Master Archaeologist

Chapter 198 Repository = Kitchen
Cleaning up people's sacrifices is not a good job.

At least psychologically, it is.

After all, we are now in a civilized society. When we mention human sacrifice, words like "barbaric", "ignorant" and "cruel" come to mind.

Why the Shang Dynasty, generally in the public impression, feels very separated from other Chinese dynasties.

It is because all the concepts of right and wrong, morality, culture, etc. of modern Chinese civilization were shaped by Zong Zhou.

However, the Shang before Zong Zhou acted in a completely different era from the Chinese civilization after the Zhou Dynasty.

The businessman was buried if he had nothing to do. When he was in a good mood, he killed someone to tell his ancestors. When he was in a bad mood, he killed a little nobleman to relieve his mood.

It's time to fight, kill a group of slaves to the ancestors, and hope that the ancestors can bless the victory.

After the victory, many slaves from hostile tribes were captured, and a batch of slaves were to be killed and given to the ancestors, thanking the ancestors for their protection.

If the war is defeated, then a group of slaves must be killed and beg for forgiveness from the ancestors.

Rains, droughts, temperatures drop, temperatures rise, babies are born...

Anyway, as long as something happens, you have to kill someone and tell your ancestors.

And this kind of behavior is done by everyone from big nobles to small and medium nobles.

Even a small nobleman, maybe he is also a candidate for burial in the hearts of middle-class nobles, may be selected to meet his ancestors at any time.

Similarly, middle-class nobles are also the best candidates for burial in the hearts of big nobles. If something happens at home, they will find a middle-class nobleman to kill and sacrifice to their ancestors.

All in all, the entire Shang Dynasty ran through the system of human sacrifice.

Judging from the current excavations of the Middle and Late Shang Dynasty, the Shang Dynasty probably killed 1 to [-] people just for sacrifices in one year.

Among them, there are hostile forces, that is, the merchant's arch-enemy Qiang people, as well as the merchant's own people, and it is not just that outsiders are used for sacrifices.

The "own people" here include ordinary free people, slaves, minor nobles, and mid-level nobles.

Yes, the nobles of the merchants also need to be buried. As long as the shaman divination thinks that the ancestors are short of manpower, or the king of Shang finds that a certain nobleman is good in a certain way and is suitable to serve the ancestors, he must kill the sacrifices.

And the nobles who were killed were also happy.

Because businessmen have come here for generations, and their behavior is such a style.

In the ruins of the Shang Dynasty, the most unearthed things are the bones of burials, including those of children, adults, dwarfs, young, old, male, and female.

Compared with the ruins of the Shang Dynasty, the ancient battlefields of the Battle of Changping are considered pediatrics.

In the tomb of a merchant and a minor nobleman, one hundred and eighty slaves had to be buried with him.

And this kind of thing is indeed incomprehensible and unacceptable to the contemporary Chinese people who have accepted the "Hundred Schools of Philosophy" culture and still use it to this day.

The current Chinese people are naturally full of a sense of separation from businessmen.

In particular, I have personally visited some Shang Dynasty relics.

I have seen with my own eyes the countless burial human bones, wine vessels made of human heads, the "cooking people cauldron" left by sacrifices after cooking people in a cauldron, and the "acquaintances" in the cauldron.

Good guy, if modern people can have a feeling of "this is my ancestor, this is Chinese civilization" with businessmen, that is really a ghost.

Now the researchers of the Guangzhou Institute of Archaeology, when cleaning up the human sacrifices in the west room, naturally they will not be in a good mood.

On the other hand, Kong Jianwen, who was in charge of cleaning the back room, was in a very good mood!
The back storage room is not big, just a square storage room with a width of 1.8 meters from east to west and a length of 2 meters from north to south.

However, this room is an important repository for food storage and for cooking utensils and storage containers!

There are so many funeral objects in it!
Tripods, 鍪 (mo), ovens, handles, mirrors, basins, pottery urns, pots and other utensils are mostly stacked in the back storage room.

Generally, when placing funeral objects, similar utensils will adopt the method of stacking and nesting, that is, nesting dolls.

Put the small one inside the big one, and put the smaller one inside the small one.

The ancients were not stupid at all, they clearly knew how to make the best use of space.

Pottery urns, iron tripods, copper tripods and other large utensils are mostly stacked in the front of the back storage room, that is, the position facing the door.

Because there are too many of these utensils, they have filled the whole room, and there is no place to stand at all, so only one or two researchers can stand in the aisle and clean them up bit by bit.

As a result, Kong Jianwen's archaeological team is considered the most relaxed. Anyway, they are tossing in a space of 2 meters long and wide. Everyone is divided into several shifts, and they only need to clean up for two or three hours a day.

Just like this, their cleaning speed is still the fastest among the three teams.

A large number of cooking utensils, tripods, kettles, retorts, and mirrors were first cleaned out.

Among them, the most eye-catching are several large iron tripods, as well as a large Vietnamese-style copper tripod.

The number of ordinary copper tripods unearthed in Huaxia archaeology is already very rich, mainly in the Central Plains, at least a thousand tripods can be assembled.

However, tripods made of iron and Vietnamese-style copper tripods are relatively rare.

The first function of the tripod was to cook and eat. It was a daily utensil, and then it gradually evolved into a ritual utensil.

But after the Han Dynasty, basically "ding" was used as a funerary object, and it rarely appeared in the tombs of nobles.

The Han Dynasty was the last glorious period of Ding.

At the same time, the Han Dynasty is also a key node for the Chinese civilization to leap from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.

During this period, iron began to be used to make "cauldron" utensils, that is, tools for cooking rice and vegetables.

Tieding was conceived and born.

It's just that the use and existence of this thing are relatively short, so the amount of existence is still very rare.

The Yue-style tripod, as the name suggests, is the tripod of the Yue style.

The biggest difference between this thing and the tripods of the Central Plains countries is that the three tripod legs are very slender, a bit like crane legs, and the tripod body is mostly round.

This is a kind of tripod unique to the Yue country, and only the people of the Yue country can make and use it.

The country of Nanyue is worthy of the word "Nanyue" in the name of the country. It is indeed related to the country of Yue, and the monarch actually uses a tripod of Yue style!

It is worth mentioning that all the cooking utensils and storage containers unearthed in the back storage room were used by the owner of the tomb during his lifetime.

On the bottoms of tripods, cauldrons, and retorts, black marks left by long-term fires were found.

In fact, most of the bronze vessels used for burial, including ritual vessels, were mostly used by the tomb owner during his lifetime.

The so-called "Zhong Ming Ding Shi" describes the life of these nobles during their lifetime.

The "Nine Dings and Eight Guis" are not specially cast ritual vessels that are only used for burial.

The etiquette and system represented by these things were enjoyed by the tomb owners during their lifetimes. They used these tripods and guis to cook and eat during their lifetimes, and they were their own exclusive cooking utensils.

After they died, these bells and tripods would of course also be buried with them.

Ding and Gui, as representatives of the important ritual vessel culture of Zong Zhou, are not just used as ritual vessels.

Strictly speaking, their main function is still cooking utensils for daily use.

It's just that they are endowed with the role of representing etiquette at the same time, and they cannot put the cart before the horse.

At that time, the productivity was not so extravagant that a set of bronze gui and tripod was specially cast, which was only used to show etiquette and then buried with them.

How many tons of bronze do you have to have at home to be so extravagant?
(End of this chapter)