Cover news reporter Zeng Jie according to the interviewee
In 2021, a new round of archaeological excavations in the sacrificial area of the Sanxingdui site will awaken the world again, with fragments of gold masks, bird-shaped gold ornaments, bronze sacred trees, and jade qun... These uniquely shaped and well-made cultural relics give people a great visual impact. In addition, some of the black "ashes" attached to the surface of the bronze are even more exciting to find, although they have been integrated with dirt, dust, and even mineralized into soil blocks, but after detection and analysis, which contain a large amount of silk protein, can be determined as early silk fabrics.
Archaeological site of Sanxingdui Sacrifice Area
How do archaeologists find silk fabrics from the dirt? What is the significance of these silks appearing in Sanxingdui? On April 10th, during the chengdu museum's "Yunxiang Clothes - Silk Road Costume Culture Special Exhibition" hot exhibition, Zhou Yang, deputy director of the China Silk Museum and director of the key scientific research base of the State Administration of Textile and Cultural Relics Protection, brought a lecture entitled "Deciphering Sanxingdui Silk: Discovery and Significance" to unlock the Sanxingdui silk code buried for thousands of years.
Archaeological discoveries and studies have shown that the history of silkworm silk making in the mainland can be traced back to the Stone Age, and the Sichuan region is one of the important origins of silk fabrics. In his lecture, Zhou Yang deciphered how to find silk in the sacrificial pit, the varieties of silk in the sacrificial pit, the rationality of discovering silk, and what it means to discover silk. She stripped away the cocoon, the golden sentences came out frequently, and the two-hour lecture was full of knowledge points, interpreting in poetic language how cultural relics workers could go from the laboratory to the field in both directions.
Zhou Yang, deputy director of the China Silk Museum
Antigen testing, silk found in Sanxingdui
There are two main sources of existing silk relics, either handed down from generation to generation, such as the various forms of dragon robes in the Forbidden City collection; or excavated, such as the Han Dynasty brocade armlet excavated from the Niya site in Xinjiang, woven with the Chinese characters "Five Stars Out of the East and Li China". Silk is the soft and shiny long fiber spit by the silkworm, which belongs to the protein and is easily degraded during the burial process. Some of the "nude figurines" excavated from the Hanyang Mausoleum have been studied as "dressed figurines", wearing linen and mulberry silk when buried.
There is a jargon in the archaeological circle that also applies to the excavation of silk: "Wet for a thousand years, dry for ten thousand years, not dry or wet for half a year." "The climate was humid during the ancient Shu Dynasty, and no traces of silk had been found until a new round of archaeological excavations in the Sanxingdui sacrifice area was restarted. At the same time, Sanxingdui is shallowly buried, and most of the excavated cultural relics have burn marks, which is not conducive to the preservation of silk. Fortunately, the Sanxingdui sacrifice pit buried a large number of bronzes, which release copper ions to the surrounding environment, which can inhibit the growth of microorganisms to a certain extent and conceal the welfare of organic residue researchers.
Chengdu Museum "Yunxiang Clothes - Silk Road Costume Culture Special Exhibition"
How can traces of silk be detected from the surface of dirt or bronze? Professor Zhou Yang introduced that in the past decade, the China Silk Museum and Zhejiang Sci-Tech University and Zhejiang University have cooperated to develop a silk micro-trace detection technology based on the principle of immunology, which plays a sensitive, specific and convenient advantage at the archaeological site. "The most gratifying thing for me is to cross-combine chemistry and archaeology to solve the gap in the 35 years of Sanxingdui silk archaeology." She revealed confidently.
Today, workers have found a large number of silk residues in sanxingdui sacrificial pits 3 to 8, which are from the surface of the bronze and the ashes inside the pits. At the same time, they went into the Sanxingdui cultural relics warehouse, checked the bronzes excavated from pits 1 and 2, and found a large number of silk residues on 13 types of utensils and more than 40 utensils such as bronze eye bubbles. This result is exciting, archaeological evidence, myths, legends, and historical records reflect each other, indicating that silk already existed in the ancient Shu region more than 3,000 years ago.
