Recently, a new exhibition was held at the Shanghai Museum.
In this exhibition called "Legend of Hanhuai", we see a bronze artifact that is completely different from the past: the face of the beast is facing forward, and hanging on this face is a pair of human-like eyes;
The shape is slightly weird, but it is also decorated with elaborate and exquisite decoration;
Bad Hou Fangxuan, Photo: Wenbo Circle
The most special thing is its color. Neither the shining Jijin nor the usual dark green. The surface of the artifacts, covered with a deep blue color, makes them ancient and mysterious, strange but also ethereal...
Animal Face Tattoo (Partial), Photo: Shanghai Museum
These are all bronzes from the Kingdom of Nightmares, a thousand-year-old country that disappeared during the Western Zhou Dynasty. The history is unknown, the descendants are unknown, and the unearthed nightmares also imply incomprehensible meanings.
Where did this ancient country come from and where is it going? Why did they suddenly disappear into the long river of history? Starting with these ancient bronzes, we try to uncover the ups and downs of the nightmare country.
01. Look for the ancient nightmare country that disappeared
"(纣) with Xi Bochang, Jiuhou and Ehou as the three dukes. The Ninth Marquis has a good daughter, and the Ninth Marquis does not commit adultery, is angry, and kills the Ninth Marquis. The Marquis of Ehou is strong, the disease is discerned, and the Marquis of Ehou is preserved. - "History of Yin Benji"
In the "Records of History and Yin", there is a story like this: It is said that during the reign of King Shang, King Wen, the Ninth Marquis, and the Marquis of Xia were ranked as the three dukes. The Ninth Marquis offered his daughter to Queen Huan, angering her, and was tortured (chopped into meat sauce). The Marquis of Qi, for the sake of the Ninth Marquis, held an injustice and advised the King of Qiu, but was made into jerky by the King of Qiu. When King Wen learned of this, he sighed and was imprisoned in the city of Qiangli. Later, there was the story of king Wu cutting down the silk and establishing the Western Zhou.
The account of the King of Shang in the Chronicle of History
The "bad hou" in this story is the monarch of the bad country. It is said that according to the description of the "Records of History", since The Marquis of Nightmare was ranked as the third duke, it can be guessed that he was a very prominent position. If Hou Hou could be juxtaposed with King Wen of Zhou, then the Kingdom of Nightmare behind him was roughly on a par with That of Western Zhou.
However, such a huge country disappeared after the death of the nightmare, and it cannot be found in almost all historical books. Where is the Ancient Nightmare Kingdom? And why did it suddenly disappear?
Clues about this ancient country first surfaced in the last years of the Northern Song Dynasty. At that time, in the area of present-day Xiaogan, Hubei, the Song people discovered the "Anzhou Six Instruments". It was in it that a bronze vessel called the "Zhong" 甗 was unearthed. The inscription on this bronze vessel records in detail the story of King Zhou Zhao's southern expedition, which is in the route of King Zhou Zhao's southern expedition, including the kingdom of Nightmare.
The text rubbings of King Zhou Zhao's Southern Expedition, the whereabouts of the Six Artifacts of Anzhou, are unknown immediately after they were unearthed, but the inscriptions carved on the bronze vessels have been preserved intact.
This batch of bronzes discovered during the Northern Song Dynasty is the earliest found so far, and it is related to the Ming Bronze Ware of the Nightmare Kingdom. In the thousands of years since, people have not been able to find any news about the bad country.
The turning point came in 1940, when a piece of Yuding was unearthed near the village of Renjia in present-day Fufeng County, Shaanxi Province. The inscription on Yu Ding records in detail the events in which the Marquis of Yu led the Huaiyi states to form an alliance and launch anti-Zhou activities.
Yu Ding, currently in the national museum of China. Source: Shanghai Museum
According to the inscription, Hou Hou's rebellion against the Zhou Dynasty was so powerful that he once succeeded, when the brigade led by Hou Hou had already attacked all the way to "Li (present-day Yu County, Henan)" and "Rui (present-day Ruicheng County, Shaanxi)".
This action of The Badhou not only shocked the government and the public, but also caused King Li of Zhou to panic greatly. The King of Zhou not only used his own elite troops, but also twice gave orders to the Duke of Wu to send troops to help. In the end, Nightmare was defeated.
