Bringing artifacts to life
Let the culture pass on
The town is headed by a seat
——An exploration of the development history of Xizhen
In the historical exhibition hall on the second floor of the Cangzhou Museum, there are two "star exhibits", one is a small leopard, the leopard's body is crouched, the leopard's head is slightly lifted, and the wrong gold curl grass ornament is all over the body; the other is a pair of small turtles, with mussel shells embedded in their backs, as a creeping head. Often the audience asks, is this the "hand-made" ornament of the ancients? In fact, these two cultural relics are practical artifacts of the ancients, named "XiZhen".
Wrong Golden Leopard Town
What is Xizhen? Before the invention, popularization and enrichment of furniture, people's lifestyles were very different from today's, and meals and rest were all sitting on the floor. Because the mat is made of puddle, it is relatively soft and can be easily rolled up, in order not to touch the crooked mat when getting up and sitting, it is necessary to press the heavy object of the mat, that is, "Xi Town".
The materials of Xizhen are very diverse. Southern Dynasty Yao Cha's "Hanshu Xunxun" Yun: "瑱, it is said that the pearl and jade pressed seat is also decorated." "It can be seen that the original town was made of jade. However, the excavated jade material Xizhen is very rare, mostly bronze material, but also iron, lead, gold, silver and so on. Judging from the material, Xizhen is not something used by ordinary people. The Analects says: "If the seat is not right, do not sit", "If the king gives food, he will eat the right seat, and taste it first." It shows that in ancient times, "Xi Zheng" was a requirement of Zhou Li, and this requirement was obviously a requirement for the ancient upper class. Ordinary people need to press the mat, all kinds of heavy objects can be used, and will not use the precious material and intricate shape of the seat town.
The shape of the town is very rich, and the historical stages are different. There are mainly animal shapes, human forms and geometric shapes, especially animal shapes occupy more than half of the town, such as tigers, leopards, deer, sheep, turtles, dragons, evil spirits and other things that exist in reality or imagination. Judging from the excavated cultural relics, the animal shape is the most in the town, and the tiger and leopard are the most. In the early Western Han Dynasty, the number of Xizhen excavations was small, the volume was larger, mostly tiger and leopard-shaped towns, and the shape was mostly a vigilant posture of lying on the side with its head held high, its mouth open, and its eyes wide open. Since the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, under the shape of the main body of the animal-shaped seat town, a pedestal has appeared, such as the Cangzhou Museum's collection of the wrong golden leopard town. At the same time, the popularity of a large number of inlaid shell animal-shaped towns with basically the same shape is also a feature of this period, such as the Cangzhou Museum's collection of gilded mussels and turtle towns. Although the shape of the instrument is small, the shape of the animal-shaped town is diverse, and it is more delicate and exquisite in the depiction of animal details, and the decorative techniques such as gilding, wrong gold and silver, inlaid treasure, and inlaid shell are used to the extreme in the animal-shaped town in this period. In the late Western Han Dynasty, the types and number of towns decreased accordingly, and the tiger-shaped towns that prevailed in the early and middle periods rarely appeared in the late Western Han Dynasty, and other animal-shaped towns with auspicious meanings were still widely popular during this period.
Gilded inlaid mussel turtle town
The earliest historical record of Xizhen began in the Spring and Autumn Period, flourished in the Western Han Dynasty, and was popular for more than 400 years, its history is not short, but the number of survivors is very small. This has little to do with the fact that Xizhen only serves the upper class and the needs of the common people. Although in the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, the town of Bronze Seat began to be miniaturized to meet people's daily needs. However, by the Eastern Han Dynasty, with the continuous development of lacquerware, iron and porcelain and widely used in the daily life of the people, the bronze seat town had declined. By the Wei and Jin dynasties, the seats had been equipped with three-sided screens, the mats had been carefully protected, the town had lost its practical role, and its overall decline and demise had become a historical necessity.
To this day, although xizhen has disappeared, the need to flatten items still exists, and the evolved "paperweight" still plays an important role in the study of the literati and scholars.
Author Lu Qingyuan