Text: Ni Zhou (reading history column)
In the summer of 2008, the Capital Museum held a 5000-year-old civilization treasure exhibition called "Memory of China", which focused on cultural relics stars from all over the country. Many treasures from natural history museums have also been put into battle. The Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shihuang, the jade clothes of Han Dynasty, the masks of Sanxingdui, and the gold foil bird-patterned sun god of Shang Dynasty all come together, conveying the long history and profoundness of Chinese civilization.
In the dim light, treasures compete with each other. Although there is no warm and clear atmosphere and dazzling colors, they show the splendid civilization of each era with their unique shapes and profound sense of history, which is awe-inspiring.
Among these national treasures, a bronze cultural relic named "the bronze drum seat of the Dragon and Tiger Four Rings" is an unremarkable one. It is similar to contemporary bronzes. It is not as famous as Bing Jian, nor as huge as Ding, nor as lucky as Le 'an. However, these can't weaken its domineering and charm at all, because it exists and remembers the roots of China's Millennium civilization.
Name: bronze drum seat of Longhu Fourth Ring Road Year: Spring and Autumn Place: Shucheng County, Anhui Province Collection: Anhui Provincial Museum Cultural Relics Value: First-class Cultural Relics
As the saying goes: you can't find a place to get it, and you don't have to work hard to get it. In the history of China, many national treasures and cultural relics were unearthed by accident, and the bronze drum platform on the Fourth Ring Road of Longhu was no exception.
1September, 980, workers of kiln factory in Jiulidun Village, Kong Ji Town, Shucheng County, Anhui Province dug up an ancient tomb in the process of taking soil, and then provincial and county cultural relics workers arrived. It was identified as a tomb in the Spring and Autumn Period and was salvaged.
According to the on-site investigation, there are obviously traces of two excavations in the tomb, and experts infer that the owner of the tomb stole many precious cultural relics. But to the delight of the experts, although the grave robbers came, they finally cleared out 183 documents, including 170 bronzes. In this regard, Professor Shang Chengzuo, an archaeologist and archaeologist of the university, was amazed and wrote a poem praising: "It was difficult to catch a cow-shaped basin in the Spring and Autumn Period. Hengxuan's legacy is really a doll, and it is shocking to see the truth. "
When the cultural relics workers were happily and anxiously sorting out their articles, a hollowed-out three-legged bronze ware aroused their interest.
At first glance, this bronze ware is round as a whole, a circular copper ring with no bottom, and the upper part is slightly incomplete. The whole seat is 80 cm in diameter, 29 cm in height and weighs about 100 kg. It is particularly strange to observe its shape carefully. The mouth is a tiger's head and a dragon's roll, and the tiger's ears are upright, glaring and screaming. Dragons and tigers set each other off and become interesting. It can be said that dragons and tigers depend on each other and their images are very vivid. The main body of the container is covered with flat stripes.
Its outer wall is also decorated with four rings, and the inscription is cast for two weeks, which is lifelike. About 98 words last week and about 52 words next week. As far as the number of inscriptions is concerned, this is enough to make cultural relics workers excited. You know, among the bronzes unearthed in Anhui, except for the Oroqen Banner Festival unearthed in Shouxian in 1959, no bronzes have so many inscriptions.
So what kind of bronze ware is it and what is its use? The research results are unexpected!
At first, because its inscription was badly rusted, it was difficult to read through, and almost everyone didn't know what it was. Later, the expert group of the Forensic Medicine Society identified the word "roll drum" and identified it as "bronze drum seat" for the first time. Later, because there are two symmetrical and intertwined dragons on it, it was named "Dragon Tiger Drum Seat", and because there are four rings on its side, it is also called "Dragon Tiger Four Rings Bronze Drum Seat". It also has other names "Spring and Autumn Copper Drum Tower" or "Four Rings".
In the final analysis, this thing is the drum seat, which, as the name implies, is the seat frame that carries the drum. In ancient times, drums were musical instruments used in war, music and dance. "Guoyu Wuyu" has a cloud: "Drums are always built and often caught. Ten thousand people think of it as a square. " Judging from the images of amphibious assault, the sword drum, as a military instrument, is often used with Ding Ning.
According to ancient documents, the dragon is the head of the aquarium and the tiger is the king of the mountain animals. This thing is a combination of dragon and tiger, and its supreme authority can be seen only from the inscription. The tiger father has no children, which shows that the drum position he carries is even more extraordinary. We can imagine the bronze drum platform on the fourth ring road of the Dragon and Tiger in 3000 years, sitting on a high platform, listening to the inspiring drums coming from overhead, enjoying the passionate intellectuals and praying for them.
As for the identity of the owner of the bronze drum seat in Longhu Fourth Ring Road, it is still confusing. However, from the bronze funerary objects such as bells, ding, chariots and horses, halberds and so on. , and recognized inscriptions, it can be roughly inferred that the owner of this tomb may be a monarch in Shu Qun at that time. The so-called Shu Qun, that is, in the Spring and Autumn Period, seven small countries, including Shu, Guo Yong and Shu, joined together to form a military group, which is the descendant of Hao Tao in the areas of Lu 'an and Shucheng in Anhui today.
Fortunately, the bronze drum base on the fourth ring of the Dragon and Tiger can escape the clutches of grave robbers and be preserved.
"The bronze drum stand on the fourth ring of the Dragon and Tiger" is the most precious place of the national treasure. Apart from being engraved on the dragon and tiger, it is one of the famous drum stands in China, and it is also the root of the 5,000-year civilization-the dragon and tiger culture.
In our culture, dragon and tiger, as the most domineering existence, are often endowed with special cultural significance and exist in economic, military, language, literature, medicine and other forms of expression.
