Ms. Xin Zhui from Mawangdui Tomb
Value at purchase price
The archaeological specifications are unprecedented. Premier People's Republic of China (PRC) gave instructions for five times, and Hou Liang, an expert in the provincial museum and head of the excavation of Mawangdui Han Tomb. At the age of 82, he still insists on being a volunteer commentator in the museum twice a week. In the lounge, when he talked with reporters about the excavation of Mawangdui Han Tomb, he looked proud: so far, no archaeological project in China may enjoy such "treatment": leaders of Li Xiannian, Hua Guofeng and other countries personally gave instructions to directly guide the excavation and protection work, while Premier Zhou gave instructions five times.
At the beginning of 1972, after the news spread that a thousand-year-old immortal female corpse was unearthed in Mawangdui, people from all walks of life rushed to ask for a visit. At that time, the provincial revolutionary Committee made a decision to arrange the exhibition and open it immediately. Therefore, it is too late to clean up the registered cultural relics and do a good job of protection. Unearthed cultural relics such as female corpses were opened to the public on May 22nd, 1972. Suddenly, tens of thousands of people pour into the museum every day, and people from other places come to Changsha to see the novelty. On one occasion, Hou Liang saw a frightening scene: trucks and tractors of all sizes lined up from the south gate of Martyrs Park to the west gate. The museum has 80 policemen and 200 militiamen to maintain order every day, but it is still stretched. On the first day of opening, the door of the exhibition hall was smashed and a woman was injured. This situation was reflected to the State Council through the internal reference written by Xinhua News Agency reporters. Premier Zhou was hospitalized due to illness, and he saw the report.
Restoration of Mawangdui Tomb Owner Ms. Xin Zhui.
After the stern instructions: "Hunan Military Region dug, not to report to the provincial party committee, not to report to the State Council. Unearthed bodies, clothes, silk and other cultural relics are bound to deteriorate ... measures must be taken immediately to transfer the bodies to the freezer for disinfection, anticorrosion and chemical treatment. This is meaningful to the public. A decision must be made decisively. "
After receiving instructions from Premier Zhou, the body was transferred to Hunan Medical College late at night.
After the excavation of Mawangdui No.1 Han Tomb, a large number of cultural relics such as female corpses, silk books, lacquered woodwork and silk books need to be protected. Tombs 2 and 3 are about to be excavated. Hunan submitted a plan to the State Planning Commission to build a warehouse and excavate the No.2 and No.3 tombs.
On the day after receiving the report, Premier Zhou gave instructions, determined the framework of the archaeological excavation project, and allocated a special fund of 200,000 yuan.
According to the instructions of the Prime Minister, a "luxury" project team was set up-the then secretary of Hunan Provincial Party Committee served as the team leader, and Wang, director of National Cultural Heritage Administration, Xia Nai, an authority on modern archaeology, and Huang Jiasi, president of China Academy of Medical Sciences served as the deputy team leader.
Later, Premier Zhou gave three instructions on the excavation and protection of Mawangdui.
In order to protect and make good use of Mawangdui Han Tomb, the project team assembled top forces in related fields in China to participate in excavation, protection research and news propaganda. Participating units include National Cultural Heritage Administration, Institute of Archaeology of China Academy of Sciences, PLA Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Shanghai Science and Technology Group, Institute of Biochemistry of China Academy of Sciences, Central News Recording Film Studio, Bayi Film Studio, People's Pictorial, etc. There are scientific research units such as geology, meteorology, microbiology and chemical engineering in the province, and news units such as Hunan Branch of Xinhua News Agency and Hunan Daily. I'm afraid this scale and scale is also a new record in the archaeological history of China.
Silk painting "Golden Sun"
1 background
Mawangdui Han Tomb is located in Mawangdui Township near Liuyang River, Furong District, Changsha City. There are three tombs, namely Changsha Prime Minister and Hou Licang (Tomb No.2)
Some silk paintings
Tomb owner) and his wife Xin Zhui (1 tomb owner) and Er (tomb owner No.3), all the unearthed cultural relics have been moved into Hunan Provincial Museum. T-shaped pennants have been unearthed in tombs Mawangdui 1 and 3. According to the list of funerary objects-the bamboo slips of Dispatching Book, its official name is "Feiyi".
