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The difference between a bronze figure and a bronze mask
Qian Yu toe
In the summer of 1986, Sanxingdui excavated two burial pits and unearthed many artifacts, including three handle-shaped convex bronze masks unearthed from the No. 2 burial pit. The larger one is 66 cm high and 138 cm wide, with the eyeball protruding 16 cm toward the outer stalk of the orbit, 13.5 cm in diameter, and a so-called hoop 2.8 cm wide in the middle (see Figure 1); the small one is 31.5 cm high, 82.5 cm high, 77.4 cm wide, and the eyeball protrudes 9 cm towards the outer columnar stalk of the orbit; the other one is 31.7 cm high, 84.3 cm high, and 78 cm wide. This type of eyeball protrudes from the outer column of the orbit, which most scholars call "longitudinal", and refer to this type of bronze mask as "longitudinal mask".
Longitudinal masks excavated from the No. 2 sacrifice pit of Sanxingdui Ruins (Courtesy of Sanxingdui Museum)
This large bronze mask was called the "Longitudinal Mask" when it was first unearthed. Mr. Chen De'an once said: "(1986) On August 27, the excavation of the No. 2 sacrifice pit officially began... The first thing I saw was a 138-centimeter-wide copper longitudinal beast mask — the wide mouth slightly extended from the tip of the tongue, the long round eyeball protruding nearly 20 centimeters outward, and the large ulnar-shaped ears flared left and right. According to its special shape, some people immediately associated with the image of the legendary ancestor of the Shu King, 'Silkworm Bush Longitudinal Eye', exclaiming: 'This is the silkworm bush'. ”
In 1989, the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee and other editors of the "Guanghan Sanxingdui Site No. 2 Sacrifice Pit Excavation Briefing" said that the above three eyeball column-like protruding heads of the ginseng were "human faces", and the Sichuan Provincial Museum compiled the "Bashu Bronze Ware" and said: "252A type A bronze human face." In 1992, the Sichuan Provincial Department of Culture and other editors-in-chief of the "Selected Cultural Relics Excavated from the Sanxingdui Sacrifice Pit" called the above head a "longitudinal human face". Qu Xiaoqiang and other editors-in-chief of the "Sanxingdui Culture" Chapter 7: "The bronze longitudinal human face is the ancestral god sacrificed by the Shu people, and it is also the image of the silkworm bush recorded in the "Huayang Guozhi" and other classics, and it is the ancestral idol of the ancient Shu people." Since then, the above views have become more and more popular.
Bronze head with braided hair excavated from sanxingdui site (courtesy of Sanxingdui Museum)
In 1992, Mr. Chen De'an's "Research on bronze masks excavated from sanxingdui sacrificial pits" put forward a new view of "beast masks", saying: "This bronze beast mask is far from the bronze human mask excavated at the same time, not the human mask. Excavation briefing puts it to say that adult masks or human faces are inappropriate... The long and pointed animal ears resemble elephant ears, the mouth is very large, the tongue is spit out, the nose wings are swirled up like a cow's nose, the jaw is extended forward, etc., these are the characteristics of the beast, which can be seen as the symbol of the species; as for the eyes into a columnar outward protrusion, it is a monster image that is not available in real life... If the true beast mask is a symbol of the silkworm bush, it only means that the silkworm bush was transformed from a natural god to an ancestral god, which is also considered to be the 'favor god and its ancestor' by later generations, not the idol of the ancestors of the Shu people. These 'hundreds of things' or beast masks represent various natural deities..." The above insights are valuable and worthy of attention.
The back of the braided bronze human head excavated from the Sanxingdui site (courtesy of Sanxingdui Museum)
By 2000, Mr. Chen De'an's "Sanxingdui - The Sacred Land of the Ancient Shu Kingdom" had changed, and it seemed to be a change in the crowd under the condition that everyone said "vertically". The book says: "There are two kinds of human masks unearthed from Sanxingdui and beast masks representing the ancestors of the Shu people. Beast masks... Large animal ears, long knife eyebrows, curved prismatic eyeballs protrude forward by more than ten centimeters, pulling out the eye muscles and attaching to the eyeballs. From the perspective of shape, it resembles a human being and is not a beast, and it is a divine image that integrates humans and animals... The longitudinal beast mask, which symbolizes the silkworm bush of the Shu people's ancestor unearthed by Sanxingdui, is characterized by a pair of specially prominent and forward-extended eye sockets and towering dragon-like forehead ornaments... "Silkworm bush longitudinal eye" should be related to the rainy and foggy natural environment in which the Shu people lived in the Chengdu Plain. In 2001, "Into Sichuan" edited by the Sichuan Provincial Tourism Bureau referred to the above-mentioned columnar convex masks as "bronze longitudinal masks".
