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Zhenzhitang Guoxueguan: In other words, there are really treasures in the underground of China. Kazuo County, Liaoning Province, is a remote county-level city, and since the founding of the People's Republic of China, eight batches of Shangzhou bronzes have been unearthed continuously. The treasure of the Town Hall of the Liaoning Provincial Museum, the Western Zhou Scroll Body Dragon Cover Bronze Scroll, is a national treasure-level cultural relics excavated from Kazuo. Kazuo is the abbreviation of Qaraqin Left-Wing Mongol Autonomous County, why have bronzes from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties been excavated here many times? Who buried this bronze excavation from Kazuo, Liaoning Province? Follow the True Knowledge Hall and enjoy this bronze national treasure up close.
Western Zhou Scrolls Pattern Dragon Cover: How exquisite can bronze be?
Stepping into the gate of the Liaoning Provincial Museum, there is a bronze piece that will surely catch your eye.
It's so different.
Judging from the extremely strict aesthetic vision of today's people, this bronze heavy vessel named the Western Zhou Scroll Body Scroll Pattern Dragon Cover is undoubtedly an extremely exquisite art treasure.
This piece is 44.5 centimeters high, which is not particularly large in The Shang Zhou bronzes. But it is decorated with three layers of ornamentation throughout, airtight, with the unique mysterious temperament of the typical bronze of the late Shang Dynasty and the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, which makes people feel awe at a glance and can't help but look closely.
The first thing that catches people's eyes is a small monster!
This little beast, located on the lid of the vessel, has a pair of horns on its head, raised eyes, closed mouth and ears, and a body supported by two legs in the shape of a long snake.
That's right, this is the image of the dragon in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.
The dragon of this period, also known as the dragon, refers to a dragon that has not yet ascended to heaven. This is the infancy of the dragon.
It is said that Chinese tamed the dragon monster in his early years, and there is a record in the Bamboo Book Chronicle that Liu Lei raised dragons for Kong Jia, the king of Xia. His ability to raise dragons was learned from the Dragon Clan.
Zhenzhitang Guoxueguan: Dragons are things, what exactly are the ancients referring to? Did it really exist?
This has long been a historical mystery.
Later generations speculated that the ancient dragon either referred to a crocodile or a horse. But both of these speculations are untenable because of the dragon pattern shape in the excavated cultural relics.
The dragon plate unearthed from the Yin Ruins of the Shang Dynasty shows us the full picture of the dragon.
We were surprised to find that the dragon on the YinShang cultural relics in Anyang, Henan in the late tenth century BC was very similar to the dragon pattern in Yanshi Erlitou, Henan around the fourteenth century BC. It can be seen that Xia Shang is a cultural system passed down from generation to generation.
Dragons are creatures that, in the eyes of the ancients, were definitely not crocodiles or horses.
The little dragon sat comfortably on the lid, and from today's point of view, the prototype of this dragon is most likely a snail.
Snails often fall from the sky because of rain, and their appearance is very similar to the dragon pattern of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. Did our ancients regard a giant snail-like creature that later became extinct as a small dragon?
Let's look at the body again.
Zhenzhitang GuoxueGuan: The name given by the museum is, Western Zhou Scroll Body Scroll Pattern Dragon Gaiyi.
罍, is a small-mouthed, wide-shouldered, deep-abdomen, circle-footed, lidded wine vessel.
The bronze ware of the late Shang Dynasty and the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, with the emphasis on wine vessels, is closely related to the good wine of merchants.
The so-called "hammer pattern" refers to a one-legged dragon-shaped creature, that is, the ancient book said "one foot". It is said that the Yellow Emperor made a large drum out of the skin of the hammer, and the sound was hundreds of miles.
The appreciation of bronzes has a trick.
What kind of bronze is the most precious? In addition to the inscriptions, the main thing is the shape of the watcher and the ornamentation.
Internationally, the most valued bronze is the so-called Zhou Ding Shang Yi.
Among the Zhou Ding Shang Yi, the most precious thing is the instrument of the late Shang Dynasty and the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty. Further afield or backward, bronze art never reached the pinnacle of this period again.
Because the merchants revered the gods and killed people to do things, the bronze ware of the late Shang Dynasty, starting from Wuding, entered the highest peak in the history of bronze art.
In the hearts of the ancients, the best thing is not to enjoy it yourself, but to dedicate it to the emperor and the gods. Therefore, many of the bronzes we saw at the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty were most likely cast by merchants and taken away by the Zhou people after the fall of the country.
Shinchido Kokugakukan: During this period, huge manpower and material resources were expended to make these extremely exquisite bronzes. The three-layer flower process appeared.
