There is a Chinese character, the left is a "bow", the right is a "fish"; it is a meaning character created by the ancients more than 3,000 years ago; it is also the name of a mysterious ancient country; it existed in the Western Zhou Dynasty, flourished for a while, but disappeared silently; for many years, people have been looking for its traces; in Baoji, Shaanxi, archaeologists have found two "bowfish" national sites; strangely, experts have found that there is a huge difference between the tombs in these two sites; after research and analysis, "bowfish" The demise of the kingdom is most likely related to the changes that occur in the tomb; what is going on? Let's take a look!
From 1974 to 1984, Zhuyuangou and Rujiazhuang Western Zhou Cemeteries in Baoji City, Shaanxi Province were excavated; a total of 27 tombs, 2 chema pits, and 4 horse pits were excavated; what is rare is that these tombs are in a relatively good state of preservation, so they play a very important role in the history of the Zhou Dynasty period and the study of bronzes; according to the excavated inscriptions, these tombs belong to the mysterious "bowfish" state of the Zhou Dynasty; its source is the Shang Dynasty culture in southern Shaanxi and The Yang region; in the tombs, the Zhuyuangou cemetery group belongs to the early Western Zhou Dynasty. The Rujiazhuang cemetery belongs to the middle and late Western Zhou Dynasty; the time between the two sites is not too long, but there are great differences in the placement of burial items in the tomb, tomb shape system, specifications, and other aspects.
First of all, in the Zhuyuangou cemetery, bronze ceremonial vessels are placed on the left side of the tomb owner's head, and between the coffin and the rafters; the whole thing seems to be very close to the tomb owner, and its workmanship is relatively exquisite; and in the Rujiazhuang cemetery, the bronze ceremonial vessels are placed on the second-floor platform outside the tomb; its workmanship is relatively rough.
Second, there is a phenomenon of men and women burying together in the Zhuyuangou cemetery; while the Rujiazhuang cemetery has appeared in the Rujiazhuang cemetery, which has not been seen in the past, and there are often buried in tombs in the Central Plains, and the elements of husband and wife joint burial tombs, car and horse pits, and cemeteries.
Third, and most significantly, a distinction: the Zhuyuangou Cemetery Group, each tomb unearthed some special shape of bronze: flat bottom tank bend, handle bucket shaped vessel, shallow plate, pointed bottom jar; these shapes of bronze ware, never appeared in tombs in the Central Plains; more puzzling is that by the time of the Rujiazhuang cemetery, they mysteriously disappeared.
According to the available information, we understand that the "bowfish" state was established in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and some experts believe that it is a local type of early Shu culture; some experts believe that it is the Ba culture, that is, the bowfish country and the Jingshan barbarian (Jingman) are both branches of the Ba people in the Three Gorges area of the Yangtze River; from the archaeological discovery point of view, the bowfish country was closely related to the ethnic minorities in the southwest in the early days; because in the past in the tombs in the southwest region, experts found a large number of pottery containers; its shape is exactly the same as the special shape of the bronze ware excavated from the Zhuyuangou cemetery Moreover, the phenomenon that these containers were cast with copper was only found in the Zhuyuangou cemetery.
An ancient country that has a relationship with the ethnic minorities in the southwest has later abandoned its own culture and gradually disappeared into the stage of history. According to common sense, the culture of a clan and a country is relatively fixed, even if it evolves, it takes a long time; from the perspective of tombs, why does the cultural inheritance of the bowfish country take a turn?
There are two important clues that we can find: first, the bowfish kingdom and the Western Zhou royal family intermarried, marrying the princess "Jing Ji"; second, the southern expedition of King Zhao.
In the early Western Zhou Dynasty, the relationship between the Western Zhou Dynasty and the ethnic minorities in the south was always delicate, and the face and heart were not harmonious; and the bowfish country had always gotten along well with the ethnic minorities in the southwest, and this intimate relationship became an important force supporting the economy of the bowfish country; that is, during the Zhuyuangou cemetery period, the tomb had a unique shape and was also buried with bronzes with special shapes and imitation of ethnic minority pottery; however, at this time, the rulers of the Western Zhou Dynasty realized that the geographical location of the bowfish country was of great strategic significance to their control of the south; so they tried to win it over In this way, the bowfish state became the object of competition between the two; it finally chose to favor the Western Zhou Dynasty and diluted its relationship with the ethnic minorities in the southwest; it was reflected in the tombs, that is, the Rujiazhuang cemetery period, at which time there were husband and wife joint burial tombs, carriage and horse pits, regular burial passages, etc.; these Western Zhou Dynasty tomb system norms, funeral customs; the most important point, the special shape of bronzes disappeared at this stage.
Not long after, Chu Man and Yang Yue and other southern tribes began to rebel, in 980 BC, (the sixteenth year of King Zhao), Zhou Tianzi sent a large army to the south in anger; three years later, King Zhao's prince Shuai Sixth Division's southern expedition was victorious; how to predict that when he returned to the division to cross the Han River, he was carrying a large amount of captured bronze overweight, causing the bridge to collapse; King Zhou Zhao fell into the water and died on the shore of the Han River.
King Zhao's southern conquest of the country died elsewhere, and since then the Zhou Dynasty and the southern departments have completely torn their faces; the situation of the bowfish country is embarrassing, and the southern forces look down on this kind of "traitor" and no longer come and go; and the new monarch of the Western Zhou Dynasty does not attach as much importance to it as king Zhao; so the bowfish country loses its economic support; reflected in the tombs, that is, the bronze quality of the Rujiazhuang cemetery period has declined and the workmanship is rough; after that, the bowfish country is lingering, and it is soon destroyed and disappears on the stage of history.
[References: Research on the History of the Western Zhou Dynasty, Baoji Bowfish National Cemetery, Archaeology and Cultural Relics]