Subsequently, there was a new theory for the above-mentioned "longitudinal mask". Xiao Ping's Sanxingdui: The Light of Bronze Illuminates the World says of the bronze mask with its protruding eyeballs: "Its ears show distinct animal characteristics... The eyeballs break through the orbit and protrude forward in a columnar shape, like a crab eye... If the eyeball is really protruding outward in a columnar shape, then it is bound to be affected by external factors such as sunlight, branches, wind and sand, rain and so on... Therefore, the legend of 'silkworm bush longitudinal' should be the subjective deification of the ancient Shu people to their tribal leaders... In recent years, some researchers have even proposed a novel theory that Sanxingdui people suffer from hyperthyroidism based on the longitudinal mask... Such a view, on the whole, lacks sufficient factual basis. The text that Mr. Xiao Ping labeled for this mask image is "bronze beast mask excavated from the Sanxingdui site."
Interpretation of the longitudinal mask or sammu mask excavated from the Sanxingdui site (courtesy of Qian Yutou)
In 2021, after the excavation of the 6 newly discovered burial pits in Sanxingdui, there are still many scholars who refer to the above masks as "longitudinal masks", which need to be carefully interpreted.
The "Classic of Mountains and Seas" and the Northern Classic of Hai Nei have "socks, which are the black head of the human body", the "Chu Ci Da Zhao" has "The Longitudinal Eyes of the Head", and the Han Dynasty Wang Yi's "Chu Ci Chapters and Sentences" notes: "Longitudinal, one work is followed." Wu Chen:"From, Shuye." The Classic of Mountains and Seas, the Overseas Northern Classic, says: Candle Dragon "Is red with a snake's face and a straight eye", Guo Pu's note: "Straight eyes, eyes obey." ”
One of the definitions of "vertical" in the Cihai is: "Also from, straight, from top to bottom or from bottom to top; between north and south." "The horizontal axis of the human eye basically coincides with the horizontal line, and such a normal eye can be called a flat eye. The head of sanxingdui has such a flat eye. Vertical eye, in the sense of the word, should be a kind of straight or vertical eye that is different from the flat eye, and the two eyes are connected vertically from top to bottom. Most of the heads unearthed from Sanxingdui have a horizontal axis of about 30-45 degrees upwards, and although such eyes are not vertically formed at 90 degrees, they can also be called vertical eyes.
In particular, the bronze statue with a height of 260.8 centimeters and a height of 180 centimeters is considered by most scholars to be the statue of the ancestors of the Shu people, or the most honorable god and the ancestors of the Shu people. The horizontal axis of its eyes is inverted and upward, which can also be called longitudinal. This is consistent with the record of the Huayang Guozhi "Shu Hou Silkworm Cong, Its Self-Indulgence". Sanxingdui also unearthed a number of longitudinal heads similar to bronze standing figures (see Figure 2).
Qu Yuan's "Summoning Souls" says: "The king is supremely heavenly." Tiger and Leopard Nine Levels... The Jackal from the eye... Be afraid of danger! "Jun Wuxia is a bit more secluded." The Nine Covenants of Tuber... Sammyo Tiger Head... I'm afraid I'll leave myself behind! "This means that there are jackals in the heavens who follow the eyes (i.e., the vertical eyes), and there are earthly wolves with tiger heads." "Longitudinal" and "reference" coexist, "longitudinal" is longitudinal, "samson" is samsara, the two must not be confused, nor can they be substituted for each other.
"Summoning Souls" also said: "When the soul returns, jun wu will not go down to this ghostly capital!" The Nine Covenants of Tuber, whose horns are more elaborate. Dun Yi bloody, one by one to make a little more of it. The head of the tiger is like an ox. "It can be translated as: Soul return, don't go down to the bottom of this shadowy capital." Tuber controls nine gates, with long, sharp horns and thick bloody claws on his back, and hunts down beasts like shuttles. The tiger's head bulged and its body was as strong as an ox. According to the "Summoning spirits", the jackals and tigers and leopards guard the gate in the sky, and the tubers are the masters in the underground ghost house. This tuber is depicted as a four-like strange mythical beast with a bull's body, a tiger's head, and a samson (a column-like convex order), sharp horns, and bloody claws.
Regarding the 3 eye column-like protruding heads of Sanxingdui, according to Mr. Chen De'an, "the mouth is wide and deep", "the tongue in the mouth is slightly spit out", "the animal ears are slightly rectangular, and the ear tips are peach-like... Short nose bridge, nose wings in the shape of a cow's nose upwards and inwards, etc.", they may be one of the heads of cattle, tigers, pigs or other animals with a column-like convex order. Strictly speaking, these 3 pieces are only "masks", not complete Tober-like objects, they should have bodies, limbs and heads, but unfortunately, these have not been found. If these 3 "masks" are the heads of Tubo in The Conjuring, they should have a tiger-like mouth and ears, as well as sharp horns, bloody claws, and a cow-like body.
