What's the use of doornails and paving on the gate of the Forbidden City besides decoration?

Door knockers with practical value are often equipped with decorative bases, that is, paving heads-traditional door ornaments with exorcism significance. In Han Dynasty Mourning for the Emperor, "The bronze tortoise and snake shop at the temple gate of Xiao Yuan rang first", and Yan Shigu in the Tang Dynasty noted: "The shop of the door is the first, so the person with the rank ring is also."

Most paving heads are made of copper and iron. A nursery rhyme written by the Emperor of the Han Dynasty refers to the copper-green paving head: "The wooden door is surging, the swallows come and peck at the emperor's grandson ..." This ballad alludes to Empress Zhao's love for Yan Fei. As a result, Ban Gu, who wrote Hanshu, said: "The wooden door is the root of Canglang, which means the bronze cymbal of the palace door, and the word will be respected." Covering the wooden doors of the palace with bronze implies that Zhao will become a queen. Yan Shigu explained: "The color of copper is blue, so it is called Canglang." It is called "root" because it is paved by the title ring. "The three characters' Canglanggen' have both shapes and colors, especially the word' root'. These three words were passed down by later generations as different names for paving heads.

In ancient times, the shape of the shop head was to install the shape of tortoise and snake in the temple gate of Hannanyuan, one of the four northern elephants-Xuanwu. The image of South Suzaku is also embedded in the door. In recent years, the selected Han Dynasty patterns have been published, including Suzaku, Shuangfeng and Yangtoupu. Tigers, lions, stingers and other wild animals opened their heads, glared and bared their teeth, bringing a majestic atmosphere to the door. In the early days, there were bronze castings of Xianyang Palace site in Qin Dynasty, which looked like a deformed tiger's head, with wide eyes and smooth casting lines, and were already fine products.

Spread a dignified head to denounce this vision. In this form of door decoration, there are rich cultural contents. For the evil thing of the door, as Zi Gu said in Qing Dynasty: "The door is paved with steel as an animal face and attached to the door, so it is ominous and defensive."

Paving the head of an animal is about the evolution of a spiral shape. Its invention right was recorded by the ancients in the name of Lu Ban, the founder of the construction industry. This seems to be a routine practice and it is not difficult to understand. Gao Cheng's "Things of the Era" in the Northern Song Dynasty lists two statements:

"History of Etiquette in the Later Han Dynasty" says: Give the door a decoration instead of a decoration. The merchant's water virtue is carefully blocked with a screw head to make it look like a screw. "Hundred Books" said, "Seeing water is like a disaster, it is called" seeing the shape at the beginning ". "When I debuted, I drew it with my feet, so I closed the door and couldn't open it. Because of the effect, it is located in the portal, so it needs to be so dense. Two is different. " Popular literature says: the decoration of door leaves is called the bedding of the head.

The palace gate of the Forbidden City in Beijing, two kinds of door decorations are very eye-catching. Besides the head, Jean Valjean is a shining doornail. The doornails are lined up vertically and horizontally, round and quite large, commensurate with the heavy door leaves, and spectacular enough. Door nails originally came from the technological requirements of wooden doors, and later the decorative significance of door nails seems to be more important. Moreover, its form of beautifying the facade is endowed by China culture in many aspects.

The number of doornails is specific. Yan Dou magazine once published Yin Wenshuo's stand-up comic dialogue "Say Yanjing";

Even the doornails on the gate are graded. There are nine doornails on the gate of the palace, each door has nine rows, one row of nine, one * * * 9981. In ancient times, "nine" was the largest yang number, just like "heaven", so the doornail of the palace was 998 1. Alas, only the doornail of Donghuamen is missing a row, which is 8972. Why? At that time, hundreds of civil and military officials went to the East Gate, which was for civil and military officials, so nine doornails were missing, leaving 72. There are 7963 doornails in Wang Fu; The duke, 49 years old; Official, 25 years old ... come to our common people's home, none of them! Don't believe it? You see, as long as it's not the government, how rich people are-grinding bricks and sewing screens, bright red paint on the door, and there's not a doornail on that door! Or how to call ordinary people "Ding Bai"? Ah, it left it here!