Author: Li Zekun
Source: "Popular Archaeology" WeChat public account
The original article was published in the October 2021 issue of Popular Archaeology
Siba culture gold earrings (Gansu Yumen fire ditch)
Judging from the current archaeological findings, the earliest gold and silver ware in China is the gold earrings and gold and silver nose drinks excavated from the Yumen Huoyaogou site in Gansu, all of which are jewelry utensils, and the 14C dating results show that their absolute age is 1600-1400 BC. In addition to gold earrings and gold and silver nose drinks, there are 24 pieces of copper jewelry of the same type at the Huohuogou site, mainly tin bronze, of which 22 are cast and 2 copper earrings are hot forged. Early Chinese gold and silverware production may have been influenced by copper making technology, using casting, hammer forging and other technologies. This experimental archaeology focuses on the hammer forging technology in early gold and silverware making, with a view to exploring the early gold and silver making technology, the use of tools, and craftsmen and society.
Located in the east of Huoyaogou Village, Qingquan Township, Yumen City, the site of Huoyaogou is a representative site of the Bronze Age Siba culture in northwest China. The site covers an area of about 20 square kilometers, and the central area covers an area of about 200,000 square meters. In 1976, the Gansu Provincial Museum Cultural Relics Task Force excavated for the first time, cleaning up a total of 312 tombs, and unearthing more than 3,000 pieces of pottery, stone tools, gold and silverware, bone tools and bronze tools. Most of the tombs are side cave tombs with vertical pits and platforms, and the burial style is mainly single burial with straight limbs on the back. In the pottery, faience pottery accounts for a large proportion, red pottery, mainly black color, and the shape of the vessel is mainly a jar. There are more than 200 pieces of bronze ware such as axes, sickles, knives, mirrors, etc., representing the production level of early bronzes in the northwest region. A second excavation was carried out in 1990, with a total of 17 tombs excavated. In 2005, the third excavation was carried out to cooperate with the construction of the Anjia Expressway. The excavation covers a total area of 2,120 square meters, and found two types of relics of the Horse Culture and the Siba Culture, with a total of 385 relics of various types. There are a total of 346 relics of the Horse Culture, including ash pits, ditches and tombs. It has been determined that the absolute age of the remains of the horse culture is 2700-2400 years ago. Siba cultural relics are tombs, a total of 39 places, tombs are rectangular vertical cave partial cave chamber tombs, no burial tools, burial utensils with pottery, stone tools, bronze tools, bone horn mussels, etc., the absolute age is 4000-3000 years ago. The Huoyaogou site provides valuable physical materials for the study of early Chinese bronze cultural exchanges.
Experimental preparation
Although humans have been aware of and processed silver later than gold, both metals have good ductility, and many of the production techniques of silver are interconnected with gold. Therefore, this experimental archaeology refers to the relevant information of ethnoarchaeology, takes the silver nose drink excavated from the fire-burning ditch site as the prototype, and uses hammer forging technology to simulate experimental restoration. Silver nose drink was excavated from the Fire Fire Ditch site, with a ring diameter of 3.9-4.1 cm, a diameter of 0.3 cm, a weight of 9.1 grams, and a ring-shaped overall. The two ends of the silver nose drink are flattened, the rings near the ends are thick, and the middle is thinner. This form factor is closely related to its production technique.
Hammer forging production technology, often called hammering process in the production of gold and silverware, that is, the use of tools to forge and beat metal raw materials, can be hot forging after heat treatment, can also be directly cold forging, after a series of planned repeated hammering, the use of metal ductility to process the utensils into shape. The tools used in hammer forging are divided into two categories, one is the tool used for hammering and forging held by craftsmen, and the other is the work surface that provides support and hammering for metal. In modern times, craftsmen mainly use tools such as iron hammers, wooden hammers, and cowhide hammers, and use anvils, wooden piers, and iron platforms as work surfaces for processing and production. The handicraft industry of the Siba culture has already had a certain scale, and a wide variety of stone and copper tools with different functions have been found in many sites, and even the red copper hammer and tin bronze hammer used for casting in the early metallurgical handicraft industry have been found.
Stone hammers, wooden hammers, copper hammers
In the preparation stage of the experiment, we referred to the archaeological data excavated from the Fire Burning Ditch site, and the tools selected included 2 stone hammers of different sizes and weights, 2 wooden hammers, 1 red copper hammer, 1 piece of cowhide for grinding, 1 piece of agate, and 1 bag of fine sand. The work surface was selected as a stone work surface with high hardness and relatively flatness.
