Interesting facts: What is the "golden spring" of the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng? Of course, what this "golden spring" is, in the academic circles, is far from forming a conclusive conclusion, and the controversy is still very large. Dear officials, what is your high opinion? You can leave a message, brainstorm, and maybe provide an idea that can solve the mystery.

The original text comes from my Wukong Q&A: What kind of artifact is it that makes antiquarians helpless? It is interesting to see this question, with slight changes, saved in the column.

One of the greatest archaeological discoveries in New China: the tomb of Marquis Yi zeng of Suixian County, Hubei Province (1978), more than 15,000 funerary utensils, bronzes weighing nine tons, gold more than 100 kilograms..........

The quality and quantity of the burial products of the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng are second to none in the pre-Qin tombs, rewriting the history of many specialties such as metallurgical history, handicraft history, jade history, etc., academic digestion has not yet been fully completed, this problem "the previous generations of the narrative preparation", papers and monographs and popular science books piled up, I will not nonsense.

Zeng Guo logo

This article is going to talk about the most inconspicuous of the many funerary items, but also the most bizarre thing, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Institute of History and Language of Taiwan, can be described as a full of scholars, no one knows, helpless, for more than ten years, the direction of research has not been, has been a huge mystery!

I went to the Hubei Provincial Museum last year and photographed this thing:

A few words of the museum's understatement, calling it: Gold springs, the introduction is very rhyming:

【From the east room, shaped like a spring, the use is unknown】

(Why is the plural of "spring spring" in English "spring"?) Is it the meaning of the spring's intransitive verb: "jump"? If you understand, please advise! ）

The dregs of the mobile phone photo quality, I found a photo of this thing on the Internet, a little clear:

We know that the toughness of the [spring] made of gold is very undesirable, and it is called "gold spring" only because it resembles today's "spring". Is that what archaeologists also call the "golden spring"?

In the monograph "The Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng" written by Mr. Tan Weisi, who presided over the excavation of the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, it is indeed called "Golden Spring":

The gold content of 【Gold Spring】:

(Quoted from: Tan Weisi (2001), The Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, Cultural Relics Publishing House, pp. 176-178)

Mr. Li Xueqin also talked about the "spring" of Zeng Houyi's tomb in the CCTV special documentary, and said that it is still an unsolved mystery:

I found a scanned copy of the original field archaeological report in the library's electronic library and downloaded a copy:

[Publication information: Hubei Provincial Museum, "Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng", Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1989, first edition]

Even gold, because of its unknown use, archaeologists did not classify it as "goldware", but classified it as "miscellaneous utensils", named: [dock spindle]:

According to the description of the archaeological report, the original lump of [gold spring] has a total of twenty lumps:

Originally, the [spindle] was filled with winding silk threads, and these [springs] were strung on the head of the silk thread, as shown in the following detailed figure:

Top and side view of the entire case where the Gold Spring is placed:

(pages 449-451)

Photos at the time of excavation:

About a few years ago, I watched the CCTV documentary and learned about this strange thing, and I also consulted the literature, such as: "Examination Worker's Record", but did not find the slightest trace.

Therefore, I have been paying attention to relevant academic papers since then, and at present, because similar [springs] have been unearthed later, there are some eyebrows, so scholars have several speculations, but there is no conclusion.

Take a review of the literature I have seen, and evaluate it at the same time, and put forward some of my personal opinions:

(The [literature review] below is a bit long, the screenshot of the quoted word paper may not be clear, if you don't want to see it, you can jump directly to the back to see the [literature evaluation] section).

****************************************************************************************************************

Literature review section:

After the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, similar instruments to the "gold spring" were also unearthed, such as the "Guangming Daily" published on December 29, 1990 ,"Xinyang found the world's earliest spring-shaped device", but not gold, but tin-lead alloy, the article believes:

The combination of metal spring-shaped machines and arrow chains and silk threads of arrows seems to imply a use, which could have been used in combination with arrows to use their elasticity to increase the lethality of the bow and arrow, or to textile mechanical components. This shows that as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, the Huang people had a richer and profound understanding of the "spiral" and had applied it to practice.

A post on Baidu's "Henan Bar" "From the cultural relics unearthed in Xinyang can be seen that Xinyang is a representative of Chu civilization" found a picture of "Xinyang unearthed springs":

Because it is a network and media posting of the news, there is no information source, and the reliability is insufficient.

Therefore, the author found an academic excavation report - "Henan Guangshan Spring and Autumn Huang Ji Tuo Father Tomb Excavation Briefing", Xinyang [spring] is indeed very similar to the "gold spring" of The tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, but the difference is that the material is [bronze spring], and there is not much tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng:

(Photo quoted from: Ou Tansheng, Henan Guangshan Spring and Autumn Huang Ji Tuo Father Tomb Excavation Briefing[J].Archaeology,1989,0(1))

It is precisely because Xinyang's "spring-shaped device" was excavated together with the arrow chain and silk thread, so the scholar Tan Baiming believes that the "spindle silk thread" and the above [spring-shaped device] are the [archery] instruments of the ancient noble princes in the field hunting game, that is, the ancients tied a rope behind the bow and arrow to shoot birds and geese:

The conclusions of the paper are:

[Quoted from: Tan Baiming. (1993). A Preliminary Study on the Archery Device of the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng: An Interpretation of the Metal Spring and the "Spindle Shaped Device of the Case Seat" Excavated from the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng. Heritage, (6), 83-88.

