghai wooden barrels are deep-belly utensils, all of which are dug into cylinders with logs and then installed at the bottom of the vessel, and half of them are carved on the surface of the vessel. Among them, there are flocks of desert grassland animal figures, there are northern goats, horses, wolves, tigers, deer, camels, wild boars, etc., and the carvings and paintings on the barrels of the ocean are on the outer wall of the utensils, using yin carvings or line carvings, and the animals are distributed in groups to form a complete picture. For example, there are combinations of wolves and goats, camels, wild boars, elk, and rock sheep. Animal figures are like petroglyphs, from the Bronze Age to the Han Dynasty, which is particularly helpful for the study of the periodization of rock paintings in Xinjiang (Figures 5-8).

Fig. 5 Animal patterns on barrels and other wooden utensils1

Fig. 6 Animal patterns on wooden barrels and other wooden utensils2

Speaking of petroglyph-like animal figures, the wooden barrel is the most carved, mainly concentrated in the middle of the barrel, carving out groups of animal figures, or to the left or right, forming a complete picture combination, just from this point of view, it is particularly similar to the layout of the petroglyphs. Moreover, most of the outer edges of the barrels are inscribed or depicted with continuous triangular patterns, and some barrels have small flower comfrey seeds pasted on the outer edges of the barrels to show the triangle patterns. On some wooden bowls, pots, and handles, there are also carved images of goats, wolves, and monsters. When multiple animals are combined on a single artifact, the carving technique is the same despite the different animal species. Of course, the same kind of animals are combined on one artifact, not only the carving technique is the same, but also similar to the gods. On the surface of a small wooden mortar with a diameter of only 2 centimeters, the circle carved out the image of three pan sheep, with different shapes, some standing, and some lying hind limbs flipped upwards. The sheep on the upper part of the spinning wheel, the bottom of the wooden plate, and the standing wolf and the curled wolf carved on both sides of the round cake-shaped staff are also vivid. There are also images of wolf heads on the handle of a circular carved comb, standing hieroglyphic flowers, and so on.

Fig. 7 Animal patterns on barrels and other wooden utensils 3

Fig. 8 Comparison of images of northern goats, wild boars and petroglyphs on wooden barrels (petroglyphs in the lighter color)

Fig. 9 Comparison of triangular patterns on wooden barrels, twisted triangular patterns and similar ornaments on pottery

There are other patterns on the barrels besides animal patterns, the most used triangular patterns and twisted triangular patterns, which are obviously copied from the pottery. This pattern, which has a staged meaning on pottery, was transplanted to wood at the same time, that is, the early triangular or set triangular pattern, and the late distorted triangular pattern (Figure 9).

3. Wood for hunting

Wooden bracing boards mounted on leather bow and arrow bags and bows, arrows, drilling wood fire grabbers, and stirring rods in the bags are presented in groups, which are indispensable tools for nomadic hunting. The wooden brace is a long strip of wooden planks (sticks) that are mounted or bundled to one side of the leather bow and arrow bag, which acts as a support for the soft leather bag, which is equal in length as the leather bow and arrow bag, with straight and equidistantly distributed through rope holes on one side, and obliquely curved at both ends on the other side (Figure 10). The surface of the Bronze Age wooden brace has a swirl pattern, some fine, some coarse, forming a continuous pattern. The pattern of the paisley pattern originates from the figure of the northern goat, and an earlier wooden brace plate has been excavated from the Hami Wubao Cemetery, with 4 consecutive northern goats distributed from the wide end to the bottom, and gradually becomes a paisley pattern at the narrow head.

Fig. 10 The installation position of the wooden bracing board on the leather bow and arrow bag and the wooden bracing plate excavated from the Yanghai No. 1 cemetery

Fig. 11 Image of a Scythian figure wound with a bow on a Kur-Obakin pot

There are two kinds of bows in the ocean, one is a single bow, which is cut with a wooden stick, which may be a "drill bow" used to drill wood for fire. The other is the compound bow, which is a bow made of multiple materials. The bow tire is in the innermost layer, with meadowsweet (commonly known as rabbit strips) wood, roasted and bent. Meadowsweet grows in the Tianshan Forest, which is easily accessible to nomads and has the strongest toughness, and modern herders use it as a whip handle, a cane and a variety of tool handles. The bow tire is bent and flattened, and the horn pieces are closely arranged on it, and then repeatedly wrapped with cow tendons, and the appearance is brushed with deerskin glue or cowhide glue, which makes several materials polymerize into a bow body, strong and dense. The bow barb is triangular, the reverse hanging string, the bow string is synthesized with beef tendon, the length of the string must be repeatedly adjusted to be suitable, and the two ends are made into fixed hanging rings. When not in use, the bow string is taken off and relaxed, called "relaxation", and the Scythian gold vase unearthed in Central Asia has a picture of A Scythian man pinning the bow to his right leg to wind the bow (Figure 11).