Participants in the experiment, we invited a Bai male traditional gold and silver craftsman, aged about 40 years old, who has been in the industry for nearly 25 years. Before the start of the experiment, we fully communicated with him, let him understand part of the experimental content, and emphasized the experimental rules. Let him experience the tools he will use in advance, and adjust them according to his feedback without exceeding the materials prepared for the experiment, such as the contact surface of the hammer with the metal is defective, need to be polished smoothly, and the placement and fixation of the stone work surface needs to be adjusted. Combined with ethnoarchaeological information, let him observe the specific pictures of the silver nose drink in a short period of time a few days in advance, and then only communicate with him in language descriptions and simple paintings, and no longer communicate with him during the production process to avoid too much interference.
The Siba culture is named after the Siba Beach in Shandan County, Gansu Province, which is mainly distributed in the Hexi Corridor area west of Yongchang, and the main sites are Shandan Siba Beach, Minle East Ash Mountain, Yumen Fire Burning Ditch, Jiuquan Bone Cliff, Anxi Eagle Nest Tree, etc. The age of the Siba culture is roughly the same as that of the Xia Dynasty in the Central Plains, which is equivalent to the late stage of the Qi family culture. The relics of the Siba culture mainly include pottery characterized by faience pottery, stone tools, bronze tools, gold and silver ware, etc.
Experimental process
There were two main objects of observation during the experiment. One is to observe the craftsman, including the production technology, technical ideas, tool selection, time used, and the craftsman's actions; the second is to observe the change process of metal in the hammer forging production. The whole process of the experiment is recorded by video recording, and the experiment is segmented by metal annealing, and the metal is measured, observed and the craftsmen are interviewed before each annealing. Since this experiment does not have the simulation conditions for metal annealing using an earth furnace, the annealing time is not recorded.
The object of the hammer forging is a silver rod with a length of nearly cylindrical length of 4.4 cm. After the craftsmen tried the wooden hammer and the copper hammer, they finally chose to use a small stone hammer to make certain adjustments to the stone work surface, and after many hammerings, the edge of the stone table was selected, and the silver rod was hammered into four faces.
5 min after the start of the experiment, the first silver rod annealing, after hammering the length of the silver rod is 4.7 cm. The craftsman was observed rhythmically hammering the silver rod with the edge of the hammer head, and hammering the silver rod vertically at both ends, so that the shape of the silver rod tended to be rectangular.
10 min after the start of the experiment, the second silver rod was annealed, and the length of the silver rod after hammering was 5 cm. The silver rod has been hammered into a slender cube. Interview craftsmen learned that this shape is conducive to quickly stretching the length of the silver rod, more labor-saving, and can be divided into four sides in turn rhythmic hammering of the silver rod, can clearly observe the situation of each hammer, easy to adjust the force.
17 min after the start of the experiment, the third silver rod annealed, and the length of the silver rod after hammering was 5.7 cm. The shape of the silver rod is still cuboid. Due to the stone hammer and the stone countertop, the silver rod has a large number of traces of the stone countertop, and the surface is a matte yellowish color. When hammering, light blows and heavy blows alternate, and the craftsman deliberately reduces the frequency of hammering on both ends of the silver rod, making the ends slightly thicker, leaving a margin for subsequent hammer forging.
22 min after the start of the experiment, the fourth silver rod was annealed, and the length of the silver rod after hammering was 6.6 cm. The shape of the silver rod is rectangular and the surface of the hammer marks are obvious, and the craftsmen often use heavy blows to stretch its length, and lightly tap to shape it to make its shape even.
30 minutes after the start of the experiment, the fifth silver rod annealed, and the length of the silver rod after hammering was 8.2 cm. The craftsman still hits the four sides in turn with a heavy hammer and a light hammer, accelerating the length of the silver rod, and initially showing the thick and thin shape of the two ends, but the overall shape has not changed.
40 minutes after the start of the experiment, the sixth silver rod annealed, and the length of the silver rod after hammering was 9.2 cm. The craftsman adjusted the use of stone hammers, mainly with light hammers, hammering the edges of the box, and slowly turning the silver rod with the hand that controls the silver rod, and gradually hammering the silver rod with a rectangular shape into a round rod with thick and thin middle at both ends, which the craftsman called the process of rolling round. Stretch the silver rod again by rolling it in a circle. Observe that there are a large number of fine stone chips on the surface of the silver rod, and the stone countertop also leaves traces of the silver rod.
