What was the goldware like in the Western Zhou period?

China has been honoring people's virtues since ancient times, and in the eyes of our ancient people, it is believed that only good virtues can be the most precious thing in the world, and also the greatest wealth that a person can really honor his life will not be lost. As the Western Zhou people do not advocate luxury, so the gold products at that time is also very rare, the Western Zhou gold ornaments are mainly gold band ornaments found in Henan Province, Sanmenxia Guo cemetery, of which 7 pieces of round ornaments, rectangular ornaments, 1 piece of animal face ornaments 3 pieces of similar to the shape of a tiger's head, and another piece of hollowed out animal face triangular ornaments, the size of the **** counted 12 pieces of a total weight of 433 grams.

The gold belt ornaments of Guo Cemetery are all made of sheet metal casting and molding, and the hollowing process is used. These gold ornaments are located at the waist of the bodies in the coffins, and it is estimated that they should be the decorative pieces on the belts. Shanxi Province, Quwo Western Zhou Jin Hou tomb was also found in two groups of 15 pieces and 6 pieces of gold belt ornaments, from which can be seen, the Western Zhou period has begun to popularize the complete set of gold ornaments. In addition, in Beijing Liulihe in the Western Zhou Yan state tomb found a wood lacquer, the body of the vessel inlaid with three channels of gold foil, the following two channels of gold foil is also embedded in turquoise, this is the discovery of the earliest piece of gold pinto ancient ware.

The emergence of the gold pintle craft shows that there has been a small progress in the development of the gold craft from the Shang Dynasty to the Western Zhou Dynasty, and this craft can also be regarded as the germ of the gold craft seeking independent development.

Although the Western Zhou period of gold products are very rare, but from the physical found, there are obvious regional differences. Inside and outside the Great Wall in the North, more pure gold jewelry objects, such as gold earrings, gold armlets, etc., while the Central Plains and the Southwest are more than thin gold process gold into foils, and then paste, wrapped in copper and lacquer on top of the wood, decorative role.

such as gansu li xian dabaozi late western chou dynasty qin tomb found in gold ornaments, there are gold tiger 2 pieces, owl-shaped gold ornaments 8 pieces, lip pattern scale-shaped gold ornaments 26 pieces, cloud pattern kui-shaped gold ornaments 4 pieces, animal face pattern shield-shaped gold ornaments 2 pieces, eye cloud pattern stealing curved shaped gold ornaments 2 pieces, presumed to be the decoration of the coffins.

The gold tiger is 4.1 centimeters long, 16 centimeters high and 3 to 4 centimeters wide. The owl-shaped gold ornaments 52 centimeters high, 32 centimeters wide, cut with gold foil and become, the whole body decorated with deformed stealing curved pattern for the plume, stealing curved pattern of the remaining white for the shape of the skeleton holes, making the image of the owl is exceptionally rich.

The two pieces of gold ornaments clear pattern, convex and concave undulation, as if the bronze casting pattern. It seems to take in the hammering plus bottom-lined punch mold and other superb means. From the pre-Qin the specific condition of each gold foil ornaments, the objects decorated by gold foil are bronze, jade and stone, lacquer, wood and clothes and hats.

Henan junxian xin village of the western Zhou tomb found in the gold copper beast head a small, the same shape, the big one is 2.8 centimeters long, 2.8 centimeters wide, the small one is 2.4 centimeters long, 2.6 centimeters wide, the copper beast head engraved fine, outside the gold foil thin uniform, pattern is revealed.

The tomb also has 24 pieces of gold foil decorated with spear handles, with strips, circles, herringbone, triangles and other shapes, which are pasted on various parts of the spear handles.

Golden foil on jade and stone objects, such as Shaanxi Province, Fufeng strong family of the Western Zhou tomb found in turquoise handle shaped device, the top of the arrangement of neat turquoise pieces, and bundled with a circle of gold foil pieces. Henan Province, Luoyang North kiln of the Western Zhou tomb found on the jade handle-shaped ware sheath decoration, also inlaid with gold foil pieces.

Shanxi Chunhua Shijia loess of the Western Zhou tomb of human bones at the decay of 31 pieces of gold flakes, should also be clothing gold ornaments, can be divided into square and triangular two kinds of square, the largest square 4.5 centimeters long, 3.5 centimeters wide, the largest triangular side length of 2.5 centimeters.

The pinch is one of the basic techniques of gold production, the practice is to hammer into a very thin sheet of gold, cut into thin strips, slowly twisted and rolled into silk, can be a single strand, can also be more than one strand. There is also wire drawing, which is done by squeezing the gold material through the tapered holes of the drawing board, and drawing the silk out from the small holes below, and the thicker silk can also be directly hammered.

Western Zhou gold earrings, often called "earrings", found along the border of Shaanxi and northern Shanxi, ****26 pieces, similar in shape, are crescent-shaped gold piece, one end of the spiral, the other end of the outstretched gold wire, or wear a turquoise.

There is also a circle-shaped, found in the Western Zhou tomb in Chaoyang Weiyingzi, Liaoning Province, which is wrapped in two circles with gold wire. The gold chains found in the late Western Zhou tombs in Aru Chaiteng, Hangjin Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on the other hand, are made of multiple strands of gold wire braided together, which is as fine as a millimeter.