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Editor's Note
Time flies, the years go by, the year of the oxen. In the zodiac, the steak is second, and the rat is a cow. Don't know when the zodiac will be there, or the week? business? In any case, the zodiac sign is an important element and symbol of Chinese national culture, just as each of us has a genus. Among the many animals, the ancients chose the cow and ranked the ox in second place, which must have his reason. The character of the cow, calm, tenacious and atmospheric, is not exactly the portrayal of the character of our Chinese nation? Cattle have been around for a long time, but the cattle we are accustomed to, that is, the cultivated cattle that are found in a large number of documents, were introduced from West Asia about 5,000 years ago. In archaeology, a large number of specimens of cattle are seen, and even bronze and jade shapes, and cattle are often seen in ornaments. The Shanxi Archaeological Research Institute will launch the theme of cattle excavated from Shanxi Archaeology to share with everyone. I wish you all a happy and auspicious Year of the Ox!
The bucket turns to the stars, the years turn, and the Year of the Ox arrives as scheduled.
On the Internet, I saw several big coffee in the industry in the Year of the Ox to write articles about cattle with archaeological materials, and remembered that a few pieces of jade cattle had also been unearthed in the tomb of a Jinhou lady in the Jinhou Cemetery, and they also took it out to share with everyone, even if it was a hot heat.
Located in Quwo, the original site inside and outside the ruins hall of the Jinguo Museum displays 9 groups of 19 tombs of the Marquis and his wife of Jin, one of which is numbered M63, the plane is "medium" font, the north and south tombs, the north tomb road is step-shaped, the south tomb road is slope-shaped, in the entire Tomb Of Jinhou Cemetery, this tomb is identified as the tomb of the second wife of JinmuHou, the era is a period of time at the turn of the Western Zhou And Spring and Autumn; there are not many bronzes buried in the tomb, the bronze quality is not high and there are some retro phenomena, This is in line with the characteristics of the era from the late Western Zhou Dynasty to the early Spring and Autumn Period when the overall decline of bronze ware also appeared retro and strange phenomena.
What is more interesting is that compared with the overall unbearable bronze, the tomb of this Lady of Jinhou buried a large number of jade objects, from the large jade ge and the big jade bi of the heavy ceremonial vessel, to the 2-meter-long group pendant, from the burial jade cover to the pile of play sketches, which can be described as dazzling, not only rich in categories, and the span of the times is long, you can feel that this Lady of Jinhou loves jade, hides jade, and has a high appreciation, and is a big collector.
Among the many tibetan jade of this Lady of Jinhou, it is worth mentioning that there is a copper box in the northwest corner of the coffin between the coffins, which was originally specially used to store jade, and when it was excavated, the state of the copper box had decayed, and the jade that was originally contained in the box was scattered into a pile, where it lay quietly for two thousand seven or eight hundred years, of which there were several pieces of jade cattle.
These pieces of jade cattle, the shape can be divided into a whole cow and a cow head, the workmanship has a round carving, a piece of carving, and the decoration is textured.
Fig. 1 Round carved whole cow
Round carved whole cow, lying posture, turquoise, chenji type, crescent-shaped horn, short tail, body ornament convex Yangwen, from the mouth and tail with a penetrating hole, the mouth has Qin, length 3.5, width 3.9, height 2.1 cm, now in the Shanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute Houma workstation. (Figure 1)
Fig. 1 2 Round carved whole cow
Piece carving full of cattle, standing posture, light cyan, Chenji type order, crescent-shaped horns, small pointed ears, short tail, plain face, length 7.1, height 3.7, width 0.9, now exhibited in the Shanxi Museum. (Figure 2)
Fig. 2 A whole cow is carved
Cattle, the original archaeological bulletin said that the cattle, round carved whole cattle, dark green, cattle as semi-standing is fixed to a slab, under the neck is supported by a lady-shaped bracket, limbs are forked back and forth, the whole is a struggle, crescent-shaped horns, small pointed ears. There are two sticks under the slab, indicating that the cattle can be carried and moved as a whole. Length 7, width 2.2, height 4 cm, now exhibited in the Shanxi Museum. (Figure 3)
Figure 3 Cattle and cattle
