Travel through time and years
The mysterious "tiger cannibal" ornament on the queen mother Peng Dafangding
The 833-kilogram "Houmu Peng Dading" in the National Museum is the heaviest bronze ever known in ancient times. With its complex technology, exquisite ornamentation and magnificent temperament, it has become a masterpiece of highly developed bronze culture and art in the Shang Dynasty.
Experts estimate that the casting of this ding, the required metal raw materials more than 1,000 kilograms; but also need a number of types of work tightly organized, division of labor and cooperation, fine carving, repeated pouring.
So, how did this 3,000-year-old oriental bronze treasure, the wordless and breathtaking "Stepmother Peng Dading", break the sky and come out in a dazzling way?
Houmu Penta bronze da fang ding
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introduction.
One day more than 3,000 years ago, when the first rays of morning light broke through the hazy fog and accurately outlined the majestic posture of the tall palace on the bank of the Huanshui River, a "young minister" named Yezi rushed through the heavily guarded gate of the palace, ready to meet the Shang King.
The "minor ministers" of the Shang Dynasty were state officials who had a skill and were specifically in charge of the affairs of the royal family. For example, "maichen" is engaged in religious dances of praying for rain and sacrifice; "niuchen" specializes in cattle herding; "Dianchen" is engaged in agricultural labor in Diandi.
At this moment, above the solemn and smoke-filled hall, the 24th generation of Shang Wang Zu Geng was playing with a small bronze model with a glittering blue light, and his thoughts could not help but be thought of, he remembered his mother who died young, and remembered his bumpy life...
According to the oracle bones, Zu Geng's mother was called "Lady Concubine" and the temple name was "E", and was the first wife of Wu Ding, the 23rd king of the Shang Dynasty.
Prince Zu Gengli died shortly after E, and Wu Ding, the powerful Shang king, soon married a female general in Chinese history who was able to conquer good wars and was famous and famous (the temple name was "Xin", and he had a son Zu Jia).
The "woman who can go up to the hall, get the kitchen, and can also ride the battlefield" is particularly favored by Wu Ding, and loves Wu and Wu, and the King of Shang wants to change his younger son Zu Jia as the prince.
As the news spread, the government and the opposition shook and talked about each other, and they saw that a chaotic situation of brothers turning against each other and killing each other was about to be staged.
However, his younger brother Zujia did not lose a benevolent man, and he thought that the abolition of his brother was an unjust act that would cause turmoil in the country, so he left Miyagi and quietly lived in seclusion.
After the thrilling Zu Geng inherited the throne, whenever he thought of the heavenly gods' protection and the mother's nurturing grace, he wanted to cast an unprecedented ceremonial instrument- the bronze Dafangding, dedicated to the great mother, to worship and thank his mother and the gods for their protection, and take the opportunity to once again show that his throne was "ordained by heaven" and "divine right of kings".
At the thought of when the "Stepmother DaFangding" appeared in front of the world with its majestic, domineering, and dazzling appearance, the vicious and terrifying tiger-eating ornamentation and the huge and majestic volume gave a great psychological shock to the slave civilians who were creeping on the ground and worshipping, and the locked eyebrows of the Shang King Zu Geng gradually relaxed...
Early in the morning, he eagerly summoned the casting copper national hand and the smelting family "Yezi" to study the casting of the "Queen Mother Peng Da Fang Ding".
Wu Ding and the woman in the conquest are good
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"Divination" and "sacrifice" before casting.
01 Divination. Like today's major project commencement ceremony, carefully select meaningful good day practices. In ancient times, the Shang Dynasty people, through divination, clearly cast the country's heavy weapon, the zodiac auspicious day of the Houmu Peng Bronze Dafangding, and did not dare to be sloppy at all.
"Divination" was an important activity that influenced the decision-making of the Shang Kings. At that time, whether it was sacrifice, conquest, celestial signs, disease, life and death, construction and casting, it was necessary to divinate auspiciousness.
The Shang Dynasty in Anyang, the capital, inherited the practice of burning bone pieces and predicting auspiciousness according to cracks. During divination, the bottom of the drill and chisel (cow bone and tortoiseshell) is heated, and a crack appears on the other side, explaining the shape of the crack as an answer to the questions asked to the ancestors.
On this sunny and breezy morning, The Shang King Zu Geng, surrounded by the stars of the honor guard, came to the ancestral temple in Xiaotun by the Huanshui River and began to divinate for his mother's casting day.
