Chapter 1806: Shang Fangs mirror is so ingenious that there are gods and goddesses on it who dont know how old they are.
This Si Shen Expo Bureau mirror was unearthed in 1989 from the Han Dynasty Tomb in Li Dayang Village, Dayang Town.
It is round, silver gray, 15.6cm in diameter, 0.4cm thick, with a round button with holes (for tying) and a four-leaf button base.
There is a square outside the mirror button, with a "T" shaped pattern on each of the four midpoints of the square.
Opposite to the "t", the outer ring has an "l" shaped pattern.
The outer ring opposite to the four corners of the square has a "V" shaped pattern.
These form the game pattern of the Han Dynasty, and divide the back area of the mirror into four directions and eight areas.
There are four spirits, blue dragon, white tiger, red bird, and Xuanwu, each with an auspicious beast or bird.
Surrounded by an inscription: "Shang Fang's beautiful mirror is so large and ingenious that there are immortals on it who don't know how to grow old. They drink from the jade spring when they are thirsty and eat the wormwood when they are hungry, just like the Queen Mother of the West."
The edge of the mirror has three layers of decoration, two layers of zigzag patterns, and a zigzag pattern in the middle.
This mirror has superb casting technology, complex composition, and delicate and vivid decorations, making it a masterpiece.
When visiting the museum, tourists will ask questions like: "Why only the back side of the bronze mirror is displayed? Can people be seen from the front side?"
As mentioned before, during the Qijia Culture period about 4,000 years ago, bronze mirrors appeared in my country and were first used as witchcraft props.
In fact, not all bronze mirrors in ancient times were used for viewing faces, and many were specially used for burials.
Even if it is a mirror for daily use, after thousands of years of corrosion, the mirror surface is mottled with patina, and it has long lost its reflection function.
In ancient times, if you wanted a bronze mirror to reflect a clear human face, a series of processes were required.
The bronze mirror is hazy when it is first cast, so it needs to be coated with black tin.
That is, tin is in powder form at low temperatures (below 13.2c). After grinding the mirror with black tin, it is oxidized to form a tin oxide crystal film.
This is the commonly seen "black and ancient" appearance;
When heated to 160°C on the fire, the tin oxide on the surface can turn into tin dioxide, becoming the "ancient mercury" surface.
Both tin monoxide and tin dioxide have corrosion resistance. This technology has been mastered by our ancestors as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
Then, polish it with coarse wool fabric to improve the reflection effect.
The main reason for showing the back of the mirror is that the back is more valuable.
Ancient bronze mirrors are a reflection of history. From the aspects of craftsmanship, copper quality, decoration, inscriptions, etc., they reflect the social life, history, culture, art and other values of the time.
It is because of their high value that it has become a custom to bury bronze mirrors with them.
In Han Dynasty tombs, one or more bronze mirrors were usually buried with them.
The ancients used bronze mirrors for two purposes. One was to ward off evil spirits. They were placed in the tomb passage or hung on the tomb door to serve as a "mirror to reflect evil spirits";
The second is to guide the immortals and place them in the tomb chamber or coffin to break the darkness and bring out the light, so as to achieve enlightenment and become immortals.
Precisely because bronze mirrors were used to ward off evil spirits in ancient times, tomb robbers at that time generally would not take them away.
This funeral custom has been continued by future generations.
Archeology has found that a bronze mirror is usually hung on the tomb door of Liao and Jin tombs.
Bronze mirrors were also hung above the coffin or on the four walls, and the iron nails fell off due to rust.
In the Ming Dynasty, people also placed a bronze mirror inside the coffin, and some also placed bronze mirrors on the upper front and rear walls of the inner coffin.
It is not too difficult to identify these ancient bronze mirrors, because the patterns on the bronze mirrors change with each era and contain rich meanings.
Among the bronze mirrors of the Han Dynasty, the Bo Ju mirror best demonstrates the cultural characteristics of the Han Dynasty.
It originated in the Western Han Dynasty and flourished in Xinmang. It reflected the cosmology of the time and had important research value.
The Boju mirror was once called the regular mirror, and its popular decoration is a square pattern outside the mirror button.
There is a "T" shaped decoration at the midpoint of the four sides of the square.
The outer ring opposite to the "t" has an "L"-shaped ornamentation, and the outer ring opposite to the square corners has a "V"-shaped ornamentation.