Territory map of the Zhou Dynasty
Obviously, for this rebellion against Zhou, King Li of Zhou was quite afraid. The inscription on Yu Ding has twice emphasized the order of the King of Zhou to "fight the Badhou And not leave the young and old (no matter how old or young they are killed)", which shows that the King of Zhou not only made a great determination to quell the rebellion, but he also wanted to raz the entire Badland to the ground.
After this war, the Nightmare Kingdom did not appear in the historical records, and the Nightmare Hou Fang also became the last monarch of the country.
02. The past of the ancient country
Due to the excavation of Yuding, for a long time, archaeologists believed that the kingdom of Bad was destroyed during the zhou li king. Unexpectedly, this speculation was soon overturned again with the excavation of new bronzes.
In 1976, Hubei Suizhou Anju Yangzi Mountain unearthed 4 pieces of Nightmare Country bronzes; in 1980, 18 pieces of Bad country bronzes were excavated; in 2007, Anju Yangzi Mountain unearthed another 27 pieces of Bad country bronzes. A large number of bronze artifacts have been discovered one after another, which makes archaeologists wonder that Suizhou in Hubei Must have some kind of close connection with the Bad country.
On the left is The Fang Ding of The Nightmare, on the right is the Tomb of The 4th Tomb of Anju Yangzishan, which was excavated in 2007 Picture: Shanghai Museum
So since 2011, the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, together with the Suizhou Municipal Museum, has launched a three-year archaeological exploration in Suizhou. Soon, archaeologists found a huge group of tombs here.
There are many Chinese in the tomb group, including 198 pieces (sets) of bronzes. The number of bronzes unearthed in this batch is relatively large, and it also contains a wealth of information. It is precisely by relying on them that archaeologists have cleared the fog for us, and finally restored the ins and outs of the thousand-year-old country of the Nightmare Country.
Suizhou Yangzishan Cemetery, this archaeological exploration excavated a total of more than 2,100 pieces (sets) of various textured cultural relics such as copper, pottery, primitive porcelain, lacquer wood, jade and so on. Pictured: Wenbo Circle
The history of the country of nightmares must begin with the word "nightmare."
"Nightmare" is pronounced the same as "crocodile", precisely because the people of the nightmare country originated from a clan that hunted crocodiles. In the Shang Dynasty, the Kingdom of Nightmare had formed a considerable scale, and the monarch of the Kingdom of Nightmare had always been friendly with the King of Zhou. Just after King Wu of Zhou established Western Zhou, the kingdom of Qi moved south to the area of present-day Suizao, Hubei, and then moved south again to the location of present-day Echeng, Hubei.
The word "nightmare" in the bronze inscription. Pictured: Wenbo Circle
During the reign of King Yi of Zhou, the kingdom of Xia and Western Zhou had extremely close contacts, and not only did the two countries begin to marry, but the King of Zhou Yi also relied heavily on the Marquis of Zhou. At that time, the kingdom of Qi was strong, and the King of Zhou Yi wanted to use the Badhou to contain the states of Southern Huaiyi.
However, he did not want to, and on the surface, he was friendly with the King of Zhou, but in private he was preparing to rebel together with Nanhuaiyi and Dongyi. According to the Yuding inscription: "Marquis E's fang led the southern Huaiyi and eastern Yi, and the southern and eastern kingdoms were extensively conquered, as for the calendar and Rui. "Later in the story, we already know that after the rebellion of the Nightmare Marquis, the King of Zhou slaughtered the entire Nightmare Kingdom.
The Ehou Yi Fang Ding and the Ding Nei inscription record the scene of the Zhou Yi King's conquest of Southern Huaiyi and the Ehou Yi Fang feasting and rewarding
Some scholars speculate that during the Zhou King's crusade against the Badup Kingdom, some of the remnants of the Nightmare Kingdom were forced to flee along the Han River all the way to Suizhou in Hubei Province. Later, the descendants of these bad countries fled again to the present-day Echeng city of Hubei Province, and eventually settled here.
Map of present-day Ezhou, Hubei. Due to the relocation of the E'an people, Liangzi Lake was later renamed Ezhu (鄂渚), the Ezhu referred to in the Chu Ci. And E, Nanyang, was also built as E County during the Han Dynasty.
