Lacquer plate
Cover news reporter Dai Zhuxin
Figure according to respondents
The Mawangdui Han Tomb, located in Changsha, Hunan Province, is the tomb of the three families of the Western Han Dynasty Changsha State Minister and the Yuanhou Licang family. Discovered by chance in the 1970s, more than 3,000 precious cultural relics were unearthed, and its well-preserved tomb structure and rich funerary products are a complete presentation of the Han Dynasty lifestyle and funerary concepts.
Among them, the No. 1 tomb of Lady Xin Chai, the wife of Hou Licang, is the most completely preserved, and archaeological discoveries have been made in many aspects from life to art, including calligraphy, culture, spiritual thought and so on.
One of the excavated lacquer plates, black painted on a red background, dotted with clouds. When unearthed, various large plates and small plates were placed on the paint plate, which was very eye-catching. After research, this is a "small dining table" for Mrs. Xin Chai. Accompanied by fine wine and food, she brings her daily life into the underground world she has created, hoping to continue to live happily.
Recently, at the "Spring of Science and Technology" series of popular science lectures at Northwest University, Yu Chun, an internet celebrity "master sister of the Department of Archaeology", an associate professor of the School of Cultural Heritage of Northwest University and a visiting researcher of the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, brought an "academic eating broadcast", which moved the "dining table" of Mrs. Xin Chai more than 2,000 years ago to the modern era and gave the public an open class on archaeology.
When the lacquer plates were unearthed, they contained all kinds of large plates and small plates
Mrs. Xin Chai had to eat meat
"At Mrs. Xinchai's table, it is necessary to eat meat in large bites." Yu Chun introduced that judging from the food found in the tomb, Mrs. Xin Chai carried a large amount of meat into the underground world. Archaeologists found a total of 312 bamboo tablets in the tomb of Mrs. Xin Chai, including a large number of records about meat, in addition to the cattle, sheep, pigs, dogs, etc. familiar to modern people, including deer and other animals that are extinct in the Changsha area today.
The dispatch book can be understood as a document that records the nature of the catalogue of ancient funerary products, reflecting the basic situation of the funerary products at the time of burial more than 2,000 years ago. Through the dispatch book, posterity can see that Mrs. Xin Chai's life can be said to be "very moist" and "birds and animals" have everything. Taking poultry as an example, there are chickens, pheasants, ducks, swallows, partridges, cranes, sparrows, swans, cuckoos and other major species. Among them, "chicken" appears the most often, which to a certain extent also shows that chicken is one of the meats loved by people in the Han Dynasty.
Of course, Mrs. Xin Chai, who lives in the Yangtze River Basin, also loves to eat fish. After a variety of technical means by archaeologists, it was found that Mrs. Xin Chai's table included 9 kinds of fish such as crucian carp, carp, white fish, bream, loach and so on.
Ancient aristocrats also loved to eat "barbecue"
Having figured out the raw materials for food, how did the ancient nobles enjoy the cuisine? Yu Chun introduced Mrs. Xin Chai's "back kitchen team" to the public. The study found that Mrs. Xin Chai's "back kitchen team" can be said to be exquisite in cooking, and the cooking methods for meat are not less than those of modern people, and the more popular ones include hot, soup (boiled, stewed), boiled, boiled, wet, used (wax), preserved and so on.
Kebabs
The oil-nourished roast meat also captured the stomach of more than 2,000 years ago. According to current research, Mrs. Xin Chai's favorite practice is "hot", which is what modern people call "barbecue". In the dispatch book, there are many hot foods, such as "ox burning a piece", "ox riding a hot device", "canine liver burning a device", "deer burning a basket" and so on. "Bamboo basket" is similar to the function of "storage box", and the meaning of "beef scorching" can be roughly understood as "a box of roast beef skewers".
Bamboo wedge
"Soup" is also Mrs. Xin Chai's favorite way of cooking, which is what people now call boiling or stewing. In her broth menu, it is recorded that The uncle (菽) and deer wagyu baitang Yiding; fresh mandarin, Yu (lotus), abalone white soup Yiding; venison, taro white soup Yiding; venison, abalone, raw bamboo shoots white soup Yiding...
In addition, many cooking methods are also recorded in the book: 脍 is a kind of boiled meat, boiling and frying is similar, the practice of "pouring juice" is similar, bacon is made into jerky, etc. Mrs. Xin Chai's strong "back kitchen team" shows people the rich food culture of the Han Dynasty.
Lacquered
Melon, fruit, wine, rice... The "top match" life of the nobility
Nowadays, people's staple foods on the table are very rich, and Mrs. Xin Chai, who lived more than 2,000 years ago, did not "admit defeat", and through archaeology, experts found that her love of staple foods was also quite extensive. Yu Chun introduced that at Mrs. Xin Chai's table, white barley rice and white fresh rice are mainly used as the main food, which is now known as glutinous rice and non-stick rice. Not only that, wheat, barley, millet, soybeans, and red beans are all recorded in the literature.
In addition, the tomb of Mawangdui Han has also unearthed a delicate "Junxing wine" lacquer ear cup, which must also be a fine wine. During the lecture, Yu Chun said that according to the records in the dispatch book, Mrs. Xin Chai's "wine cabinet" contained four kinds of "liquor", namely liquor, rice wine, warm wine, and rib wine.
Not only are there fine wines and delicacies, but also melon fruits, sauces, etc. are also indispensable things in Mrs. Xin Chai's meals. According to Yu Chun, the melons and fruits recorded in the booklet are very rich, as many as 7 kinds. Including melon seeds, dates, pears, plums, bay bayberry and so on. Researchers have found a large number of undigested melon seeds in the esophagus and stomach of Mrs. Xin Chai's body, and some scholars believe that Mrs. Xin Chai may have died violently due to gluttony of melons, causing a burst of cholecystitis.
Moiré lacquer clock
However, Yu Chun believes that melon seeds have medicinal properties in ancient times, and the melon seeds swallowed by Mrs. Xin Chai may be medicinal materials. This inference has some corroboration. In Tomb No. 1 of Mawangdui, other medicines including Maoxiang, Xinyi, and Cinnamon were also found. It can be seen that Mrs. Xin Chai not only brought her favorite food, but also equipped with the medical materials needed in the world behind her, which shows the "high-quality" life of the top nobles.
Under the influence of the Xian Taoist thought of the Han Dynasty, people "died as if they were alive" and formulated a funeral system corresponding to their identity, hoping that Xin Chai's posthumous world could enjoy the same treatment as a lady of the Hou Dynasty. "This is the food on Mrs. Xin Chai's table, leaving us with materials to explore the lives of our ancestors today." In this exploration, scientific and technological archaeology is a very important means and plays an important role in studying human food composition and eating habits.