Master Archaeologist

Chapter 359 Jade Cong
The excavation of tomb M1 brought many surprises to Chen Han and the others.

The surprises were more than two "crowns" that seemed to represent status, and a jade cong was also unearthed in the tomb.

As we all know, from the beginning of its birth, the jade cong was not something that ordinary people could touch.

This is a ritual vessel that symbolizes power.

Even in tomb No. M1, there is only one jade cong!
This jade cong is yellowish-white, partly green, with many reddish-brown, gray-brown, dark-green patches or hairspring-like crystals, and it is not pure jade as a whole.

In other words, the jade products unearthed in the Liangzhu ancient country are not the "jade" in the consistent impression of modern people.

The jade in everyone's impression is more of the soft and translucent appearance of Hetian jade and sapphire.

The jade unearthed in the Liangzhu ancient country is not so much jade as it is more like marble.

Because most of these jades are very primitive, and most of them are washed out in the open air or in rivers.

There is no way, the productive forces at that time could not excavate mountains and dig rocks, most of them relied on natural discoveries.

There is no way to be demanding on jade quality.

However, the quality of jade is not good, but its meaning is not low at all.

"Cong" first appeared in "Zhou Li" and other ancient books.

Its shape is explained in "Zhou Li Kao Gong Ji Jade Man": "The big cong has two inches in ten, four inches in shooting, and one inch thick".

"Bai Hu Tong Wen Zhi Pian" says: "The tooth body in the round and the outer part is called cong".

Zheng Xuan said in a supplementary note to "Zhou Li": "Cong, the earth of eight directions".

When Xu Kai explained Cong in the Southern Tang Dynasty, he said: "The shape is like an octagon and the center is round."

Later, it was difficult for later generations to distinguish the cong-shaped entity, so it was called "Zhengui" in the Southern Song Dynasty.

According to Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty used the saying "Cong, Ruiyu, eight inches in size, like a car?"

Jade Cong, also known as "Wangtou" in later generations.

Its purpose has always been considered to be a ritual vessel for "respecting the ground with a yellow cong".

It is one of the large ritual vessels used for sacrifices. It is called the "six vessels" together with jade bi, jade gui, jade Zhang, jade huang and jade hu.

It is one of the important ritual vessels in ancient my country. "Zhou Rituals" "respect heaven with blue jade and honor earth with yellow cong". Jade cong has become a ritual vessel for the ruling class to sacrifice to the vast land, and it is also a magic weapon for wizards to communicate with gods.

However, since a large number of jade cong from the Liangzhu culture were unearthed, this kind of association of scripture teachers during the Warring States Period, Qin and Han Dynasties is not enough to rely on.

Because none of the jade in Liangzhu was topaz, the concept of "Lidi" probably didn't exist at that time.

According to the shape and decorative features of Liangzhu jade cong, some scholars speculate that it is a magical tool for wizards to worship ghosts and gods, with a strong primitive witchcraft color.

The shape of the jade cong is an inner circle (hole) and an outer square, which seems to confirm the truth that "the round of the jade is like the sky, and the square of the cong is like the earth".

Wizards also often use low-quality jade cong, stone cong, or burnt jade cong to suppress evil spirits in tombs, collect corpses for embalming, and ward off evil spirits.

Jade cong is also a symbol of power and wealth.

When unearthed from tombs, jade congs have the following characteristics: the tombs are high in specifications, large in scale, and rich in burial objects; the owners of the tombs are mostly male, and the congs are often found on the wall, and some of the tombs have martyrdom.

All kinds of phenomena show that the cong style is closely related to primitive religion and sacrificial etiquette, and its owner must be a tribal chief, a high priest and a wizard.

It can be seen from the excavation site that the more prominent the tomb owner’s identity, the more Cong and Bi there are in the sacrificial objects, which seems to show everything during his lifetime. The use of burial just shows the original identity of the tomb owner and his enjoyment of wealth among various tribes and degree of power.

It also represents a kind of burial system in the Liangzhu culture period.

Other specific methods of use are yet to be verified.

Jade cong were still common in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, but were rare after the Warring States and Han Dynasties.

Its use in later generations was also incorporated into the Confucian etiquette system and became a ritual vessel or funeral vessel.

Many Liangzhu jade cong were discovered in the Neolithic Age. The jade material is tremolite jade produced in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Except for a few that are cylindrical, most of them are made into regular inner circles and outer squares.

The body of the cong is neatly cut, the middle hole is drilled through the pipe, and two layers are often left at the middle joint.