The traditional view of 1 tomb is that it includes three parts: heaven, earth and earth. Silk painting without clothes should depict the sky (sky), people (land) and water (water) from top to bottom. The T-shaped cross section of the silk painting depicts the scene of heaven, with a goddess with a human trunk and snake-shaped feet in the middle. Some scholars believe that this is the goddess Nuwa. On both sides of the goddess, there are five cranes singing with their heads up and their mouths open. On the upper right of the cross section of silk painting, there is a red sun of a crow, and there are eight small suns on the flaming branches below. At the top left of the picture corresponding to the red sun is a crescent moon with a jade rabbit and a toad on it. Crow and Jade Rabbit are the portrayal of the so-called "Dongwu West Rabbit". Under the moon, there is another woman leaning back, holding the crescent moon in a flying shape, which should be the legendary "Chang 'e". There are two monsters riding animals and a hanging Tudor directly below the human body and the snake-footed goddess, and there are two cranes trying to hold the top of Tudor. Under Tudor is the Tianmen where two people sit hand in hand. On the gantry of Tianmen, there are tigers and leopards climbing and guarding, and there are two inverted "S"-shaped Wolong on the left and right sides of Tianmen. The vertical middle part reflecting the human body, under the canopy and winged bird (some scholars think it is an owl), is an old woman leaning on a stick, and it should be the tomb owner Xin Zhui. Beneath the cauldrons, pots and other offerings used for sacrifice is the water boundary, with a turtle on the left and right. The tortoise stands on its back and crawls on its back. In the sky depicted in the T-shaped silk painting of tomb 1, a crow in a red sun is often called "the sun" in academic circles, which is also the key research object of this paper.
What is the sun?
Before the sun appeared, the earliest names for birds in ancient Japan and China were Tiaowu, Sanzuwu and Chiwu. "Huainanzi Spiritual Cultivation" contains:
The silk painting part of the manuscript
"There are crows in Japan and China, and toads in the middle of the month." Gao Xianyun of the Eastern Han Dynasty said: "Squatting is still squatting, which is called three feet." Guo Pu (276 ~ 324), a scholar in Jin Dynasty, also commented that "within three feet". From the image point of view, this crow crouching under the red sun of silk painting is surrounded by the glittering "Zhu Hui", and the title of "Sun" is more appropriate. In ancient literature, the sun was directly called the sun. For example, Han Yu wrote in Li Hua's Gift to Zhang Shiyi: "The sun flies on the bottom of the sea, and Zhu Hui scatters the Qingyun"; "Journey to the West Seventy-two Times" also said: "The sun star has ten virgins, and then it was opened by Yishan, and nine birds fell to the ground, leaving only one sun star, which is the true fire of the sun."
Three hibiscus trees
On the first day of 10 in ancient myths and legends, it rises from the hibiscus tree in the east in turn every morning and moves from east to west. "Shan Hai Jing Overseas East longitude" has a cloud: "There are hibiscus on the Tang Valley, bathing for ten days, living in the north of Blackpool.
Some manuscripts and silk paintings
There are big trees in the water, which occupy the lower branch for nine days and the upper branch for one day. Shan Hai Jing Ye Dong Jing also said that "there is a branch on the Tang Valley", and the "branch" here means "Fusang". In other words, the sun was born from the underground of Tanggu in the east, then climbed the hibiscus tree, and was carried by Wu Xiangxi, and finally settled in Ruomu. The so-called Ruomu, in Shan Hai Jing Huang Da Bei Jing, said: "There are Hengshan Mountain, Jiuyin Mountain and Ash Mountain (originally changed according to Song Ben), and there are mangroves, green leaves and safflower on them, which is called Ruomu." Guo Pu notes: "Born in the west of Kunlun, with the west pole attached, its brilliance is red and shines on the ground." "Huainanzi Terrain Training" also said: "If the wood is in the west, it will be sunny in ten days." According to Shan Hai Jing Hai Nei Jing, if the wood is the place where water gushes out, such as Shan Hai Jing Hai Nei Jing: "South overseas, between black water and clear water, there is the name of Ruomu, if the water comes out." This gives us a picture: the east of heaven is Tanggu and Fusang, and the west is Ruomu and Ruoshui, which fully expresses the ancestors' observation and imagination of sunrise and sunset. [7] (See Figure 3) Fusang or Ruomu Shenshu should be considered by ancestors as a big pillar to communicate heaven and earth and a sacred tree symbolizing the center of the universe. Once the decameron on the sacred tree comes out together, it will be unfavorable to human life and production, so the myth of "Houyi shooting at the sun" comes into being.