The "Nine Covenants of Tubo" in "Summoning Souls", Guo Moruo's "Qu Yuanfu Jin Translation" translated as "nine gods of the earth, holding ropes in their hands, their heads are like tigers and like cattle", there is no mention of the nine curves of Tubo's body. "Summoning Souls" says that there are nine levels in the heavens, and there are tigers, leopards, and wolves guarding the passes; there are nine gates in the underground mansion, and there are tuber gates. For example, 1 door has 1 tuber, and 9 doors should have 9 tubers. There are only 3 sammu heads unearthed at Sanxingdui, which should not be all.
The Tubo of the "Sammu Tiger Head" is in the underground mansion. Ginseng can be used as a high and long solution. "Zhuangzi Grand Master" has "The Ginseng of Xuan Meditation", Du Fu's "Gu Bai Xing" has "Two Thousand Feet of Daisy Towering Heaven", and the reference in it is the meaning of high; Zhang Heng's "Si Xuan Fu" has "Long Yu Pei's Ginseng", which means long. The eye should be a special form of eye with the eyeball higher or longer than the orbit. Tubo lives in the underground seclusion, which should be a cold and dark place, probably the ancients thought that it is necessary to grow a samson (bulging eyeball stalk) to see things clearly, which may have a biological basis.
Both crabs and shrimp are arthropods, both with a pair of column-like protruding eyes, probably related to the low visibility in the water and the intensity of light. According to Li Linsi, the river crab has "a pair of compound eyes, which are composed of hundreds or even thousands of hexagonal single-eye inlays, and the center of the compound eye is the deeply pigmented retinal part." The compound eye has an eye handle, the eye handle is divided into two segments, and the inter-node related nodes are connected, which can be both upright and lying horizontally, and can move freely. When standing upright, hold the eye high, which is conducive to rotating the sides; when lying down, the hair on the outside of the eye can wipe away the unclean object on the surface of the eye. "The stalk of the river crab's eye is shown in Figure 3. Yao Guocheng said: "There is a pair of compound eyes with stalks on both sides of the base of the 'frontal horn' of the river shrimp, and the eyeball (or cornea) is composed of many eyes, and the base of the eye handle can rotate at will, and can see the surrounding objects without twisting the body." ”
Interestingly, the 16 cm long columnar stalk convex has a 2.8 cm wide ring called "hoop" in the middle, which divides the convex into upper and lower parts, which is very similar to the stalk convex of river crabs. The convex order of the river crab is also divided into two segments, with a joint in the middle, which can be freely rotated, straightened and bent. The role of the "link" (hoop) in the middle of the bronze head statue is also to connect the upper and lower parts, and it can also be freely rotated, straightened or bent to expand the field of vision and protect the eyeball. Otherwise, the straight, immovable convex eye is not only limited in vision, but also vulnerable. This is probably the secret of the convex eye with "hoops", which should be the sammy head designed and produced by the ancient Shu people using the principle of bionics.
In the Chu tombs of nobles above the rank of scholars, there is often a kind of "town tomb beast", with bulging eyes and a long tongue, which has many similarities with the pillar-like convex heads of Tubo and Sanxingdui in "Summoning Souls", which is probably not accidental. Gao Zhixi edited the "Chu Cultural Relics Atlas" according to: In 1986, the Chu Tomb of No. 1 Baoshan in Jingmen Baoshan, Hubei Province, unearthed the "wood-carved convex-eyed town tomb beast" in the middle of the Warring States period, "made of three parts of the seat, body, and antlers, and the animal face was carved out of two convex round eyes, tooth decay, mouth spit triangular long tongue, curved neck"; the "four antler town tomb beasts" in the middle of the Warring States period ... In 1965, the Chu Tomb no. 1 wangshan in Jiangling, Hubei Province was excavated... The face of the beast's head is carved into the shape of a tiger, jaw-dropping, the big tongue is hanging, the face is vicious, and four large and complete straight antlers are inserted on both heads" "Lacquer painted big town tomb beast... In 1980, Tomb No. 1 of Linli Jiuli in Hunan Was excavated... The body of the beast is square, the head is tiger-like, the ears are erect, the neck is curved, the mouth is spit out of the long tongue, the tongue is connected to the chest, the face is vicious, and the body is tiger-shaped... This is a typical town tomb beast in the middle of the Warring States period in the Southern Chu region, and compared with the town tomb beast in the early Warring States period, the head of the beast becomes a tiger shape, and the tongue on the tiger's ear is longer." The above-mentioned town tomb beasts are similar to the Tubo of the "Sammu Tiger Head" in the "Summoning souls", and similar to the heads of the Sanxingdui Samson, and they may all be Tuber, or a divine beast such as Tubo. The title of "town tomb beast" seems to be negotiable, and it should be the plastic edge of Tubo.
In summary, we believe that the eyes of bronze figures or masks excavated from Sanxingdui are 30-45 degrees outward upwards with the horizontal axis or horizontal line, which should be called longitudinal portraits or longitudinal masks. The eyeball of the bronze mask is protruding from the orbit in the shape of a columnar stalk, which should be called a samson mask or a convex mask. It would be inappropriate to call it a longitudinal mask, and even more inappropriate to discuss it further in connection with the longitudinal eye of the silkworm bush.