The term "Atlantis" itself contains a sense of mystery, a legendary ancient civilization that sank at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and is still being pursued and explored. Now that "it" has surfaced again, all the ways you can think of a seaside vacation can be realized here.

In the final stages of prehistory, the Central Asian population was dominated by the animal husbandry economy, and the herd was the basis and lifeline on which they depended. Hunting is necessary to protect the safety of the herd when going out to graze, and bows and arrows are the weapons used by nomads to hunt and protect livestock. Therefore, it was the right choice for them to put a lot of effort into making bows and arrows.

There is also a kind of hunting instrument called wooden spiral dart, yanghai cemetery unearthed more than 10 pieces, for the cone-shaped throwing rod, flat, 85 ~ 120 degrees folding angle, the length of the rod body on both sides of the folding angle is quite different, the short head is wider and flat, more than 25 cm long, the longer one is thick and round, about 50 cm long, the top has a flat round handle, and the whole body is polished. Wooden boomerangs are also a hunting tool for Indigenous Australians, and there is a more famous one called a flying dart, also known as a "flying machine".

4. Hedge

A total of 5 pieces of baskets were found in the Yanghai cemetery, one of which was basically complete, consisting of speakers, necks, string rods and strings, and the whole was polished and polished. The speaker and the neck are connected as one, made of a whole piece of poplar wood, 61.8 cm long, the upper mouth of the speaker is oblong, there is a triangular pronunciation hole in the bottom, the neck is cylindrical, the neck is rounded rectangular, and the cylindrical string rod is worn on it, the mouth is covered with sheepskin, the skin is vertically worn through a processed tamarix stick, and then 5 small branches are equally spaced under the vertical stick, and the branches and sticks are crossed in a "ten" shape to expose the skin, and then lead a string made of sheep casings to the string shaft. Only half of the strings remain, and there are exactly 5 grinding marks on the shaft shaft. According to ethnographic and archaeological image data, the 5-circle grinding mark was originally tightly bound to the rope ring, and the string was tied from the skin to the rope ring bound at the head of the string shaft, and the rotating rope ring adjusted the tone.

In recent years, archaeological excavations in Xinjiang have unearthed more physical objects, except for the earliest and final Zhaluoke cemetery and Yanghai cemetery, and 1 piece was also excavated in the excavation of Yuergou cemetery in 1977, but the excavators did not know it at that time. Two pieces were excavated from the Tashkurgan Quman Cemetery, 11 pieces were excavated from the Hami Esk ShaarNan Cemetery, and a total of 23 pieces were unearthed in Xinjiang. One of the earliest and best preserved pieces of the era is the excavation of the Yanghai Cemetery I.M90. According to the yanghai necropolis period, I.M90 is a two-story platform tomb belonging to the late Bronze Age, while the remaining 22 pieces belong to the early Iron Age or later. These baskets unearthed in Xinjiang are similar in appearance, and are different from other baskets, which were previously called "vertical baskets", "Hu Zhen Zhen", "irregular small baskets", etc., and now have a recognized name, which is called "unearthed baskets". Outside of Xinjiang, only one piece of the excavated basket has been unearthed in The Russian Bazelek, and it is quite different from the physical object unearthed in Xinjiang. This hoop is a large resonance box, short tail, neckless and headless, the entire speaker is covered with skin, and the bridge-shaped feet are mounted under the string rod, which are directly placed on the skin at one end of the speaker and tied with a leather strip to the tail of the piano (fig. 12). There is a big difference between the unearthed basket and the modern basket, the modern basket double row strings, there are piano codes, although it belongs to the world harp series, but added many traditional Chinese cultural symbols. Unearthed single-row strings, no yards, more like harps, this kind of basket is very popular in Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and even Central Asia.