China's dragon and tiger culture originated from the fusion of two ancient nationalities, Emperor Yan, and Yangshao culture also showed signs. The integration of Dragon Nuwa and Tiger Fuxi into China culture can be found not only in the literature. In recent years, a number of prehistoric cultural relics have been unearthed one after another, which is the most convincing evidence. 1987, the dragon and tiger figure made of mussels was first excavated from the tomb of Yangshao cultural site in Xishuipo, Puyang, Henan Province (see the picture below). "Dragon and Tiger Zun" unearthed in Funan, Anhui Province, and "Dragon and Tiger Jade Belt Hook" unearthed in Nanyue King's Tomb of Western Han Dynasty in Guangzhou. ...
(Mussel looks like a dragon and tiger, and some scholars have revealed that it is an archaeological fake. )
Dragon and Tiger are the longest-lasting and most influential mascots in ancient China. In ancient times, there were dragons, white tigers, Suzaku and XUANWUMON. The imaginative ancients thought that they lived in the sky and shouldered the responsibility of guarding the Heavenly Palace, and divided the stars in the sky into designated positions as the standard for predicting seasons.
Later, because of their respect for status and the meaning of guardianship, emperors all over the world also loved to call themselves dragon and tiger, and dragon and tiger gradually became a symbol of imperial power. Comrade Shu, the history of Liu Tangzhi, said: "The tiger lives in the dragon plate, and the emperor shows his respect." There are dragon and tiger patterns on bronze ritual vessels in Shang dynasty, and there are also dragon and tiger patterns on many utensils. For example, during the Warring States period, a pair of dragons and tigers were clearly painted on the lacquer box in Ceng Houyi, and the dragon and tiger buttons were also painted on the imperial seal in the Han Dynasty.
Tigers and dragons were worshipped by the ancients, but after the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the status of tigers was greatly reduced. As the guardian of imperial power, Dragon Tiger has gradually been replaced by Ssangyong and foreign lions, and the dragon has become the only symbol of the emperor-the emperor's face or face is called "the face of the dragon", and the emperor likes to be called the face of the dragon. The clothes he wears are robes, and even the embroidered patterns on the emperor's robes are called Long Lin. Du Fu's poem "Flourishing Autumn Colors" says: "Clouds move in the Luowei Palace Mountain, and the day goes around Longlin to know the face." The emperor's bed is also called the dragon bed, and Mrs. Hou Shu's palace words say, "The aroma of imperial furnace flies to the dragon bed."
"Dragon" is as powerful as "tiger". Why can the dragon become the embodiment of Emperor China, but the tiger can't? It's not even as good as a lion?
There are many natural reasons, but the main reason is the existence of dragons in real life, which everyone has seen. They are not mysterious, but they are invincible. Dragons are different. People can't see it in real life. It is a kind of god beast. If there is something, there is nothing. That's what the so-called "the dragon sees the head but doesn't see the tail" means. The cultural attribute of the dragon catered to China's mystifying centralism, so there was a "god-making movement"-lifting the dragon to the sky.
However, with the development of dragon and tiger culture, its position has never wavered, and there are still two generals in the park, Qinglong and Baihu.
Both dragons and tigers are the hegemons in their respective fields, so people usually use dragons and tigers to describe mighty and majestic people to show their leadership. The dragon represents the higher authority of the class, and the tiger represents the strongest force in the secular world. The relationship between dragons and tigers has opposite meanings, so there is a saying that dragons and tigers compete with each other.
Legend has it that a tiger went to a pool in Sizhou to drink water. The dragon in the pool thought that the tiger had lost its territory and jumped out to fight with it. As a result, the thirsty tiger lost to the hungry jiaozi, was knocked unconscious by the dragon's tail, wrapped it up and swallowed it. Su Dongpo wrote a poem on this basis: "There are hungry dumplings in the diving scales, and the tail is thirsty for tigers."
Because the dragon is in charge of the rain, and the relationship between the dragon and the tiger is so subtle, there are things that throw bones for rain during the drought. It is said that during the drought in the central and southern parts of the Tang Dynasty, villagers often tied bones with long ropes and threw them into Longtan. Russia leans. "In the pool of Yun Qi, the rain also falls.".
The current statement is more inherited by Feng Shui, which is used to survey construction sites and calculate marriage. In many places, especially in rural areas, many people think that men and women belonging to the dragon and tiger are not suitable for marriage. Why? The reason is that culture has been transplanted into people's marriage taboos. Today, in some places, there are still people who think that "the dragon and the tiger are bound to get hurt", "the dragon will not last long" and "the snake (dragon) is like a knife file, and the white horse is a green cow".
On the other hand, how to get along with dragons and tigers is endless. Dragon and tiger are one, domineering and invincible. In the process of language creation, the ancients especially liked to call dragons and tigers the same. Idioms such as "Long Teng Hu Tao", "Long Pan Hu Ju" and "Dragon and Tiger Fengyun" all show proud momentum and prestige.
This dragon and tiger culture not only exists in language, but also prefers to make it into an object to show its supreme authority and glory. In the ancient Spring and Autumn Period, bronzes carved by dragons and tigers became particularly popular and were highly sought after by princes and nobles. The four-ring bronze drum stand of Dragon and Tiger is the work of this period. Of course, such noble carvings are not allowed to be used casually even by nobles, and they will be beheaded if they are not careful, which is a great sin.
The manuscript of this article is "new" and is used by the history department.
The above is related to the collocation of tiger and dragon. It's about cultural relics sharing. I hope this will help everyone who watched the Tiger Dragon Race!