The so-called three-layer flower is a carving and decoration process:
That is, the ornamentation is divided into three layers, the first layer is carved with a yin carved line to carve out the cloud thunder pattern, the vortex is used as a shading, the second layer is used to express the main body with the technique of bas-relief, and the third layer is carved on the main body with a yin carved line to express the details of the process.
This places very high demands on the mold engraving of bronzes. Compared with the one-yin and one-yang ornaments popular in the middle of the Shang Dynasty, the artifacts of the three-layer flower craft have a shocking artistic effect.
Kazuo bronze ware group, ancient lone bamboo country or Yan country treasure?
After reading this bronze pendant, I believe that many friends will have a strong interest in its origin.
At first glance, this piece is a heavy weapon of the royal family during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. It needs extremely strong national strength to be designed and forged.
So, when exactly was it cast? And why was it buried? Who was its original owner?
Let's first take a look at the bizarre birth experience of the national treasure.
The clock of time has to be set back to the 1950s.
In May 1955, shortly after the end of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, several villagers in Yingzi Village, Haidao, Lingyuan County, Liaoning Province, put into spring ploughing production. Suddenly there was a click, and a green and gloomy thing came out of the plow. Everyone stopped and looked around, it turned out to be a bronze piece.
Shinchido Kokugakukan: Copper is a strategic material that can be used to produce bullets. Copper has also been used as a currency for thousands of years. So everyone suddenly came to be interested, this thing can be exchanged for money. Everyone hoeed and dug out 16 pieces of bronze, all of which were sold as scrap copper to the Flat House Cooperative.
Thanks to a villager surnamed Tang who was more knowledgeable, he took a lid and ran to find the local principal. See if these things are more valuable.
The headmaster looked at it, this is a bronze, ah, can not be sold as scrap copper!
The two reported to the province, and the Rehe Provincial Museum, which was in preparation, sent someone to buy the sixteen bronzes.
This batch of bronzes was the first batch of the later famous Kazuo bronze group.
Later, seven or eight batches of bronzes were discovered in the Kazuo area, and our national treasure bronze was excavated in 1973 in Beidong Village, Pingzhu Township, Kazuo County, Liaoning Province.
The bronzes unearthed this time, known as the North Cave Bronzes, have a total of two cellars, a total of 12 large bronzes have been excavated, and five pieces of bronze have been excavated in one of the pits, for a total of six bronzes.
Coincidentally, in 1974, 22 bronzes were excavated in the local village of Shanwanzi. Including the famous Bo Zhi Zhen, Niu Wen Zhen, Shi Fang, Yin Gui, Father Yi Gui, GengFu Peng, etc., are all excavated in this batch.
The question is, what is the holy land of Kazuo County, and why have so many batches of bronze heavy weapons been excavated?
Since the excavated cultural relics contain inscriptions with the characters of Yanhou, as well as inscriptions with the characters of Lone Bamboo and Jizi, scholars have three opinions:
The first two opinions believe that these bronzes may be the things buried by the gods and rivers at the beginning of the establishment of the Yan kingdom, or the treasures of the Yan kingdom buried during the yan king's flight to the north before the fall of the Yan kingdom.
There is also an opinion that this place should be the artifacts buried by the Lone Bamboo People of the Late Shang Dynasty and the Zhou Dynasty, and some of the artifacts belong to the late Shang Dynasty. So, which statement is closer to historical truth?
A mysterious national treasure
Zhenzhitang GuoxueGuan: Judging from the bronze artifact cellar excavated in Liaoning Province, the general scholar will associate it with the Yan Kingdom for the first time.
The State of Yan is the oldest of the Seven Warring States, and the State of Yan lasted for 822 years from the time when Zhao Gongyi was divided into this place.
There is a period of unknown history in the early Yan kingdom, according to expert research, the Site of Liulihe in Beijing is the location of the earliest capital of the Yan kingdom.
The Liulihe site has unearthed the early Western Zhou Dynasty
The kazuo bronzes unearthed with the character Yanhou are clear proof that these bronzes belong to the Yan kingdom?
If so, then what is the explanation of the Shang Dynasty style artifacts and inscriptions such as lone bamboo in bronzes? Moreover, this place is not the capital of the Yan Kingdom, so why are there bronzes of the Yan royal family rank buried here?
Some scholars have researched that after Prince Dan of Yan sent the assassin Jing Ke to assassinate Qin and failed, the Qin general Wang Qi sent troops to cut down Yan. King Xi of Yan fled north to Liaodong and made Xiangping (襄平; present-day Liaoyang, Liaoning) the capital until the final fall of the country.
This batch of bronzes should have been buried in the land of Kazuo due to its excessive size and difficult to carry during the escape of King Xi of Yan.