Fig. 12 Comparison of harps (箜篌) excavated from the tomb of Baszerek and I.M90 and II.M63 excavated from Yanghai

The material of the fence unearthed in Xinjiang is poplar wood, and from the top of the string rod there are 3 to 5 obvious string traces, which should be the result of long-term use and is a practical instrument. We have also noticed that the owners of the tombs with the same cemetery are very general in terms of size and burial items, and there is not much difference. The production process of the hoop is also low, and it should be a popular musical instrument used by the folk.

5. Textile wood

The earliest tool used for spinning in the mainland is the spindle, of course, Xinjiang and Turpan are no exception, the spindle is composed of two parts: the spinning wheel and the hammer rod. Because the spinning wheel is mostly made of pottery and stone materials, it is durable and incorruptible, and archaeology has found the most. At present, the earliest pottery spinning wheel found is from the site of Magnetic Hill in Hebei Province, which is more than 7,000 years old. In the Neolithic sites and tombs after a little later, pottery and stone spinning wheels were found to be very rich, and the spinning wheels of various archaeological cultures had their own characteristics. Unfortunately, in addition to Xinjiang, no complete hammer rod has been found, because the hammer rod is generally made of wood material and is not easy to preserve. The structure of the spindle looks simple, but it works scientifically. It cleverly uses the weight of the object itself and the inertial force generated when rotating as a combined force, so that the messy wool is stretched and twisted, and the yarn is woven into yarn. The emergence of spindles brought great changes to the production of primitive society and was the starting point for the development of spinning tools on the mainland.

Almost all found in the Yanghai cemetery are complete sets of wooden spindles, or a small amount of pottery, stone, and bone, but the hammer rods are all wooden. The wooden spindle is light in weight, has a small moment of inertia, and can be rotated for a long time, so the yarn is thinner and more uniform. When the spun yarn is wrapped around the hammer rod, a new hammer rod is replaced. The spindle is turned clockwise into Z-twist yarn, which in turn becomes S-twist yarn, and the ocean wool cloth is woven with two kinds of twisted thread. The hammer shaft is made of meadowfoam wood and polished smoothly with wooden arrow ends. Spinning wheels are cut from poplar wood, some of which are inscribed with inscriptions (fig. 13).

Fig. 13 Wooden spindles and wood spinning wheels with grains unearthed from the Yanghai Cemetery

There are still some cemeteries in Xinjiang that have found a whole set of spindles, but most of them call them "spinning wheels", and only the report of the Zachuruk cemetery calls "spinning specialty", which is obviously closer to correct. The Yanghai report is called spinning wheel and wooden spool, which is not very standardized.

The original loom was a "loom" that sat on the ground, also known as a waist machine. Different from the traditional recognition of the loom, this loom has no frame, two horizontal logs in front and back, one end of the rolling cloth shaft is tied to the waist, and the feet pedal the warp shaft at the other end and tension the fabric, replacing the bracket with a person, and the name "waist machine" is also derived. The original waist machine adopts the lifting rod, the warp stick and the weft knife to realize the crisscrossing of the warp and weft yarn, and the wool yarn is woven into wool by opening the weaving mouth up and down, wearing the weft yarn left and right, and tightening the weft yarn front and back, forming the basic fabric. Yanghai cemetery found a comprehensive rod, a warp stick, a weft knife, as well as a rolling cloth shaft and a warp shaft, and a variety of styles of zhuanzi (shuttle) (Fig. 14).

Figure 14 Waist machine parts excavated from the Yanghai cemetery

Generally speaking, the weaving process must complete the five major movements of opening, wefting, wefting, winding, and sending warp, and the components on the loom are constantly improved according to these motion settings. In ancient times, looms were invented all over the world, so there are models of waist machines on display in museums around the world, but all are new. There are many tombs excavated from the Yanghai Cemetery with waist machine parts, and the original waist machine can be restored completely. The woolen cloth woven by this loom, coupled with the variety of colors of the braided belt, has preserved 113 species in the Yanghai Cemetery, many of which are gorgeous and varied. For example, wool fabrics, whether based on plain or twill, have a common feature, that is, at the edge of the pattern, the weft lines of two different colors are always obliquely flowered, so the pattern is mostly diamond-shaped, triangular, zigzag, echo, slash composition of the variant vortex pattern and so on.

