Dahe News Yu video reporter Huang Ting
In the Pingdingshan Museum, there is a late Western Zhou Dynasty eagle-shaped jade, the jade is white and blue, slightly transparent, this jade "eagle" with a warm luster, as the emblem of Pingdingshan City is embedded in the urban sculpture.
In 1986, this white jade thread carved eagle excavated in the Yingguo cemetery is 2.2 cm long, 5.7 cm wide, weighs 16 grams, the jade eagle has natural brown spots on the top of the head and right wing, and the ancient craftsmen deliberately use the "pretty color" technique to carve it, and the eagle spreads its wings and flies, forming a perforation with its mouth. There is also a small perforation at the front of each wing, and the eagle's eye, eagle's back, and feathers are all linear eagles. The two claws are made into long strips, curled under the body. The head is carved in high relief, and the body is carved into an arch by the method of flat carving.
This lifelike and divine white jade thread carved eagle makes every viewer marvel at the exquisite carving skills of these two thousand years ago, and it still emits a warm luster to this day, silently pouring out the far-reaching historical origins of "Eagle City" and the cultural customs of the ancestors of the ancient Yingdi.
The inscription "Eagle" confirms the burial place of the nobles of yingguo
On April 15, the reporter Lou Jinshan, a research librarian at the Pingdingshan Museum, came to the site of yingguo cemetery in Pingdingshan City. "You see here, these jagged soil layers are caused by villagers burning bricks to take soil in the 1970s," Lou Jinshan pointed to, is a densely vegetated grove, the soil section has long been covered with green grass, "After I graduated from college in 1986, I reported here with a package on my back, and participated in the excavation of the Yingguo Ancient Tomb Group at that time, and stationed here for a full decade. ”
Lou Jinshan told reporters that Pingdingshan City was the seat of the Ancient YingGuo from the early Western Zhou Dynasty to the early Spring and Autumn Period, and in the submerged area in the northwest corner of the Baigui Mountain Reservoir in Pingding Mountain, there was originally a Town of Xiaoyang, which was the ancient city of Guyingguo.
Coming to the center of the Yingguo Cemetery site, Lou Jinshan said: "The ancients believed that the high terrain of the place had good feng shui, coupled with the delicate soil here, so it became the first choice for the tombs of the nobles of the Yingguo. This narrow earthen mound, which is 2400 meters long and 100 meters wide from north to south, is commonly known as the Yingyang Ridge, and the Yingguo Cemetery is bordered by the Ying River in the west, across the river from the remnants of Funiu Mountain - Ying Mountain, and south of the Baiguishan Reservoir and the Shahe River (that is, the ancient water). In the 70s of the last century, when local villagers burned bricks and soil on the Yingyang Ridge, they stumbled upon some bronzes, and after archaeologists examined the inscription of the word 'eagle' on the bronzes, they confirmed that the Yingling Mountains were the burial places of the nobles and their descendants of the Western Zhou Yingguo. ”
A white jade thread eagle was found in the Yingguo cemetery
Going back in time to May 1986, the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Pingdingshan Municipal Cultural Relics Protection and Management Committee jointly excavated Tomb No. 1 of the Corresponding National Cemetery. According to the observation of the remaining bones in the tomb, the owner of the tomb is a middle-aged male. The burial utensils in the coffin are mainly ornaments worn by the tomb owner before his death, most of which are jade, distributed around the skeleton, and the white jade line carved eagle is located at the pelvic bone of the tomb owner. In addition to the jade eagle, other jade artifacts such as jade qun, jade cicada, and jade huang have also been unearthed.
Lou Jinshan told reporters: "This white jade thread carved eagle has the significance of the clan emblem. Judging from the hieroglyphic word 'eagle' in the excavated bronze inscription, it is a combination of the word 'bird' plus the word 'guang'. The meaning of adding the word 'wide' does not refer to the general bird, but specifically refers to the bird with developed pectoral muscles and can fly high for a long time, that is, the eagle. Therefore, it can be judged that Tomb No. 1 is a Yinghou tomb in the late Western Zhou Dynasty of the Yingguo Cemetery. ”
In the 20 years from 1986 to 2006, Lou Jinshan's archaeological team excavated more than 500 tombs in Pingdingshan's XiangyangLing, and unearthed more than 10,000 pieces of copper, pottery, bone, jade, shells and other relics, revealing the historical and cultural features of this long-lost ancient country in the Central Plains.