03. Nightmare, a smile from 2700 years ago
Although the Kingdom of Nightmares has disappeared, the bronze artifacts left behind by the Nightmares have remained until now. Today, when we look at these bronzes of the bad country, we can still feel the messages that history wants to convey to us through time.
At present, the excavated badgers almost continue and include all the forms of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties: Fang Ding, Yuan Ding, Gui, Jiao, Zhen, Xuan, Pan, Ti Liang, Zun, Xu, Jian, Jue, Fang Yi. At this point, it is very obvious that the Shang Zhou culture has a clear influence on the nightmare device.
For example, the Li Ji Zun was made of a shoulderless shape, which was a popular style in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. However, this figure has set up a beast head on the side, which is obviously the characteristic of the nightmare country culture itself.
The batch excavated from Anju Yangzi Mountain is obviously the early Western Zhou dynasty vessel style. Photo: Shanghai Museum
In general, considering that the Badong Kingdom maintained a relatively close relationship with the Shang and Zhou Dynasties for a long time, it is understandable that the bronze ware of the Nightmare Kingdom would be affected by them. However, anyone who has seen the bronzes of the Nightmare Country can still feel the distinctive characteristics of them very directly.
First of all, the high level of ornamentation in the bronzes of the Nightmare Kingdom was almost unique to that period. Basically every one of the bronzes unearthed so far is decorated with a variety of rich patterns.
As far as a particular pattern is concerned, the nightmare will also deform it in various ways, rather than just sticking to the creation of a single imitation. The three common decorative patterns on the nightmare are: knotted dragon pattern, convex string pattern, and cloud thunder pattern.
The pot is decorated with cloud thunder patterns
The mane is decorated with another look of cloud thunder
Secondly, it is the "animal face pattern" that is the favorite decoration of the bronze ware of the Nightmare Country. This is the most remarkable feature of the bronze of the Nightmare Kingdom, and it is also the most shocking place.
In the ornamentation of bronzes, the animal face pattern is extremely common, but the animal face pattern on the bronze ware of the Nightmare Country is completely different: the nightmare man is particularly good at carving facial features similar to the human features on the animal surface, which makes the whole ornament both maintain a surreal simulation, and at the same time produce a high relief effect due to the strong chiaroscuro contrast.
Animal face tattoo, picture: Shanghai Museum
This strange shape of half-man, half-beast implies an incomprehensible mystery, but it also makes people involuntarily feel a sense of awe for it.
The eyes of the beast face, the animal face pattern on the bronze of the Nightmare Kingdom will delicately paint the eyelids of the human eye, the orbit, the round eye and the pupil. Layered, but also lifelike.
Finally, there is the blue color characteristic of the bronzes of the Nightmare Kingdom. The formation of this color, on the one hand, is related to the raw materials of the bronze itself: the bronze of the Nightmare Kingdom uses lead tin bronze, which is easy to produce blue copper sulfide after oxidation; on the other hand, it is because when the bronze is buried in the ground, the corrosion of geology and moisture makes it form a faint blue rust.
Straight ribbed (left) and Tiliang (right)
Ti Liang Ji (left) and bronze statues, all four bronzes are wrapped in a characteristic blue color
Half-human, half-beast animal face pattern, exquisite decoration, deep blue..... These elements formed a statue of the bronze of the Kingdom of Nightmares. On the bronze, it is decorated with the romance, faith and sustenance of the nightmares. Behind the bronze ware, there is the ups and downs of an ancient country a thousand years ago.
Today, the nightmare man has disappeared into history, and the bad country is difficult to find on the map, only these bronzes, they have traveled through time, only quietly waiting here.
bibliography:
"A Preliminary Study of Bad luck" Cao Shuqin
"Detection and Analysis of Bronze Artifacts Unearthed from Suizhou Yangzishan M4 and Related Problems" Yu Yongbin, Huang Jianxun, Bao Hongbo, Mei Jianjun, Chen Kunlong, Chen Jianjian
"On the Problems Related to the Ancient Nightmare State and the Culture of Hubei", Ding Tanghua, Qin Changlin, Fang Wen
"Hubei Unearthed Western Zhou Dynasty Bronze Appreciation" Yuan Wenqing
Liu Fenggui
"The Bad Country and the Bad country bronze ware" Zhang Changping
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Edited by | Art Travel Culture Poached Egg King
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