6. Other types of woodware

Wooden and wooden nails – More wooden stakes and wooden nails have been excavated from the Yanghai Cemetery, which are similar in form but vary greatly in individual size (Figure 15). Wood tamarind is mostly used, rarely poplar, thick and tough, 55 to 70 cm long, a tomb only 1, some are also placed on the top of the tomb cover, as if it is done casually. The wooden sleigh is sharp at one end and has a smash mark at the other end, possibly as a ground marking pile when the tomb is located. The material of the wooden nails is more populus and less tamarind, about 10 cm long, and when excavated from a small part, it is also nailed to the outside of the tomb wall, most of which are found under the tomb wall, so it can be seen that these wooden nails that fell on the edge of the tomb wall were originally nailed to the wall and used as hanging burial items, because some pottery ears also wore this kind of wooden nail (Figure 16). This burial custom comes from nomadic life, and our contemporary nomads live in felt tents by hanging many living utensils on the walls around the felt tents.

Fig. 15 Wooden sleighs and nails excavated from the Yanghai Cemetery

Fig. 16 It can be seen from the fact that the wooden nails were originally nailed to the wall and the wooden nails were still worn on the ears after the pottery fell

There are many kinds of wooden tools with handles in the Yanghai Tomb Zone, and the handles of these utensils are connected with bowl-shaped and jar-shaped vessels, that is, directly carved out of a log. The wooden spoon has a thick curved handle at the bottom of the deep abdomen, the surface is polished, very characteristic, some of the handle ends are made of horseshoe shape, and the whole handle resembles a horse's leg. In addition to the 3 pieces seen in the Yanghai Cemetery, 1 piece has been excavated in Alagou, 1 piece has been excavated in Baselek, and the artifact excavated from the Arran Cemetery is completely wrapped in gold leaf with a horse's leg-shaped handle and hammered out of the scale pattern (Figure 17). This kind of wood is rare, especially carved from a whole piece of log, which is quite laborious. Associated with horseshoe and horse leg-shaped handles, it is possible that they are special wooden utensils used to stir and hold fermented horse milk.

Figure 17 Wooden tools with handles unearthed in various places

Figure 18 Qing Dynasty wooden locks and wooden keys

"Right-angle wooden tools" - this artifact has been excavated the most in the Yanghai cemetery, and is also found in the Suberi ruins and cemeteries in Turpan, Yuergou cemetery, etc. The Nyaya site has also been excavated. The name of the right-angled wooden ware was first used and most commonly used, and later changed to "tanning tool" in Turpan, and the Nyaya site was modified to "wooden key". This kind of artifact is similar everywhere, showing a 90-degree folding angle (right angle), the length of the body on both sides of the folding angle is slightly different, the long head is pointed, 20 cm long, the short head is slightly blunt, about 15 cm long, and the whole body is polished. The Minfeng Niya site is called the "wooden key", which is caused by the qing dynasty wooden locks and wooden keys on display in the Hotan and Kashgar Regional Museums (Fig. 18), because it does resemble it. However, the wooden key is too small and at a 120-degree angle, and a little comparison shows a significant difference. One piece was unearthed from Tomb No. 4 of The 95 Cemetery of the Nyaya Site, and when it was excavated, it was placed on top of the wooden coffin of the tomb box, as if it was dropped casually, and both pieces of wood were covered with dry mud. The wooden coffin underneath it is made of poplar planks 16 cm wide, and there are many gaps in the cover plate and side box board of the wooden coffin, which are filled with the same mud, which can be seen here as a mud trowel. One excavation was unearthed at site No. 1 of the Subeshi site, with grass mud on the adobe walls and fine mud on the right angle vessel. The excavations of Yanghai are all in tombs, and some are from tomb filling. The Yanghai report named it "right angle wipe", which is also felt to be mainly used as "plastering and leveling", and its side effects are also used as "tanning leather and applying rotten materials".

Mu mortar – The individuals excavated from the Yanghai Cemetery are large and thick-walled, and the bottom of the mound is made of hardwood, and the outer edges are distributed in pairs of large squares for binding and fixing the cowhide belt to strengthen the mortar and mouth (Figure 19). Because the largest artifact was still preserved in the largest piece of marijuana at the time of excavation, the mouth of this wooden artifact is well preserved, and because of its long-term use, the bottom has been worn thin and pierced, so it is called "wooden mortar". This artifact is tough and double-thicker than the walls of other wooden vessels, and is made of special materials and has a special shape. Except for the only piece above used as a mortar for processing hemp, there are carbonization marks on the bottom of the remaining parts. Linked to the two papers published in recent years, one of which is the "altar of fire", it can be seen that everyone believes that this instrument is related to the use of fire. The "altar of fire" is patented by Zoroastrianism (Zoroastrianism, Zoroastrianism), and these wooden objects are remnants of the Late Bronze Age (10th-8th centuries BC) and are obviously inconsistent. The wood is blackened by fire around it, which may have been caused by a long period of dark fire, but it is more likely that the fire can be preserved as a "brazier".

