The Basic Content of Bronze Divine Tree Rituals in Ancient Chinese Society

The Central Plains region has been a key place of communication between the north and the south since the Paleolithic era, and the characteristics of the Central Plains region may have sprouted since then. Represented by the Maoyang Jiahu Culture and the Miaodigou type of Yangshao Culture, the early culture of the Central Plains had the qualities of emphasizing deep thinking rather than external display, adhering to the middle way instead of going to the extremes, controlling the belief in the divine power at a moderate level, and pursuing the harmony and unity of heaven, earth, man, and God with the natural world. Why did the ancient Chinese nobility use bronze ceremonial instruments? This is because in the major sacrificial and worship activities, must be accompanied by ritual music, must rely on the pleasant music to the gods and spirits residing in the heavens and the earth to send out invitations, and then the pleasant music to guide the gods and spirits to the ceremonial activities held in the place of the gods and spirits "seat", began to enjoy the offerings, then need to be gold and silver music The music of gold and stone is needed to please the gods. After the worship is completed, the gods and spirits return to their respective residences, which also requires music, song and dance, called "sending off the gods". In short, the sound of ritual music in the high nobility ritual worship activities of the various stages of the ear, must be inseparable.

Bronze ritual instruments are mainly bells, cymbals, bells and so on. Taosi quasi-kingdom and Erlitou kingdom of the senior nobles use bronze bells; the late Shang dynasty, in the Yin ruins of the senior nobles of the tomb unearthed a number of groups of cymbals; Zhou-style chimes are very mature, highly developed sound; Qin and Han royalty and the senior nobles are still more common use of bronze chimes for ceremonial rituals. After the Qin and Han dynasties, the use of bronze chimes gradually declined, but they were still used in the royal family's rituals for heaven and earth and ancestral temple sacrifices.

Bronze square tripods

Bronze square tripods are one of the most striking types of ancient Chinese bronze artifacts, adopting a four-sided square shape to symbolize the four sides of the world, and only the highest-ranking king could own the world, and therefore only the king could own the largest square tripods. The local lords could only own medium-sized square tripods. Bronze square tripods were also bronze ceremonial objects that only high-ranking aristocrats could own.

Archaeological discovery of the bronze square tripod is more famous for the pre-Shang Dynasty capital city - Zhengzhou Mall, weighing 86.4 kilograms of bronze large square tripod, Simuwu large square tripod, Women's Tomb of the Simu Xin large square tripod, Yin Ruins, Northwest Gang, the tomb of the King's mausoleum area of the Western District No. 1004 of the cattle tripod and deer tripod, the phoenix and bird motifs of the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty square tripods, and so on.

Bronze Wine Rituals

Bronze wine rituals were the most important and central bronze rituals in the nearly 1,000 years from the middle-late Erlitou Kingdom to the early Western Zhou Dynasty.

Bronze wine ritual vessels can be divided into drinking vessels (such as jars, horns, etc.), pouring vessels (such as goblets, jia, etc.), storing vessels (such as zun, earthenware jars, jugs, wine containers, ampoules, etc.), and pouring vessels (such as buckets, etc.). The Shang and Zhou aristocrats of the Central Plains, when using the wine ritual vessels, first used the wine scooping vessels to scoop out the wine from the wine storage vessels, and then poured it into the wine pouring vessels, and then poured it from the wine pouring vessels into the wine drinking vessels. The so-called courteous, organized, and meticulous refer to these ceremonial behaviors.

Bronze Food Ceremonial Vessels

Bronze food ceremonial vessels are mainly divided into two categories: cooking vessels and food containers. The main cooking vessels are woks, tripods, earthenware vessels, earthenware vessels and so on, while the main food vessels are rising tripods, gui and so on.

If the bronze wine ritual vessels are mainly the characteristics of Shang culture, then the bronze food ritual vessels are the main characteristics of Zhou culture. The Shang culture to goblet how much the number of sets to identify the status of the nobility rank status, the Zhou culture to tripod and gui combination of how much to identify the status of the nobility rank status. Generally speaking, nine tripods with eight gui, seven tripods with six gui, five tripods with four gui, three tripods with two gui, a tripod is not with gui. Tripods are odd and gui are even