At the scene, there were courtiers in bright robes and jade jue; Zu Geng, the king of Shang, who wore a crown and was pious and dignified; the "zhenren" who asked bu, the spokesman of the shang king; the "buren" who performed the divination process; the "zhanren" who was in charge of explaining the meaning of the cracks; the "history" official who recorded the entire divination process and carved it on the armor and bone...
After some tense operations with no lack of ritual sense, the divined tortoise shell crackled under the baking of the flames, and exploded into several long, unimpeded "ink" patterns in a mysterious green smoke, and the Shang King Zu Geng could not help but secretly breathe a sigh of relief.
The auspiciousness in the oracle bone is basically determined by the cracks in the tortoiseshell.
On the front of the tortoiseshell, there are "Bu" shaped cracks called "Mega Lines"; "Mega Lines" vertically "Mega Gan" are called "Ink", and horizontal "Mega Branches" are called "Zhao".
As for what is auspicious and auspicious in the vertical and horizontal lines, you have to ask the "zhanren" of the Shang Dynasty, who are the only authority for the characterization of divination results.
The Shang King divination scene
Oracle of the Shang Dynasty
02 Sacrifice. Due to the difficulty of casting large bronzes at that time, it was very easy to fail, and in order to obtain the blessing of the ancestral gods, some animals were often killed before casting to sacrifice.
In the royal family of emperor Yi Andi Xin's era, there is such a record: "Wang Qi cast Huang Lu, laid the blood, and went straight to the present day Yi Weili?" ("Huang Lu" is a golden copper ore material, "Blood Sacrifice" is sacrificed by human animals)
During the Yin Shang Dynasty, "the great affairs of the country are in the worship and the rong". The supreme ruler, the Shang King, used to paralyze commoner slaves to gain their own psychological comfort to strengthen their rule— frequent "sacrifices" were the most important components of the ritual system.
"Whoever governs people, do not rush to pay tribute, there are five sutras in etiquette, and it is not more important than sacrifice." (The Book of Rites and Sacrifices)
In the implementation of the ceremonial system, the blue light is shining, and a large number of bronze ceremonial vessels such as ding, zun, and knight are indispensable, and they are placed in the most important position. The status of the bronze itself has been firmly established in the Shang Dynasty, becoming a symbol of theocracy and patriarchal power, and the ceremonial system and bronze are naturally combined, which is the so-called "Tibetan ceremonial vessel".
Bronzes and human animals in Shang Dynasty tombs
At the order of the young minister in charge of the killing, he saw the scene of the sacrifice, the executioner held up a shining and cold bronze sword and axe, and the rows of slaves who were tied to kneeling and the blood of the captives were splashed on the hunting flag of the altar in a cry of pain.
Human sacrifice refers to the sacrifice of people like cattle, sheep and pigs to ancestors and gods, and the human animals of the Shang Dynasty were prisoners of war and slaves.
Archaeology found that there are more than 2,000 sacrificial pits in the palace Zongmiao area of The Yin Ruins in Anyang, and tens of thousands of human animals are buried in the pits.
According to incomplete statistics, in the era of Wuding, the Shang King, who was constantly conquering, there were more than a thousand divinations about human sacrifices in the oracle bone confessions, of which the largest one used five hundred people.
"癸 ugly Bu, Zhen, five hundred [servants], Xun Nong Shu (侑戌用僕[hundred]." (Oracle Collection, 562)
In the eerie and bloody place of sacrifice, the devotees (Shang Kings, Great Slave Owners and Nobles) use the three-dimensional real image of full of human animals and sacrificial bronzes to strive to deepen the sensory stimulation of slave civilians, directly hit people's hearts, arouse the viewer's deep reverence for the gods, and wear the spiritual shackles of "Divine Divine Right" and "Destined by Heaven" in the dark, thus submitting to the absolute rule of the Great Slave Lord (Shang King) for generations.
To this day, the body of the quaint and majestic stepmother Peng Ding, who is simple and majestic, still exudes a silent power that strikes people's hearts.
A grand scene of ancient sacrifice
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Are the three elements of copper, tin and lead for casting Dading ready?
The auspicious day was set, and the young minister Yezi, who shouldered the heavy responsibility of casting, began to prepare the raw materials busily. The supply center of bronze product raw materials in the Shang Dynasty originated from ancient mines such as Hubei Copper Green Mountain in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and Ruichang Tongling in Jiangxi.
Through frequent wars, the Shang Dynasty established a permanent military stronghold in Panlong City, Huangpi, Hubei Province, and successively controlled the copper mining rights of Copper Green Mountain and Ruichang. A large amount of copper ore was transported by vehicle ship to Anyang, the capital of Yinshang, ensuring the huge demand for raw materials for Shangwang bronze casting.
