The blessing of the last stop of the five-pipe bottle | the treasure of the town hall

The major museums in the country have their own treasures of the town hall, full of dazzling and exquisite products. This column will show you the story behind the cultural relics and uncover the unsolved mysteries.

In December 1976, in Zhatian Town, Longquan County, Zhejiang Province, Wang Yuanpei, a villager in Duntou Village, was repairing a reservoir in Houyuan, near the village.

Just when he was sweating and exhausted, he suddenly saw several glazed porcelain bottles of different colors and different shapes in the mud layer at the bottom of the warehouse.

This unexpected discovery immediately swept away Wang Yuanpei's exhaustion.

Everyone gathered around and curiously examined these unidentified celadonware utensils, but they saw that there were both round-bellied, high-mouthed, slender-handed pots, and long-necked bottles with rounded bottles and slender mouths.

A very unique shape of the "five-tube bottle" has aroused everyone's strong interest.

This five-tube bottle with a lid is huge, about 40 cm high, the maximum abdominal diameter is also about 20 cm, the bottle body is straight and folded shoulders, round abdomen circle foot, the shoulder and abdomen are covered with water ripple ornaments, and the shoulder is very interesting to install five lotus-stemmed tubes, so it is called "five tube bottle".

The cap of this five-tube bottle consists of three layers: the uppermost layer is a water lotus leaf-like button seat with a bud-shaped cap in the center of the lotus leaf; the middle layer is a semi-relief lotus petal pattern, the peduncle is pond-shaped, and there are four ducklings swimming in the pond, two of which are small fish in the mouth; the lower layer is shrunken and cylindrical.

What is this strange and beautiful porcelain bottle for?

Everyone immediately talked about it, and some said, this must be a gorgeous candlestick, you see the five tubes on the shoulder of the bottle, is not the place where the candle is planted;

Some people say that this should be a "flower arrangement", that is, a vase specially used to insert flowers;

Others say that this bottle has no practical value at all, and is likely to be just an ornament as an artistic ornament.

Everyone is talking about it, but they are not at the same point.

Finally, the five-tube bottle was sent to the experts, and the identification results finally came out: this is neither a candlestick, nor a vase, nor a general handicraft, but a celadon ware produced in the Longquan kiln from the fifth generation to the Northern Song Dynasty, which is a special artifact for burial.

The evidence was in the well-made bottle cap. Careful identification experts found ink books in the cap of this five-tube bottle - "Zhang's five niangs, five barn cabinets, upper Ying Tiangong, lower Ying Di Zhong, yin zi and grandson, long life and wealth."

These texts clearly point out that this five-pipe porcelain bottle is actually a "five-barn cabinet" symbolizing the abundance of grain, similar to the paper dollar treasures, paper houses and other "hidden wealth" that people burn to their ancestors today.

This judgment of the experts has been further confirmed by another "evidence", that is, the handicap double-necked bottle unearthed with the five-tube bottle.

There is no direct evidence on this handicap bottle, but experts refer to the homomorphic Northern Song Dynasty Yuanfeng Three-Year Handicap Long-necked Bottle (collected in the British Daweide Foundation), which is engraved on the abdomen with the words "Yuanfeng Three-Year Leap September 15th Yuanyuan Is Willing to Burn the Grain Poppy for Thousands of Years of Fragrant Wine, Return to Bo Nian, Return to Houyinhui Tens of Millions of Descendants, Forever Rich, Long Life, Immeasurable Blessing, World Peace".

Therefore, experts believe that the long-necked bottle of the handicap, like the five-tube bottle, is a burial vessel for the use of fine wine or grain.

These artifacts are full of good wishes for the deceased in the afterlife, which can be described as "the blessing of the last stop of life".

In fact, the five-tube bottle originated from the "five-in-one tank" in the Three Kingdoms period of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the meaning at that time was not as "grounded" as it is today.

The more typical view is that the source of this apparatus is related to the ancient belief in the sacred mountains of the mainland.

The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period's "Liezi TangWen" vividly depicts the fantasy scene of the fairyland for us: on the distant sea east of the Bohai Sea, there is a huge trench with no bottom, called "Gui Ruins", and the waters from all directions flow into this ditch and never overflow.

In this trench, there are five sacred mountains, each thirty thousand miles high and 70,000 miles apart, and at the top of the mountain there are platforms with a radius of 9,000 miles, which are full of golden pavilions and white birds and beasts, and it is said that they have eaten the fruits of immortality.

On each mountain lived countless gods and immortals, who flew between the five sacred mountains every day and interacted with each other.

The structure of the five-tank is an imitation of the "Five Mountains Myth": its tank body is mostly made of water tribes, symbolizing the sea; the roof is high, simulating the state of the sacred mountain; the surrounding birds and animals, pavilions, Buddhist monks and music tricks to create a long-term music world where people and gods are mixed, auspicious and happy.

These five pipes symbolize the five sacred mountains, and the five mouths are connected to the jar (bottle), which symbolizes the adjacent sacred mountain; the can (bottle) mouth is the symbol of the Jedi Gate to heaven, and the gateway for the undead to enter the celestial realm.

Later, this kind of artifact evolved through the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms, the Western Jin Dynasty, the Southern Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, integrating the folk customs and funerary culture of the five grains, and deriving the new meaning of "grounding gas" with the "five pipes" to symbolize the "five grains and abundance".

In the Song Dynasty, when celadon was at its peak, the five-pipe bottle also ushered in the "highlight moment" and became one of the most representative utensils of the era, mostly buried with the pan bottle and the holding pot.

At this time, the five-tube bottle is regarded as a five-barn cabinet in the netherworld, and a large number of bird heads piled up on the bottle cap are extended to the mouth of the bottle, implying the struggle for grain in the barn.

However, in the five-tube porcelain vase unearthed in Duntou Village, Chatian Town, Longquan, the cap of the bottle is stacked with four ducks of different shapes.

So far, no porcelain has been found to be exactly the same as the shape of the artifact, so it has a valuable physical data effect on the study of Longquan kiln celadon porcelain.

After the appraisal of experts from the Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Appraisal Committee and the National Cultural Relics Appraisal Committee, this five-pipe bottle was identified as a national first-class cultural relic, and in May 1995, it was also included in a set of four "Longquan Celadon" stamps, which was officially issued by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.

At present, this precious five-tube bottle is collected in the Longquan Celadon Museum and has become a treasure of the museum.

Longquan Celadon Museum is located in Longquan Celadon Cultural and Creative Base, which is the only Longquan Celadon Thematic Museum in China and even in the world, integrating the functions of Longquan Celadon collection research, display and education, academic exchange, leisure experience and so on. The museum systematically displays the historical features and representative works of various periods such as the origin, development, prosperity, decline and rejuvenation of Longquan Kiln, as well as the "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Mankind" - longquan celadon traditional firing techniques and the archaeological excavation results of Longquan kiln.

Producer | First of all, Hongming

Edit | Yu Xin

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