Sanxingdui No. 2 pit copper eye bubble on the Chi
Communicate with heaven and earth, and use silk in sacrifices
Professor Zhou Yang went to the Sanxingdui Museum many times and was impressed by a wall that recorded the evolution of shu characters. Most of the ancient legends about silkworm mulberry on the mainland are related to Shudi, and even the structure of the word "Shu" is closely related to silkworms. Xu Shen recorded in the Shuowen Jiezi Mubu: "Shu, the silkworm in the Aoi, from the insect, the upper eye is like the shape of the head of the Shu, and the middle is like its body. ”
Whether it is the sand drawing on the Warring States copper pot excavated from Chengdu Baihuatan, the Model of the Shu Brocade Loom excavated from the Tomb of the Old Guanshan Han in Chengdu, or the titles of "Jinguancheng", "Jinjiang", "Jinli" and so on that continue to this day, all show that the Brocade Weaving Industry in Shudi has a long history and is famous for a while. As the capital of the ancient Shu state created by the ancestors of the ancient Shu, sanxingdui is very reasonable to find a large amount of silk in the sacrifice pit.
A new round of archaeology in the Sanxingdui sacrifice area unearthed a large number of bronzes, ivory, jade, and gold, which were originally sacrificial utensils that existed in the Zongmiao temple and temple, and were buried for some reason, and during the burial process, the silk was either burned, or wrapped on the surface of the bronze, or buried, what does it mean?
Professor Zhou Yang introduced that early silk was not easy to come by, and its three major uses were sacrificial clothing, corpse clothing and regular clothing. Some records of silkworm sacrifices and sacrifice ceremonies in the Book of Rites show that not only must the sacrificial garments of the gods be made of silk, but also the silk obtained by the silkworm relatives must be made to reflect piety and respect. The ornamentation on the bronze Da Liren excavated from The No. 2 pit of Sanxingdui may be the earliest dragon robe. The four dragons on the costume, the dragon's head on the high, the dragon's claws clenched, this shape of the dragon is called Gun. The Shuowen records that "Gong, the Son of Heaven enjoys the first king", which coincides with the scene of the bronze Da Liren presiding over the sacrifice.
Artifacts excavated from sanxingdui one and two sacrificial pits
Pluralistic, silk is a convergent element
In 1986, Sanxingdui woke up to the world, and thousands of bronze artifacts were unearthed from two sacrificial pits, but due to the limitations of archaeological technology at that time, no traces of silk were found. After 35 years, Sanxingdui has newly discovered 6 sacrificial pits, and while unearthing a large number of cultural relics, silk is the most surprising discovery, which is very consistent with historical materials and legends. In addition, archaeologists have also conducted detailed exploration of the surrounding area, providing very important archaeological information for a complete understanding of the ceremonial space, religious thought, and even the reflected concept of the universe at that time.
Although Sichuan is one of the important areas where silk originated, why have no traces of silk been found in previous archaeological excavations, and can silk be unearthed earlier than the Sanxingdui period in the future? In Professor Zhou Yang's view, if the scope of search is expanded in the future, like this Sanxingdui archaeological excavation, follow the archaeologists to the scene together, "as long as you are prepared in terms of technology, concept and confidence, Sichuan should find silk earlier than the Sanxingdui period."
She hopes that in the future, if the archaeology of Sanxingdui is used as a basis, the existence of silk will not be overlooked when restoring the deity system, aristocratic composition, worship furnishings, and ceremonial space of the "temple" or "sacrifice area" at that time. The discovery of silk will certainly provide more information and be more conducive to understanding how the ancient Shu ancestors expressed religion three thousand years ago, how to think about the universe and life and death.
Qin and Bashu, Shu and the vast southwest region were gradually integrated into China. In the process of integration, silk is a very significant element of convergence, and myths and legends, historical records, and archaeological discoveries all show that about silk, Bashu and Zhongyuan adhere to roughly the same knowledge system and value system. Professor Zhou Yang concluded: "Chinese civilization has long formed a grand pattern of pluralism and integration, and the ancient Shu civilization represented by Sanxingdui and Jinsha is not only an important source and component of Chinese civilization, but also one of the most distinctive regional cultures in the community of ancient Chinese civilizations. ”