The name "Eagle City" is derived from the Jade Eagle
Yingguo culture has enriched the history of Pingdingshan and created Pingdingshan culture. In the oracle bones, the word "ying" and the word "eagle" of YingGuo are homologous characters, the capital city of Yingguo is Yingcheng, that is, Eagle City, which should be used as a totem by people to show worship, and a large number of cultural relics with eagles as the image unearthed by archaeological excavations in Yingguo Cemetery prove that eagles are cultural symbols of Yingguo. The appearance of the white jade line carved eagle in the Yingguo cemetery complements and echoes with the culture of the Yingguo.
In 1987, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the founding of Pingdingshan City, Hao Bensheng, a paleography expert and former director of the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, proposed to the municipal party committee and the municipal government to make Eagle City an alias for Pingdingshan City to commemorate the glorious ancient Yingguo civilization that once appeared in this area. In order to remember the history and inherit the culture, the Pingdingshan Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government adopted this suggestion, and embedded the image of the jade eagle excavated from Tomb No. 1 of the Yingguo Cemetery as the city emblem of Pingdingshan in the city sculpture. Since then, Pingdingshan has had an alias with profound cultural heritage - Eagle City. "Eagle City" comes from this, implying that the flat-topped mountain is like an eagle, and the development momentum of spreading its wings and soaring is unstoppable. Nowadays, the alias of "Eagle City" has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and the spirit of the eagle has also become the city spirit of Pingdingshan.
The origin and rise and fall of the country
Entering the Pingdingshan Museum, the bronze ware of the Five Dings and Six Seals displayed in the Yingguo Impression Exhibition Hall indicates the ceremonial status of the Yingguo Princely States. Yingguo was a princely state surnamed Ji in the Central Plains during the two-week period, and there are few ancient documents about its history. The territory of Yingguo was roughly from the Nanyang Basin in the south to most of the Ru River Basin in the north, and its central area was in the area of pingdingshan in present-day Henan Province, including parts of Pingdingshan City, Baofeng County, Lushan County, Ye County, Xiangcheng County, Wu County, and Ruzhou City. Before the discovery of the YingGuo cemetery, there was less awareness of yingguo. According to ancient legend, the Yan clan of the Dongyi clan and the Gou Long clan of the Yan Emperor in the northwest united to form the Ying Long clan, and in the Battle of Zhuolu and Hanquan, where the Yellow Emperor defeated Xuan You, he made great achievements in battle, settled in the area of present-day Ying County and Yanmen Mountain in Shanxi Province, and later moved to Pingdingshan City, Henan Province, and the capital of dingguo was Yuyang.
It is recorded in the "Water Jing Zhuo Shui Shui" (水经注· 滍水): "The city of Ying, in the name of YingShan Mountain, is thirty miles east of Ruzhou Lushan County. "In the Shang Dynasty oracle bones, there are also records of Ying Guo. Anyang Yin Xu Bu Ci "Continuation" 3.30.6 recorded: "Gengzi Bu, in his own self, the king of Zhen followed in response, no disaster? "In the middle of the Shang Dynasty, the Ying Kingdom and the Shang Dynasty were geographically adjacent and had the same origin, and the relationship between the two sides was very close. The monarch of Yingguo often went to the Shang King or paid tribute to the Shang Dynasty. The King of Shang also constantly cared about Ying Jun's situation, or personally went to Ying Guo to inspect and hunt. During this period, the State of Ying was already a relatively powerful vassal state defending the land of the Shang Dynasty, and was a very important barrier to the western part of the Shang Dynasty. In the last year of the Shang Dynasty, King Wen of Zhou, in order to make a plan for the Shang, first destroyed the qí (qí) state and the Ying state. King Wu of Zhou was able to drive straight in and destroy Yin Shang.
According to the "Twenty-four Years of the Left Turning Duke", the early Zhou Dynasty implemented a system of sub-feudalism, and the person who sealed the state was Ying Shu, the fourth son of King Wu, and was called Ying Hou. Because this time it was re-divided on the land of Yingguo, it was still called Yingguo after its old name, and the capital was later moved to the area of the former Town of Yingyang in Pingdingshan, Henan.
The first generation of Ying Hou was deeply appreciated and trusted by the king. Later, Ying Hou made great contributions in helping Zhou Ping settle the rebellion, and the "Poetry daya Xiawu" records that Ying Hou was praised by King Cheng: "Meizi is alone, Ying Hou Shunde." And is known as "Ying Gong".
At the beginning of the 7th century BC, the Ying state was destroyed by the State of Chu and was founded about 360 years ago. After the fall of the Chu state, Ying Jun, members of the clan and some nobles were dismissed in the interior of the Chu state, and the names of Ying Shan and Ying Cheng in present-day Hubei Province, and Ying Shui in Hunan Province were all related to this.
Source: Dahe News Yu Video Editor: Liu Huijie