Medical value editor
The oriental sleeping beauty provides an unparalleled model for world medicine.
Peng Longxiang, a professor at Xiangya Medical College, is the chief surgeon of Mawangdui female corpse anatomy. Professor Peng moved out of the dormitory of Xiangya Medical College.
Cultural relics (4 pieces)
The precious materials left in that year told reporters the story behind the news of that year:
Mawangdui is a national treasure, and Xin Zhui, the owner of Tomb No.1, is a treasure among treasures. There have been ancient bodies that have been preserved for more than 1000 years, but they are all mummies, all of which have been processed in advance. Xin Zhui, the owner of the mausoleum, set a world record. He is a wet corpse that has been preserved for more than 2,000 years without decay, and its shape is complete, its skin remains elastic, and some joints can bend. This is a miracle in human history.
But at the beginning of Mawangdui excavation, people's understanding of this issue was not clear. Some people even think that as long as the unearthed silk books, artifacts and other cultural relics are preserved, the bodies should be discarded. The museum called Wang, then Minister of Tubo Department of the State Council, for instructions. Wang said: The corpse found more than 2,000 years ago does not rot, which is a miracle of the world. Be sure to protect it.
Later, Premier Zhou further instructed to conduct an anatomical study on this ancient corpse.
Peng Longxiang recalled: Because of the particularity of this task, the central leadership was very concerned. Everyone feels a lot of pressure. I am still young, but I have accumulated some experience, so I volunteered to be a surgeon. This knife initiated the study of ancient pathology in the medical history of China. Experts made a detailed diagnosis for this old lady 2000 years ago: she suffered from various diseases before her death: severe coronary heart disease and multiple atherosclerosis all over her body. The common bile duct has gallstones as big as a broad bean, and the liver duct has stones as big as a soybean. There are 138 semi-sweet melon seeds in esophagus, stomach, large intestine and small intestine, which indicates that eating melon can cause biliary colic, reflex coronary artery spasm and sudden death due to acute myocardial ischemia.
Through anatomical analysis, many discoveries have filled the gaps in the medical field.
Schistosoma eggs were found in the old lady. This disease was originally called schistosomiasis japonica in medicine, and it was named after the discovery of Japanese scholars. The earliest cited case is 1904. This confirmed the early medical works of Neijing and Qianjinfang in China, which advanced the time by 2000 years. Professor Peng Longxiang told reporters that the old lady is full of treasures. She also gave us a lot of inspiration in nutrition, such as the old lady eating too much meat and overnutrition, which caused many cardiovascular diseases.
Professor Peng Longxiang also mentioned a detail. After the female corpse of Mawangdui was unearthed, it attracted strong attention from the scientific community all over the world. They called Xin Zhui the "Sleeping Beauty of the East" and hoped to participate in the study of female corpses. Among them, two experts asked for one or half hair of a found body. China disagrees: We will do our own research and keep foreigners out of it.
Cultural value
I will never finish my research in my life.
Restoration of Lady Xin Zhui's Wax Statue
Thousands of cultural relics have been unearthed from Mawangdui Han Tomb. Because it is well preserved, beautifully made and magnificent, it fully shows the wisdom of the people of China in the Western Han Dynasty. Yu Yanjiao is the first professional director of the study of Mawangdui Han Tomb in the Provincial Museum. She said that the silk of Mawangdui was enough to study. At that time, foreigners said that they had always heard that China was very old, but they didn't know how old it was. Look at the unearthed things in Mawangdui and you will understand.
Everything displayed by Mawangdui is novel and shocking. For example, in the eyes of ordinary people, the social state in the early Western Han Dynasty was that Sima Qian described in Historical Records that the central government practiced "recuperation" and the whole country was very frugal. However, judging from the luxury of the Wangs in Changsha, this is not entirely the case. The noble family of the prince still fully "enjoys life".
There are many kinds of cultural relics unearthed in Mawangdui, involving politics, history, medicine, geography, astronomy, literature, art, philosophy and other fields, many of which are groundbreaking discoveries. For example, people didn't know what Hanfu was like before, and there were many mistakes in literary and artistic works, especially in TV movies. Li Hanxiang, a famous Hong Kong director, said after seeing Mawangdui's cultural relics exhibition that the costumes of the Han Dynasty were like this, and I will make movies based on this in the future.
