In the long history of thousands of years, the ancient ancestors have created countless splendid cultures and left us with many glorious heritages.
With the passage of time and the development of the times, these civilizational heritages are like shining pearls, scattered in all corners of the Chinese land.
Some are underground, some are in the desert, some are in the forest, some are at the bottom of the lake, some are in the mountains, some are in the plains... Others are gathered in a place called the Museum.
Jianghan Plain, Jingchu Land, splendid Chu culture in jingzhou museum is eye-opening. Among them, there is such an ancient cultural relic that is very mysterious and unique: the Warring States jade cover, which is a funerary mask made of whole jade, excavated in 1997 in the Tomb of No. 2 Chu of Qinjiashan, Mashan Town, Jingzhou District.
"Jade covering" is a common burial object used by ancient nobles in funerals, called "dark eyes" in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and "covering" in the Han Dynasty, in fact, it is a kind of mask or mask. Its materials are lacquerware, amber, wood, pottery, silk, jade, of which jade is the best.
This precious jade covering, when unearthed, was covering the face of the owner of the tomb, facing upwards. The ancients believed that burial with jade not only protected the body and prevented decay, but also symbolized the noble status of the owner of the tomb.
The jade cladding is oval in shape, 20 cm long, 13.9 cm wide and 0.23 cm thick, which is consistent with the size of ordinary people's faces, and is the only jade cladding excavated from archaeological excavations that is carved from a single piece of jade, which can be called a unique piece of national treasure.
The production process of this jade cladding is very complex, and it has super high requirements for the craftsmanship of craftsmen. First of all, a piece of jade is cut into thin slices, carefully polished and made into the silhouette of a human face. Drilling is then performed to hollow out the eyes, nostrils, and mouth. This is followed by carving, which uses the technique of engraving to carve out hair, eyebrows, beards, and other parts.
It has been sealed for more than two thousand years, and it is still well preserved and lifelike, the facial contour is a melon face with a wide and narrow upper and lower parts, and you can clearly see that the hair and beard are in the middle style, at first I thought that the owner of the tomb was a man.
This is one of the most eye-catching pieces of jade in the Jingzhou Museum's "Jingzhou Chu Tomb and Xiongjiazu Tomb Unearthed Jade Exhibition", and its shape and special purpose make it impossible for me to quickly look away. I stood in front of it, looking at it, as if I were in another world.
Late one night in August 1997, several tomb robbers in Haolin Village, Jingzhou, carried out a fixed-point blast of the No. 2 Chu Tomb in Qinjiashan, preparing to steal.
After the discovery, archaeologists launched rescue excavations of the tomb, but found that the tomb had been stolen as early as ancient times, and the burial chamber had been looted. However, when cleaning the coffin, the face of the owner of the tomb attracted the attention of everyone, and his face was actually covered with a jade mask in the shape of a human face.
It is a funerary device that first originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty. According to the "Funeral Rites and Funerals", the custom of covering the faces of the deceased with silky eyes (also known as "coverings") was popular in guanzhong and the Central Plains of the Zhou Dynasty. But such a custom has never been found in Chu culture. So why is this jade overlay here? Who is the owner of the jade covering?
According to expert research, the owner of this coffin found in the Chu Tomb No. 2 of Qinjiashan was a woman, who was only 30 years old at the time of her death, and was likely to be a daughter-in-law of the Chu State who was married from Shaanxi or the Central Plains, and her status was noble. When the jade covering was unearthed, two pieces of jade, two jade pendants and one piece of jade were buried on both sides of the head of its owner, forming a complete combination with the jade cover.
Looking at it, the mind suddenly flashed out of the various masks invented by the present, the ancients believed that the jade cover can prevent corrosion, the present people are convinced that the mask can keep young, and the history is always strikingly similar.