46 minutes after the start of the experiment, the seventh silver rod was annealed, and the length of the silver rod after hammering was 9.8 cm. The shape has changed to a slender silver round rod. The craftsman hammers from the middle of the silver rod to the ends and continues to stretch the length. During the hammering process, the craftsman holds the hammer in his right hand and hammers it rhythmically at a uniform speed, while the left hand rotates the silver rod with the rhythm of the hammering.
54 minutes after the start of the experiment, the eighth silver rod was annealed, and the length of the silver rod after hammering was 10.4 cm. The craftsmen tried to replace other types of hammers, but the large stone hammer was too heavy and the hardness of the red copper hammer was insufficient, so the previous stone hammer was continued to be used, and the strength and frequency of the hammering were increased.
68 minutes after the start of the experiment, the ninth silver rod annealed, and the length of the silver rod after hammering was 11.7 cm. The length of the silver rod has changed significantly due to the rapid heavy hammer. The craftsman asked for a 20-minute break in the middle, interviewed the craftsman's experience with the tools, and the craftsman believed that there was no need for a flat stone countertop, and that oval stones with a certain curvature would be more convenient for making gold and silver jewelry.
After resting for about 20 minutes, the craftsman begins to lightly hammer the ends of the silver rod.
81 min after the start of the experiment, the tenth silver rod was annealed, and the length of the silver rod after hammering was 12.5 cm. The craftsman first hammered the two ends of the silver rod, and then pinched the silver rod so that it was perpendicular to the stone table, and hit the stone plane with both ends of the silver rod, the end gradually became concave horseshoe-shaped, and after each 4-5 strokes, observe the round surface to adjust the angle to change the impact point, and the collision process lasted about 5 minutes. The craftsman said that the stone hammer has the same weight but much larger volume than the iron hammer, which affects the observation of the hammer mark after the hammer, and it is difficult to assess whether the previous hammer was hammered in the planned position. The end of the silver rod was then corrected by combining the stone hammer and the stone countertop, and the surface of the silver rod was leveled for 10 minutes.
96 minutes after the start of the experiment, the eleventh silver rod was annealed, and the length of the silver rod after hammering was 12.6 cm. Craftsmen began to sand the surface of the silver rod, choosing to use a rough stone countertop for sanding, with the aim of removing the hammer marks on the surface of the silver rod by friction.
119 minutes after the experiment began, the craftsmen tried the cowhide and fine sand, and then chose to use small agate blocks to repeatedly scrape the surface of the silver rod in a straight line. After about 5 minutes of scraping, the surface of the silver rod is polished to the point where a metallic luster is first visible.
124 minutes after the start of the experiment, the twelfth silver rod annealed, and the length of the silver rod after hammering was 12.6 cm. After annealing, the craftsman again chose to gently scrape the surface of the silver rod with small agate blocks until it had a metallic luster.
Shaping with a log stick
Silver nose drink
128 minutes after the start of the experiment, the craftsman used the round wooden stick to shape the silver rod, the hardness of the annealed silver rod decreased, the craftsman pressed the silver rod into a circle on the round wooden stick by hand, and then put the silver snare on the wooden stick, and gently hammered its ends with a wooden hammer to obtain a more regular silver ring.
132 minutes after the experiment began, the craftsman completed the production of a silver-nosed drink.
Transverse marks on the end of the silver-nosed drink
Parallel marks on the silver-nosed drink
Cracks on the outer edge of the silver nose drink
A fissure on the inner edge of the silver nose drink
Microscopic observation
The silver nose drink produced by experimental archaeology has not been used and repaired, and there are no traces caused by the time of use, the method of use, the natural environment, burial, etc., so it is possible to more intuitively observe the various traces produced by the metal surface after processing. We observed the surface traces of the silver nose drink created by the archaeology of this experiment, and sorted out the causes of each trace.