Scholar Hou Dejun disagreed with the article "Preliminary Theory of Metal Spring Shaped Devices", believing that the "spindle" and "golden spring" of Zeng Houyi's tomb were related to textiles, and that the "golden spring" was a simulation of "silkworm", and he believed that:

[Quoted from: Hou Dejun. (1992). "Metal Spring Shaper" Preliminary Discussion. Central Plains Cultural Relics, (2), 105-108.

***********************************************************************************************************

literature evaluation：

I personally prefer Tan Baiming's "Archery Theory", which I think is very convincing, that the ancient nobles were very addicted to this kind of game, just as people today are addicted to online games. Therefore, the excavated cultural relics often paint scenes of ancient archery:

Tan Baiming's citation in the paper of the archery map in the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng can illustrate the problem:

[Tan Baiming] is indeed as famous as his person, and is a "person who understands":

The [spindle] shape is wrapped around [pay (rope)], [pay (rope)] one end is tied with an arrow, and the [gold spring] should be the role of increasing the weight in front.

Therefore, the spindle shape and the gold spring above it are most likely the "磻" mentioned in the literature history books. The "磻" set of things is to prevent the geese from flying away after shooting at the geese.

A slightly different opinion is that the ancients [bowed] when it was multiple [surrender arrows] shot together, that is to say, "the "pan" above more than one [surrender arrow], [gold spring] is likely to be the same as the reel behind today's fishing rod, can prevent multiple [pay rope] entangled together.

In my opinion, the scholar Hou Dejun's so-called "textile silkworm shaped device theory" is very far-fetched and not very reliable, for the following reasons:

First, the ancient Chinese in prehistory made [silkworm] handicrafts, such as:

The Spring and Autumn Warring States can be skillful craftsmen like clouds, and the funeral vessel of Zeng Houyi is amazingly exquisite, can't his "royal craftsman" make the silkworm like a little? If this is abstract art, should the [silkworm] be abstracted into the shape of a [spring]?

Second, the pre-Qin, Qin, and Han dynasties, who paid attention to "death as if they were born", such a large nobleman as [Zeng Houyi], the king of a country, and also the "Hanyang Zhuji", which can be traced back to the Xia Dynasty, how could the old nobles who could "spin cloth and suppress silk", which is the instrument of the working people to do rough work, be brought to the underground?

Third, this [spindle] shape and [gold spring] were unearthed with a large number of arrows and bows and arrows, how can something related to textiles be with weapons and bows and arrows?

Fourth, "archery" is exactly the "entertainment project" played by people with the status of Zeng Houyi, the following picture is ["Shooting, Harvest Portrait Bricks" of Han Tomb No. 2 Yangzishan in Chengdu, Sichuan], the working people cut wheat, beat wheat, pick up burdens, and the nobles leisurely "shooting" entertainment.

Therefore, [textile silkworm shaper said] said, not only far-fetched, but also the probability is too small.

<h1>Of course, what this "golden spring" is, in the academic circles, is far from forming a conclusive conclusion, and the controversy is still very large. Dear officials, what is your high opinion? You can leave a message, brainstorm, and maybe provide an idea that can solve the mystery. </h1>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The excavation of the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng was very sensational that year, Hubei Film Studio once filmed an old movie called "Tomb of Marquis Yi of Suixian County", the luxury of the tomb of Hou (tu) Hou (hao) Yi was luxurious, only the word "against the sky" was described, uploaded to readers:

http://v3-tt.ixigua.com/f1e8cb24573d0f2efbfac88b8914b767/59f209f4/video/m/22017ee4fa10d0e4f5884947e16a148b4331151efad00001f442deacbaa/

Zeng Houyi's tomb funerary bronzes totaled nearly ten tons, recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records, Zhou Tianzi can enjoy the "Nine Dings and Eight Gui" is a small KISS, the most famous is probably the treasure of my great Hubei Town

(Presented at the Hubei Museum is a replica of the chimes, which was made up of a multidisciplinary team of experts and took three years to complete.)

There are three sets of replicas, and two sets are in the warehouse of constant temperature and humidity in the basement of the Hubei Provincial Museum in Sui County and Taiwan, respectively, the State Council allocates 50 million yuan per year for maintenance, and UNESCO also has a fund, a national treasure among national treasures! ）

The re-emergence of the tomb of the great Zeng Houyi, the sound of the chimes of the zenghou yi chimes, we must not forget these two typical figures who "continued to learn for the sacred"!

Finally, high-energy warning!!

-

Zeng (tu) Hou (hao) Big Brother Yi sent a thousand years of greetings!

【Return my beautiful fist!】 fist! fist! fist! 】

According to the restored images of forensic science and anatomy, it is indeed the "cemetery generator" of Mei Qingmuxiu - Liang Chaowei's electric eyes are no more than that, so it is standing in the Hubei Sheng Museum, attracting countless young girls to stop and look sideways!

Like director Wu Tianming? True TM like!

[Return my beautiful punch] After the fight, it is time to finish the work!