However, there are still obvious loopholes in this theory, and most of the bronzes excavated from the cellar are basically the artifacts of the late Shang and early Zhou dynasties and lack the typical artifacts of the Warring States period.
This piece is designated as a bronze pendant of the Western Zhou Dynasty, although there is no inscription, but the gluttonous shaped animal head on the body is a common ornament on the bronze ware of the Shang Dynasty.
We can find its figure in artifacts from the same period of the Shang Dynasty.
The picture below is the famous Shang Dynasty bronze vessel "Pan Tian Quan Fang Wei" collected by the Hunan Provincial Museum, which we can compare and see;
Both are gluttonous-shaped animal heads and elephant-nosed dragon stripes, both have great similarities. It's just that one elephant's nose is rolled down and one elephant's nose is rolled up.
Judging from the comparison of these two bronzes, this bronze that was designated by the Liaoning Provincial Museum as the early Western Zhou Dynasty should also be regarded as a late Shang Dynasty object.
Its owner should be the famous Shang Zhou Lone Bamboo Country in history.
Zhenzhitang Guoxueguan: Many people may not know about the Lone Bamboo Country, but when it comes to Boyi Shuqi, basically everyone knows it. Bo Yi Shuqi was a famous sage at the end of the Shang Dynasty and the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, and after the fall of Yin Shang, the two swore not to eat Zhou Su and died. The two are the princes of the Lone Bamboo Kingdom.
"Analects of the Ji Clan": "Boyi and Shuqi were hungry under the Shouyang, and the people are now called them." ”
The Lone Bamboo Kingdom, that is, the princely states that were divided during the wuding period of the Shang king, belonged to the royal family of the Shang.
"A Unified Chronicle": "Wu Ding analyzed the Huang Luo of the Lone Bamboo to seal the princes."
"Zhuangzi Let the King": "In the past Zhou Zhixing, there were two scholars, in a lonely bamboo. ”。
As a Shang royal family, after the death of the Shang, the two did not eat the grain of the Zhou Dynasty and starved to death, which was also considered to be the death of a gentleman, and died as he deserved.
So, did the Kazuo region, where bronzes were excavated, belong to the territory of the Lone Bamboo State during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties? It really is!
According to statistics, in the Chaoyang area of Liaoning Province, from the south to the town of Zuizi in Kazuo Mountain, to the north to Damiao Township in Chaoyang County, along the banks of the Daling River for 110 kilometers, a total of 69 bronze ceremonial vessels of the Shang Zhou Dynasty have been unearthed.
Many bronzes are inscribed with the inscription "Lone Bamboo".
According to the Chronicle of The Lands, "The ancient city of Guzhu was in the southern twelve miles of Lulong County, Pingzhou, and the princely states of Yin Shi were also there. ”
From this point of view, these eight batches of 69 bronzes from the Shang and Zhou dynasties should not have been buried by the same batch of people in the same period. The vast majority of bronzes belong to the Ancient Bamboo State of the Zhou Dynasty, which was contemporaneous with the Yan Kingdom. A small number of cellars may be related to the fact that before the fall of the Yan state, Yan Houxi fled north to Liaoyang.
epilogue
Shinchido Kokugakukan: This concludes the article. Most of these batches of bronzes belonged to the zhou dynasty monarch of the lone bamboo state, and some of them were retained by their ancestors since the Shang Dynasty. Our protagonist today, the curly body of the dragon gaimu, also belongs to the lone bamboo country.
So, when were these bronzes buried in the ground? The True Knowledge Hall researchers believe that:
The burial time of this batch of lone bamboo country bronzes is related to the Spring and Autumn Period when the Duke of Qi Huan went north to save Yan, and incidentally destroyed the lone bamboo country.
The time of the fall of the Lone Bamboo Kingdom was about 660 BC. The "Chinese" records: "The Duke of Qi Huan went north to shanrong, slashed the lingzhi, cut the lone bamboo and returned to the south." ”
The national treasures of the lone bamboo hidden by Kazuo were hastily buried when the Qi army was pressing the border and the country was about to perish.
Western Zhou bronze
"Denpisi Mountain, Pick Up The Wei."
Violence is easy to be violent, and I don't know what it is.
Shennong Yu Xia suddenly did not have a, I am comfortable to return to Xi?
Whew, the decline of fate!"
Let's take the verse of "Cewei" written by Bo YiShuqi as a summary of this article. The wheels of history rolled forward, dimming the shadow of the sword and light, and far away from the flames and dust. But these exquisite artifacts are left behind, so that future generations can remember and sigh.
(The picture and text originate from the original author of the online copyright)
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