Jiangxi Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism

Gold and jade is the general name of treasure, which means precious and beautiful. Since the primitive society in China, there has been a custom of burial with jade and gold objects. In the Han Dynasty, due to the development of jade culture and the large amount of gold mining, gold and jade burial played an important role in the ritual system of Han Dynasty. More than 10000 pieces (sets) of cultural relics have been unearthed from the tomb of Haihun Marquis of the Western Han Dynasty in Nanchang, including exquisite gold and jade articles. What cultural codes are hidden behind these gold and jade wares? With the help of archaeological experts' research, we try to explain the historical and cultural value contained in the archaeological discoveries of cultural relics, and bring you the "Golden Jade story" of the tomb of Marquis Haihun.

Jade ornaments: the earliest animal fearing image seen so far

A jade ornament of divine beast was unearthed from the tomb of Marquis haihun. The design of the jade ornament is a squatting figure with the whole body exposed and no clothes. The head of the animal is in an inverted triangle shape with hair on its head, which is not like a human face. The eyes are round and open, the tail of the eyes is upturned, the ears are large and long, the nose is flat and wide, the nose wings are angry, the mouth is wide, and it looks like spitting out tongue. There are three upper front teeth in the mouth, which are large and long. The animal is round and plump, with a human like body and strong arms and legs. The jade ornaments unearthed in the west corridor of the main chamber are accessories on a round lacquer box, which has rotten when unearthed. In addition to the jade ornaments of the divine beast, the lacquer box is also decorated with jade ornaments such as Erhu eating pig, dragon, tiger and Phoenix, which are vivid and exquisite, but this rare jade ornament is rare.

Xia Huaqing of the Provincial Museum and Wang chuning of the school of Applied Arts and science of Beijing Union University said that the Royal Ontario Museum had a celadon tomb brick with animal patterns from the Northern Qi Dynasty, which was very similar to the jade ornaments unearthed from the tomb of Marquis haihun. The Royal Ontario Museum of Canada named this collection the winged Guardian tomb brick, but the academic community generally called this kind of divine beast the fearing beast. The images of fearing animals are mostly seen in the Wei, Jin, southern and Northern Dynasties. In the grottoes, carvings and murals are the main ones. In the tombs, most of them are relief stones, tomb murals, epitaphs and coffin bed ornaments. The surface of the ground is often seen in the front, base and side of the stone carvings. The discovery of jade ornaments on the tomb of Marquis haihun advanced the appearance of this image from the late Eastern Han Dynasty to Emperor Zhao and Emperor Xuan in the middle of Western Han Dynasty. Taking the third year of shenjue (59 BC) of Liu He's death as the lower limit, the jade ornaments unearthed from the tomb of Marquis haihun are also the earliest animal fearing images seen so far. This new discovery provides new important clues for the naming, interpretation and image pedigree research of fearing animals.

Experts believe that the jade ornaments appeared in the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, so it can be determined that this is the image of god beast produced in China. "Shanhaijing tuzan" records, "the elephant fear of animals, evil is pi." Therefore, the fear of animals should be a kind of beast to ward off evil spirits. According to the images of spitting out tongue, exposing teeth, holding a column, crouching, looking at each other and glaring angrily, experts speculate that the original image of fearing animals should be the xuanxiong with negative pillars. The jade ornaments of God beasts in the tomb of haihun Marquis are are in the changing stage of the image of xuanxiong. The shape of the bear is similar to that of later generations. Although the bear body is not dressed, it has less body hair, and its abdomen, milk and hands are similar to human figures There is a certain degree of integration. The discovery of the jade ornament of the divine beast advanced the image of "Xuan Xiong - afraid of animals" to the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, providing clear evidence for the change of the image pedigree of "Xuan Xiong - fear of animals". In the Qin and Han Dynasties, bears were regarded as auspicious animals. The lacquer box combined xuanxiong with dragon, Phoenix and tiger, which also provided evidence for xuanxiong's function of eliminating evil spirits.