The shape and size of jade cong are different, generally short in the early stage and tall in the late stage.

The body of the cong is decorated with animal face patterns, and the decorations are divided into four groups centered on the four corners. The same decoration group is used to decorate the cong according to the height of the cong.

Some of the jade congs are carved with thin negative lines of "God and Man" and clouds and thunder lines outside the main animal face pattern, and the negative lines are carved with sharp stones, and the lines are firm.

It is also because most of the jade congs in Liangzhu are engraved with patterns of animal faces or gods and humans, that scholars have linked jade congs with magic tools of wizards.

Because these decorations are too "metaphysical".

而在M1号墓中出土的玉琮，弧边方柱体，高3.6、射径7.9、孔径6.4厘米，眼外圈直径0.4～0.45、眼内圈直径0.12、眼角长0.1厘米，鼻长1.6、宽0.3厘米。

In terms of size, it is relatively small.

The entire cross-section is a rounded square, with four convex surfaces, and the angle between the convex surfaces is greater than 90 degrees. Each convex surface takes the corner line as the central axis, and is engraved with the same simplified god-man pattern, and vertical straight grooves are formed between adjacent convex blocks. apart.

The pattern is divided into upper and lower sections by horizontal grooves. The same patterns are carved and carved, which should be all gods and humans, and there is no animal face pattern.

There are eight groups of the same god and man patterns in the whole device.

On the upper part of the Shenren pattern are two groups of concave string patterns, each group of concave string patterns is composed of three to four concave string patterns cut from sheets.

The double-circle eyes are nearly round, the outer circle is pipe-drilled, and the inner circle is drawn with short lines. A short horizontal line is drawn on each side of the eye to indicate the corner of the eye, and part of the engraved line on the corner of the eye overlaps the outer eye circle.

The nose is flat and horizontally protruding, and the nose wings are carved in a square folded spiral shape, rotating clockwise for a total of three and a half circles. There is one short horizontal line and two long horizontal lines engraved on the inner side of the nose wing.

The whole machine is finely polished, the luster is obvious, and there are no cutting marks.

It is short and decorated with divine and human patterns, and its production level is relatively primitive. There are no traces of cutting on the body, let alone excessive decoration.

It can be judged that the owner of tomb No. M1 should have lived in the early Liangzhu period, not the late period.

For example, the Fanshan Mausoleum opposite the Mojiaoshan platform is a relatively late tomb. The "Jade Cong King" unearthed in the Fanshan Mausoleum is 15.8 in height, 7-6.5 in diameter, and 5.6-5.2 cm in diameter, which is much larger than this.

And there are beast patterns.

This Jade Cong King is now hidden in the Palace Museum, and all Chinese people can visit it.

speak up.

Before the discovery of a large number of jade cong in Liangzhu.

Because no samples were unearthed.

Many Liangzhu jade congs handed down from ancient times, or excavated before the Qing Dynasty, were mistaken by the academic circles as jade congs from the Shang and Zhou dynasties. It was completely unexpected that such things as "jade congs" were born in such a unique age. morning.

No way, jade is almost like a stone.

It is not realistic to use methods such as carbon fourteen to detect the age.

Besides, these jades were born on the earth tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of years ago, and the Liangzhu people just dug them out and polished them into jade congs.

How is it possible to detect the year it was polished by scientific means.

That is, the Liangzhu site was discovered later, and many jade cong were unearthed one after another.

Then the archaeologists found that the style of these Liangzhu jade congs seemed to be very similar to the jade congs collected in many museums, both in style and quality!

In particular, the Liangzhu gods and beasts and gods and humans are unique to the Liangzhu culture.

Under the correspondence between the two, the academic world suddenly realized.

Oh!It turns out that these jade cong, which were previously considered to be from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, were all left by the Liangzhu culture 5000 years ago!

However, it is worth mentioning that the earliest jade cong was not discovered in Liangzhu, but in the third phase of the Xuejiagang Culture in AH Qianshan Mountain, about 5100 years ago.

It was not until the middle and late Neolithic period that jade cong appeared in large quantities in the Liangzhu culture in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the Shixia culture in Guangdong, and the Taosi culture in Shanxi. The jade cong of the Liangzhu culture was the most developed, with the largest number of unearthed and handed down .

However, considering that the AH area is only one step away from Zhejiang.

Perhaps the jade cong was indeed created by the ancestors of Liangzhu, but they first came to Liangzhu from AH, and then settled down in Liangzhu, maybe it is.

(End of this chapter)