These "tlv" patterns are actually the chess route map of the Han Dynasty game patterns.
Therefore, "Guiju Mirror" was renamed "Boju Mirror".
The game is won by capturing pieces, and this game was very popular in the Han Dynasty.
Therefore, it has become one of the most numerous patterns on bronze mirrors in the Han Dynasty, implying the peaceful scene of a prosperous country.
The four-leaf pattern around the round button of the Sishenbo mirror in the Dongping Museum is also called the persimmon pattern.
This is an auspicious pattern that emerged in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period and became popular in the Han Dynasty, implying that everything goes well.
There are two nipples on each side of the square. The ancient Chinese called nipples "zi", which generally refers to descendants and males. It originates from the worship of fertility, which means seeking offspring and prosperity.
In the eight areas on the back of the mirror, there are four spirits: blue dragon, white tiger, red bird, basalt, and each is matched with an auspicious beast or bird.
The "Four Spirits" originate from the worship of celestial stars in ancient times and are imaginary animal gods.
The blue dragon, white tiger, red bird and basalt represent the four directions of east, south, west and north and the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter.
According to legend, it guards the four directions, subdues demons and brings benefits to the world. It has always been a traditional and popular decoration in my country.
Archeology has discovered that inscriptions began to appear on bronze mirrors in the early Western Han Dynasty.
The Four Gods Expo mirror in the Dongping Museum is surrounded by the inscription "Shang Fangjia's mirror is so large and ingenious. On it are immortals who do not know how to grow old. They drink from the jade spring when they are thirsty and eat the coriander when they are hungry, just like the Queen Mother of the West."
This reflects the Han Dynasty people's spiritual pursuit of attaining enlightenment and becoming immortal.
"Shangfang" is an institution that specializes in manufacturing swords, weapons and precious servers for the royal family. It existed in the Qin Dynasty and was famous in the Han Dynasty.
The mirror is marked with the word "Shang Fang" and is of excellent craftsmanship. It is most likely an official casting.
However, at that time, it was common for private workshops to use the inscription "Shangfang Makes Mirrors" falsely.
Bronze mirrors of the Han Dynasty have complex patterns and rich meanings.
For example, the three-legged golden crow (symbolizing the sun), the toad (symbolizing the moon), the jade rabbit making medicine (symbolizing immortality), the nine-tailed fox (symbolizing peace in the world), the flounder (symbolizing love), the feathered man (symbolizing the ascension to heaven), the Queen Mother of the West (
Symbolizing immortality) etc.
Regarding the allusions of bronze mirrors, the most famous one is "the broken mirror reunites".
When Nanchen fell, Chen's consort Xu Deyan and his wife Princess Lechang expected that they would be separated.
So they divided a bronze mirror into two and agreed to go to Chang'an Market to sell the mirror on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month every year as a means of communication.
Later, Xu Deyan lived in exile, and Princess Lechang became the favorite concubine of Yang Su, an important minister of the Sui Dynasty.
The next year, Xu Deyan rushed to Chang'an as promised and saw someone selling half a bronze mirror.
As a result, Xu Deyan learned the whereabouts of his wife, and the two secretly contacted each other.
Later, Yang Su learned about this incident and was moved by their true love. He sent someone to summon Xu Deyan into the mansion and asked the couple to return to their hometown in the south of the Yangtze River.
This love story has also become a subject of singing by literati in the past dynasties.
Bronze mirrors appeared in the Qijia culture and disappeared in the late Qing Dynasty. After nearly 4,000 years, they are the longest-used and most widely used bronze objects. They have also been deeply integrated into social life and cultural consciousness.
For example, people often say "a bright mirror hangs high", "a mirror is like a flower in the water", "a hairpin breaks the mirror", "history is a mirror" and so on.
These all reflect the bronze mirror culture and have become an integral part of our country's culture.
When the modern scholar Qian Zhongshu read the allusion of "a broken mirror reunites", he thought that the bronze mirror was so strong, how could it be easily split into two?
In order to clear up the doubts, Qian Zhongshu dropped the more than ten bronze mirrors he collected to the ground one by one, but none of them broke.
So he came to the conclusion that "bronze mirrors are not easy to break" and wrote it in the book "Guan Zuibian".