The area of the tomb of Nühao discovered in 1976 is only more than 20 square meters, but 468 pieces of bronzes were excavated at one time, with a total weight of 1.6 tons.
With copper, where does the indispensable amount of lead come from? According to the lead isotope tracing technology, it was found that the bronzes with high lead isotope ratio excavated in the Central Plains were derived from the "Gufang" (Liaoning, Hebei) in the northern region of the Shang Dynasty; the bronze ore with low lead isotope ratio came from the "Tiger Fang" and "Sanmiao" (Jiangxi, Hunan and other places) in the south of the Dynasty.
Shang Dynasty Panlong City model
44 years ago, the "Simu Xin Bronze Ding" was found in the tomb of The Lady Hao, and experts compared it with the Houmu Peng Ding, and the inscriptions, ornaments, alloy ratios, and shapes are very similar, indicating that they come from the same era.
The "Houmu Peng Bronze Ding" contains 84.77% copper, 11.64% tin and 2.79% lead, which is basically consistent with the proportion of copper and tin recorded in the "Record of Examination Workers", highlighting the inherent inheritance of ancient Chinese bronze civilization.
"Zhong Ding's Qi six points its gold and tin one.". (Bronze ratio in Zhou Li and Kao Gong Ji)
In the copper ore smelting workshop with a clear division of labor, the bare-chested and shirtless slaves sweated like rain, the workshops and workshops were filled with high temperatures and smoke, and the red fire reflected the dusk sky from time to time.
Under the patient guidance of the craftsmen, the sweaty slaves removed the scum, repeatedly purified, and cast them into pieces of copper ingots in preparation for casting the Dading.
Bronze knife excavated from Panlong City in the Shang Dynasty
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Carefully organized, division of labor casting.
In the ancient Yin Shang era, the production of Ding was far from being able to be carried out by ordinary people. In particular, the large and decorated Dading must have a certain production site, production materials, production technology, and close division of labor and cooperation between craftsmen and slaves to complete.
For example, the casting of the post-mother pentyl is divided into different types of work, such as "embryo maker", "mold maker", "engraver", "model maker", "casting worker", "grinder" and so on.
The cooling rate of copper alloys with different baking times is also different, and it must be unified command, coordination, step by step, and quick completion.
After the personnel, raw materials, and venue are all in place, the casting process and production procedures that complement each other must also be meticulous, and a little mistake will lose its head.
For small bronze objects, the production is relatively simple: after the mud sample is prepared, the molten copper liquid is injected into the gate, and after the copper liquid solidifies and cools, the model can be removed and the casting can be removed.
The method of pouring into a complete instrument shape at one time is called "hun casting" or "integral casting". Most of the Shang Zhou artifacts are cast in this way.
However, for the huge and complex "stepmother pentadyl", the overall pouring of the "hun casting" is difficult to operate and cannot be realized.
Copper Mine Site of Patina Mountain
The size of bronzes in the Shang Dynasty gradually increased, the ornamentation tended to be cumbersome and complex, and the combined clay model method came into being and developed rapidly.
"Combined mud fan method", that is, in the required parts of the production of each living block of the model, and then placed in the corresponding part outside the mud mold, the mud turned over the outer model, each small piece of the fan is embedded in a whole piece of the outer model, to solve the problem of difficulty in making the model.
For super-large bronzes, a multiple casting process is used. Specifically, the casting is cast twice or multiple times, first casting the ears, feet, and other accessories or body, and pre-casting the joint mortise and other structures on the connection part of the body first cast, and then closely connecting the main body or attachments.
In the middle and late Shang Dynasty, when bronze casting technology reached its peak, the sub-standard casting and casting technology has been mastered by people. At that time, the coordinated Craftsmen were able to use multiple types of internal and external models to form composite models to cast large bronzes of more than 100 kilograms.
"Punishment (type) Fan Zheng, Jin Ximei, GongYe Qiao, Fire Qide." ("Gou Situation, Strong Soldier")
According to research, the 833 kg of the houmu Peng Da Fang Ding, from its casting marks observation, the Ding body is composed of eight outer models, the bottom of the ding is composed of four outer models, each ding foot has three pieces of external model composition, the block block is reasonable, to ensure the integrity of the entire bronze.
Bronze artifacts excavated from the tomb of the Shang Dynasty women
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The stepmother Peng Ding was born gorgeously and came out with a dazzling appearance.
01 Embryo making. Time goes back to a scorching noon in the 3,000 years, a group of slaves are busy on the edge of the earth cliff of Linhuanshui, they hold bone shovels, copper shovels, and dig down laterite blocks with strong viscosity and plasticity; another group of slaves use primitive and simple wheelbarrows to unload laterite blocks into a large pool near the foundry, and after repeated sieving and sedimentation of clay pots, they generate delicate mud, and after a little drying, they form a square and regular mud block (sculpture mud embryo).