Yu Yanjiao told reporters that there are about 250,000 words of bamboo slips and silks, and there are more than 50 pieces of bamboo slips and silks. It is the most complete and authoritative interpretation version since Mawangdui was excavated. The contents recorded in bamboo slips and silks have refreshed the history, but Sima Qian's Historical Records failed to cover it. The silk book contains the oldest version of Laozi's Tao Te Ching. According to naked eye observation, the rendezvous period of Venus is 584.4 days, which is only 0.48 days different from the time calculated by Purple Mountain Observatory. Four ancient lost books, Classic Fa, Sixteen Classics, Weighing and Daoyuan, unearthed in Mawangdui, Changsha, reappeared the long-lost Four Classics of the Yellow Emperor.
Yu Yanjiao said: The uniqueness and richness of Mawangdui culture have enabled the academic community to establish a special discipline-Mawangdui. The participating researchers formed a huge team, including more than 2,500 scholars at home and abroad. According to incomplete statistics, up to now, * * * has published more than 270 works on humanities and natural sciences and more than 3,200 papers on the study of Mawangdui Han Tomb. It has been more than 30 years since Mawangdui was excavated, but it is difficult to study it comprehensively in our lifetime. With the improvement of people's cognitive ability, Mawangdui will certainly have more cultural achievements to contribute to mankind.
artistic value
As thin as air and as light as nothingness.
Plain yarn Zen dress is the oldest, most complete, most exquisite and lightest dress in the world. According to legend, during the Tang Dynasty, an Arab businessman visited an official in Guangzhou. He suddenly found that the official had a mole, which was exposed through his thin clothes. Just as he was dumbfounded, the official asked him, "Why are you staring at my chest?" The Arab businessman quickly replied, "Oh, I wonder why I can still see a mole on your chest through a double coat." The official smiled and took off his clothes for the businessman to have a closer look. It turns out that the clothes he wears are not only two layers, but five layers!
Plain yarn Zen dress
Two plain yarn Zen (single) dresses unearthed from Mawangdui No.1 Han Tomb are well-known cultural relics. One weighs 48 grams and the other weighs 49 grams, which is less than one or two. For example, a Zen costume weighing 48 grams is 65,438+0.6 meters long, with a cross collar, right sleeves and straight sleeves. The sleeve length is 1.95m, and the waist width is 0.48m, except for the thick silk on the collar, sleeve and skirt.
Plain yarn clothing (6 pieces)
It weighs only over 20 grams. As the ancients described it as "the veil is as thin as air" and "as thin as a cicada's wing and as light as smoke", it was amazing because of the Han tomb more than 2,000 years ago! Its texture and textile processing amaze modern people.
This plain yarn Zen is now in the Hunan Provincial Museum. Zen costumes are made of yarn. Because it is colorless and unlined, it is called plain yarn Zen dress in the unearthed book.
Yarn is one of the earliest silk fabrics in ancient China, and it is a square hole plain fabric interwoven by a single warp and weft. Generally, the warp density is 58 to 64 yarns per cm, and the weft density is 40 to 50 yarns per cm. The density is sparse, and holes are all over the surface of the fabric, so the texture is light and thin. It is no exaggeration for the ancients to describe "the veil is as thin as air" and "if nothing is done".
Excellent yarn materials have good fineness uniformity and fineness. The jersey with plain yarn weighs only 15.4 grams per square meter, not because its fabric has large holes and many gaps, but because of its small denier and fine silk fineness. In silk weaving, there is a special unit of measurement for the fineness of fabric, called denier, which weighs one gram per 9000-meter-long monofilament, that is, once. The smaller the denier, the finer the filament size. According to the measurement, the silk size of plain-yarn Zen clothes is only 10.2 to110.3 denier, while the high-grade silk fabric produced today is 14 denier, which shows the high development of silk reeling technology in Han Dynasty. It embodies the superb knitting technology at that time, which is unique in China. It is the masterpiece of yarn weaving level in the Western Han Dynasty and the pride of Chu-Han culture.
Plain yarn Zen clothes are light and transparent. How to wear it? "The Book of Songs Zheng Fengfeng": "Clothes are brocade, clothes are brocade." Most scholars believe that Xin Zhui, the wife of the Prime Minister, wanted to show the gorgeous coat decoration, so she covered the gorgeous brocade robe with a thin and transparent coat, making the brocade decoration looming and hazy, which not only enhanced the layering of the clothing, but also set off the splendor and dignity of the brocade. The tulle dress is soft and elegant, worn on women, standing in the wind and walking slowly, floating around, showing the femininity of women.