Through the low-magnification micro-trace observation, it is possible to observe the different traces produced by the craftsman during the hammer forging process due to changes in technology and operation. There are a large number of transverse marks at both ends of the silver nose drink, which is related to the fact that the craftsman touched the stone plane with the two ends of the silver rod for about 81 minutes to make two thick intermediate ends. Silver nose drink throughout the body has traces parallel to the outer contour, related to the polishing technology, the craftsman uses small agate blocks on the surface of the silver rod to repeatedly scrape and polish in an orderly and straight line, and bends the silver rod after polishing is completed, and the scratch marks are deformed. In addition to the parts close to the two ends, cracks can be observed on the outer edge, and the tail end of the crack is generally sharp, and the production of these cracks may be related to the shaping technique of the craftsman, who bends the silver rod with the help of a log stick, and cracks are generated in the process of metal bending. There are cracks in the inner edge of the silver nose, and the cracks and cracks are plastic deformation due to curved metals, but the location of the cracks is close to both ends, possibly because of the hammer hammer and the squeeze of the log stick.
Experimental results were discussed
Looking at the experimental archaeological production process of silver nose drink, it can be roughly divided into three stages: preliminary forging, forging and shaping, and polishing. The initial forging stage is the key to the production of hammer forging, the craftsman hammers the newly dissolved and poured metal raw materials, and the purpose of high-force hammering is to improve the grain structure of the metal raw materials. In the forging and forming stage, the craftsman stretches and forges the metal, so that the metal extends and compresses in thickness and thickness, and determines the basic shape of the metal utensil. In the forging process, the metal is stretched and stretched, compressed and deformed, because the metal surface has a large number of forging marks, the craftsman needs to flatten the surface traces by hammering without changing the shape, and then the craftsman polishes and then further surface treatment and shaping of the metal, and finally completes the production of a piece of silver jewelry.
The use of hammer forging technology for the processing of gold and silverware has certain requirements for craftsmen in the use of tools and the understanding of metal characteristics. In the hammer forging process, the deformation of the metal occurs under the meticulous control of the craftsman, the hammering force has changed many times in the entire experimental process, the craftsman needs to adjust at any time at different stages and under different conditions; the extrusion extension deformation of the hammered metal is caused by the different positions of the metal being hammered and the placement position on the work table; the metal is compressed structurally during the hammer forging process, and the compression on the structure makes the metal extend or shrink, and the hardness is gradually improved. Through annealing can make the metal crystals rearrange, restore the ductility of the metal, the craftsman in the hammer forging process if not master the skills of metal annealing - "when should annealing" "degree of annealing", will cause the subsequent hammer forging metal rupture, such a rupture only rely on hammer forging can not be repaired, so annealing in the gold and silverware production is a crucial link.
The production behavior and choices of craftsmen in the production process are influenced by the utensils and tools produced. For the hammer forging of different utensils, the craftsmen will choose the most efficient way to produce according to the existing experience and understanding, combined with the production conditions to balance the effect and efficiency. Taking the silver nose drink of this experimental archaeology as an example, in the final plastic polishing link, the craftsman chose to polish first and then reshape it because it was affected by the shape and tools, because the straight cylinder was more likely to be repeatedly polished and polished along the straight line. This is a more efficient way, but if it is to produce other artifacts, this method may not necessarily be suitable. The influence of tools on craftsmen is more intuitive, silver nose drink using fine sand and cowhide polishing method, obviously not as fast as small agate block scraping and good effect, the craftsman only tried a short time to adjust the tool, it is worth noting that in addition to the grinding efficiency, the loss caused by the combination of fine sand and cowhide is higher than that of small agate block, and the craftsman will reduce the loss as much as possible in the production process. Also in the hammer forging process, the craftsman repeatedly annealed and adjusted the hammer strike point, the contact surface of the metal and the countertop is to improve efficiency. The technical choice and behavior of craftsmen is a comprehensive embodiment of production goals, production conditions and time costs, input costs, whether ancient craftsmen or modern traditional craftsmen, before each production activity will be rigorously calculated, to ensure that relatively time-saving and labor-saving, can be efficient and high-quality completion of production.
Due to the limited information on early gold and silverware excavated from siba culture-related sites and their detection and analysis, many of our research contents are not clear enough in the design of experiments, so this experimental archaeology is only a part of the early gold and silverware production technology rather than a relatively complete metallurgical activity. On the other hand, the experimental results can not be compared with the archaeological objects in detail, if there is a condition for the relevant gold and silver artifacts for micro-trace observation, detection and analysis, combined with the research results of experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology, you can interpret richer information from the early gold and silverware, and can more deeply explore the people and society behind the ancient metallurgical technology.
The author is Li Zekun, a staff member of Jiujiang University
Editor: Xiang Yu
Proofreader: Water Life
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