02 Engraving molding. How is the pattern on the hindmuth of the mother cast?
After the clay mold is molded, the ornament is carved when it dries to the appropriate hardness. For the layout of strict, standardized and neat ornaments, generally first use a color pen on the plain tire and then engrave, and the pattern above the table is formed with mud on the surface, and then carved on it.
The decorative process of bronze is to use different techniques to concentrate on a variety of attractive decorative techniques on the surface of bronze. It is directly on the mold or model with tools such as engraving knives to sculpt out a variety of concave ornaments.
A Shang Dynasty jade man unearthed from the tomb of The Lady Hao
03 Model making process. Turning the model from the mold is very technical, and it is the central link of the block fan casting technology. Under the personal supervision of the master of smelting, two experienced fan reproduction masters were entrusted with heavy responsibilities.
The two first blew the very fine grass and wood ash to the surface of the clay sculpture, and then carefully and evenly pressed the prepared and delicate clay to the hard and dry clay sculpture little by little, first high and then low, layer after layer of careful pressing, and soon the Fan module was pressed.
Moderate soil, after repeated beating, rubbing, but also after a long period of infiltration, to make it qualitative. This good mud is handy when turning the example.
After that, he picked up a sharp bronze knife and measured it symmetrically with a ruler to cut it down, so that a whole piece of mud model was divided into several symmetrical modules. After the clay is slightly drier, the mold is released, and due to the separation of grass and wood ash, the fan block is smoothly detached from the clay prototype.
04 Firing model. After many days of meticulous carving and failed rework, the sculpture and model mold of houmu Peng Bronze Ding were finally completed. After the clay mold is dried, it is sent to the pottery field and placed neatly in the pottery oven. The skill of firing models was passed down from generation to generation, and soon pottery models were successfully fired.
05 Core making program. For the production of the core, there are the following methods: one is to turn the outer model from the model, use the model to make the core, that is, the surface of the model is scraped, the thickness of the scraping is the thickness of the cast copper, this process is mostly limited to small and medium-sized copper; the second is to make the model hollow, out of its abdominal cavity, and make the out of the core and the bottom fan into a piece. For large hindema pentacinium, the second approach is basically adopted.
Bronze artifacts excavated from the tomb of the lady
06 Combination fan process. After the internal and external models are prepared, make the gates and risers, and then accurately conform to the model according to the predetermined position. After the combination of castings, the outside is usually bundled and reinforced, and some also have to add grass and mud to increase the strength of the force. After the fan is closed, the fan is roasted to 600 ~ 800 ° C, so that the mud fan has both low gas emission and good thermal shock resistance.
07 Melt copper casting Ding. The last process of casting bronze began, under the roaring fire, the sweating slaves took copper ingots from the storehouse and put them into the pottery furnace to melt, and the skilled craftsmen poured a certain proportion of tin, lead and other metals into the copper liquid, and the tumbling copper liquid was carefully and quickly injected through the gate of the pottery model, and the mouth immediately spewed out a hot white gas.
After several hours of cooling, the craftsmen carefully knocked out the outer and inner models, and a beautifully decorated and primitive bronze stood majestically in front of everyone, and the success and excitement of the crowd suddenly resounded through the clouds, and even alarmed the black storks and white storks on the Huan water.
The Yinshang Palace by the HuanShui River
After the bronze casting goes to tao fan, it must be repaired and polished non-stop (because at this time, the lost wax method, which is widely popular in the Spring and Autumn Warring States, has not yet been invented and finalized, and the edge of the bronze is rough and not smooth). After such a complicated process, a national treasure bronze heavy instrument that glowed with blue light and condensed the sweat and wisdom of countless slave craftsmen, Simu Peng Dafangding, came out dazzlingly, breathtaking and breathtaking.
Since then, this bronze giant statue has appeared in a large, solemn place of worship shrouded in a mysterious atmosphere, full of sacrifices for the gods, and the prisoners of war are ruthlessly slaughtered on these occasions, showing the reverence of the government and the public for the so-called gods and the maintenance of royal power.
Here, the final function of the Ding has been abstracted, detached from practicality, transformed into an important ceremonial instrument, becoming a symbol representing the state and power.
The "Houmu Peng Bronze Dafangding" is simple and majestic, stable and majestic, with a breathtaking power, flashing the dazzling light of ancient oriental wisdom.
Celestial scene
Post-mother pentadyle details