Round carved bull head, green jade, crescent-shaped horns, small pointed ears, courtiers, body ornaments square turning and reducing the Yang text, from the mouth of the cow to the back of the neck there are front and back holes, under the jaw there are bull nose-like perforations. Length 4, width 3, height 2.1 cm. It is now in the Houma Workstation of Shanxi Archaeological Research Institute. (Figure 4)
Fig. 4 Circular carved bull head
Green and white jade bull head (remnant), crescent-shaped large horn inner roll, left corner remnant, a knife mark on the cheek. 4.1 cm long and 3.7 cm wide, it is now in the Houma Workstation of the Shanxi Archaeological Research Institute. (Figure 5)
Bull head round carving, green and white jade, crescent-shaped horns, pointed ears, courtiers, huge bull tongue protruding forward, horns with spiral ornaments. 7.7 meters long, 3.3 meters wide and 2.1 centimeters high, it is now in the Houma Workstation of the Shanxi Archaeological Research Institute. (Figure 6)
Fig. 6 Bull head sculpture
The ornaments of these cattle are all courtesan characters, subtracting the land and Yang wen, and the yin ruins of the good tomb jade modeling characteristics and decorative style of the same withdrawal, with a typical Shang Dynasty style, so the era is the Shang Dynasty, that is to say, these from the Western Zhou, Spring and Autumn Period of the Jin Marquis's tomb jade is left over from the Shang Dynasty, was played for hundreds of years by this Jin Marquis Lady to the tomb, unearthed more than 2,000 years later, we have the honor to see, it is a fate!
In addition to the ornamentation, an important shape of these cattle is that they all look very similar, especially the crescent-shaped large horns and small pointed ears, and on the front, the crescent-shaped horns are very regularly attached to the top of the cow's brain, dignified, handsome, and quiet. Looking closely at the cattle and animals, we can even think of the large-scale sacrifice activities in the past, or the suburban worship, or the ancestor worship, or the Qi Rain, a few strong men carrying the whole cow, the scene is solemn, obviously, these cattle are the records of these activities, these surviving works of art actually reflect some of the sacrifice conditions of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.
Obviously, in the ancient times, especially in the sacrifice activities of the three generations, the cow played an important role.
"The great affairs of the country, in the worship and rong", in the literature, the ancients sacrificed frequently, some sacrificed to the god haotian, some sacrificed to the earth, some sacrificed to the ancestors, and it was not uncommon to use cattle as sacrifices, that is, cattle and animals. Even in their daily political activities, the nobles lived a life of "Bell Ming Ding", he Xiu xieyun in the Spring and Autumn Ram Biography Huan Gong Ii Year: "Ritual sacrifice, Tianzi Jiuding, Princes Seven, Qing Dafu Five, Yuan Shi Sanye." According to the "Ritual Ceremony," usually, Jiuding is a cow, sheep, pig, fish, wax, stomach, skin, fresh fish, fresh wax; seven dings are cattle, sheep, pigs, fish, wax, stomach, stomach, skin; five dings are sheep, pigs, fish, wax, skin; three dings are pigs, fish, wax, wax; one ding is a pig, cattle impressively listed and ranked first.
During the sacrifice, the types of sacrifices are different and there are too strong and less prisons, and the cattle, sheep, and pigs are all prepared as "too tight", and the few prisons are only sheep and pigs, and there are no cattle. The use of cattle to divide the too strong and the less firm shows the weight of the cattle in the sacrifice. Inside, the steak is at the forefront, clearly playing the most important role. A large number of archaeological materials also confirm this, Quwo Yang tongue cemetery No. 1, No. 2 in front of the main tomb more than two hundred sacrifice pits, cattle accounted for a certain proportion, Houma Jinguo Spring and Autumn ancient capital Xintian more than a dozen thousand sacrifice pits, but also saw a lot of cattle individuals, Linyi Cheng Village East Zhou cemetery Dingshi has cattle.
So what kind of cattle were the samples of cattle at that time?
We now see cattle in the northern region, buffalo in the southern region and yak in the Qinghai-Tibet region. According to scholars, domestic cattle originated in The West Asia region more than 10,000 years ago, domesticated by local bison, china's earliest domesticated cattle were about 5600 to 4800 years ago, suddenly appeared in Gansu, and then spread to the east, entering the Central Plains around 4500 years ago; China's living domestic buffalo may have been introduced from Southeast Asia.