Fig. 19 Wooden mortar excavated from the Yanghai cemetery

Wooden combs – Wooden combs are streamlined and rectangular flat bodies, some of which are also carved or painted on the stalk. Thin teeth are called "combs" to comb hair; tight teeth are called "grates", which are used to remove scale. The inhabitants of Turpan in prehistoric times do not seem to have made and used grates. There are many combs unearthed in the ocean, but most of them are wooden combs, and there are few horns and bone combs. Combs are a must-have for adult women in Yanghai, and some of them are inserted directly into their hair. The wooden comb is finely crafted, with cow heads added to the handle or carved into the image of the northern goat.

In addition to being made of whole wooden planks, the wooden comb produced in the Yanghai cemetery also has a horizontal rectangular style, with a long strip groove carved from a log stick or wooden board, a flat cone tooth pointed behind the front, and the square head adhesive is pressed in the prefabricated groove one by one, and the two ends are locked and smoothed.

epilogue

In addition to the above-mentioned wooden tools, there are many commendable wooden tools produced in the Yanghai Cemetery, such as arrow ends, spiral darts, crown ornaments, drilled wood firearms, wooden cups, wooden buckles, wooden beans, canes, wooden rulers, wooden files, wooden whip handles, wooden figurines, etc. Among them, there are almost no differences between wooden canes, wooden whip handles, wooden buckles, and wooden containers, which are similar utensils used by modern nomads. In the Yanghai people, the level of craftsmanship and artistic aesthetic value of wooden ware has reached a very high level.

Looking at the archaeological reports of the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age in Xinjiang, wood has been excavated in every cemetery, but most of them have been decayed into detritus. Wood is not easy to preserve for a long time, let alone buried deep in the ground. The Yanghai Cemetery is a special case, where thousands of wooden artifacts have been unearthed, but this is far from all, and there are still many decayed and deteriorated, which have not been well preserved. There are also several well-preserved cemeteries: Xiaohe and Ancient Tomb Ditch, Hami Five Forts, and The Last Zha Rolling Luk all use a large number of wooden tools, and even rare or rare pottery, which shows the degree of dependence of prehistoric humans in Xinjiang on wooden tools.

Due to the special geographical environment of the Turpan Basin where the Yanghai Cemetery is located, a large number of wooden artifacts have been preserved, which is the basis for our research. Wood is closely related to the life of prehistoric human beings, then they will make great efforts in wood processing and craftsmanship, so we can see the many skills reflected in wood processing.

The Production Methods of the Yanghai people, which are mainly based on animal husbandry, determine their way of life. As a permanent place of residence, Yanghai "follows the animals to chase the water and grass", drives the sheep up the mountain in the spring, passes the nomadic herding of the summer and autumn grasslands, and returns to the settlement in the winter. People who have experienced this nomadic life are accustomed to seeing the peace and quiet of the nomadic world, with sheep grazing on the valley pastures and horses running. The fragrance of flowers overflows the four fields, the grass is planting, the ancient trees support the sky, the wind is shaking the leaves, and the beauty of nature can be seen. Living in such a natural environment, the inspiration for creation is spontaneous, including the shape and pattern of wood.

The wood is calm in color and finely decorated, giving people an instinctive sense of closeness, because it carries the natural body temperature of nature. Compared with stone and metal, the characteristics and diversity of wood make people at different stages of development have more choices. For a long period of history, wood, a traditional material with high applicability, has always been the most important material resource of our ancestors. The use and shape of wood has a solemn and rich beauty, and there is a self-contained order and truth. Wood grows naturally and can be replenished continuously. So after the bronze and iron objects came out, wood did not withdraw from human life, they transformed into constantly changing buildings, utensils, musical instruments, and sometimes static music and art, hidden under the strings and sculptures. In many cases, metal, jade, etc. can only become the decoration of a certain wooden tool, and cannot replace it. Therefore, let time flow lazily, but the faint wood fragrance always fills the sky of history.

(In the process of writing this article, I was instructed by Mr. Lu Enguo and would like to thank you.) ）

(Author Affilications:Turpan Museum)