In the Paleolithic period of the Pleistocene period, there are wild cattle remains unearthed in both the north and south of China, such as short-horned buffalo, Wang's buffalo, Ding's buffalo, De's buffalo, Yang's buffalo, holy buffalo, ordinary buffalo, ancient Chinese bison, northeast bison, original cattle, large-fronted cattle, etc., which are important hunting objects and sources of materials for ancient ancestors.
Among them, the holy buffalo is unique to China, it is the only large mammal known to china that originated in the Holocene and is extinct, it is distributed in the north and south of China from 8000-3000 years ago, it is another kind of bison, due to climate, man-made over-hunting and the destruction of its habitat environment, to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty has been completely extinct; Henan Anyang Yin Ruins Site Garden Zhuang Dongdi M54 (that is, the Sub-Long Tomb) unearthed a bronze buffalo zun (Figure 7), which is the only cattle-shaped bronze statue found in Yin Ruins, Crescent-shaped short horns, triangular cross-section of horns, short and thick four legs, and rounded posture, this is the prototype of the holy buffalo. Scholars believe through research that the holy buffalo of the Shang and Zhou dynasties in China are wild, and the holy buffalo is worshipped by the ancients with tigers and dragons with its vigor, and appears on bronze and jade as an image.
Figure 7 Bronze Buffalo Zun
Scholars suggest, but from the skeleton point of view, the difference between the holy buffalo and the yellow bull is very subtle, but its pair of horns is very unique, the individual is not large, like a crooked moon, "if you see the horns, even if you are not an expert can distinguish them", which helps us to identify the holy buffalo. And some of the bronzes on the Shang and Zhou Dynasties that are believed to be animal faces are actually holy buffaloes (Figure 8)
Figure 8 The Bronze Ding of the Shang Dynasty in the History of Taipei
The picture is provided by ms. Liu Hui, the public account of "Love Archaeology"
Yin Ruins once unearthed skeletal data of a holy buffalo, and its horns are indeed unique. (Figure IX).
Figure 9 Screenshot of the skull of the holy buffalo in the identification report of Yin Ruins
Photo courtesy of Lü Peng, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Compared with the pictures of the holy buffalo published by scholars and the M54 bronze buffalo statue of the garden Zhuang Dongdi, we found that several pieces of jade cattle excavated from the tomb of the lady of the Cemetery of the Marquis of Jinhou were no different from the images of the holy buffalo, such buffaloes, small individuals, handsome in appearance, especially crescent-shaped horns, different from the "cone-shaped and distorted" scalpers that we are now accustomed to in northern China, perhaps because of its beautiful, regular, and small individuals, which were favored by merchants as a sacrifice tribute to the ancestors of heaven and earth. The Shang Dynasty jade workers captured such a historical image, made it into bronze, jade, and became a work of art, leaving it behind, thus providing us with valuable information for understanding this kind of cattle.
Speaking of cattle, people first think of the bull is soaring, the Shenzhen stock exchange door on a cow, the horn of the bull, the morale is high, I appreciate the cow's calm, tenacious, atmospheric, low-key, introverted, this is also the character of our Chinese nation, the Chinese nation has many disasters and difficulties, but, can come to today and steadily move forward, just like the character of the cow, I firmly believe that the Chinese nation will stand in the east of the world! On the occasion of the Year of the Ox, I would like to give this small document to the Year of the Ox and wish the motherland prosperity and strength!
Transferred from: Archaeological Collection Original Author: Ji Kunzhang
bibliography:
(1) Yang Zhongjian and Liu Dongsheng: "Mammals in Anyang Yin Ruins"
(2) Liu Li, Yang Dongya, Chen Xingcan, "A Preliminary Study on the Origin of Buffalo Breeding in China", Journal of Archaeology, No. 2, 2006, pp. 141-178.
(3) Chen Xingcan: "Is the Holy Buffalo a Domestic Buffalo?" An Investigation of Archaeology and Iconography, in Li Yongdi, ed., Proceedings of the Symposium commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the Excavation of Yin Ruins, pp. 189-210, Taipei: Institute of History and Linguistics, Academia Sinica, 2015.
(4) Yuan Jing: "The Year of the Ox Says Cow", the public account "Wenbo China", January 28, 2021
(5) Lü Peng: "Living Like an Ox", public account "Love Archaeology", February 3, 2021