Chapter 33 Section 11 bamboo slips, silk scripts and silk paintings

Since 1949, several batches of bamboo slips from the Warring States period have been unearthed in the tombs of Chu, Zeng, Qin and other countries, due to the relatively good underground preservation conditions there.Mainly include bamboo slips unearthed from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng in Suizhou, Hubei, bamboo slips unearthed from the tomb of Chu in Changtaiguan, Xinyang, Henan, several batches of bamboo slips unearthed from the tomb of Chu in Jiangling, Hubei, bamboo slips unearthed from the tomb of Chu in Baoshan, Jingmen, Hubei, and bamboo slips unearthed from the tomb of Chu in Changsha, Hunan As well as wooden tablets unearthed from Qin Tombs during the Warring States Period in Qingchuan, Sichuan.This is the earliest bamboo slips of the era that have been discovered in China.Bamboo slips are the main writing materials used in ancient China before the invention of paper. Jian is a slender piece of bamboo that has been repaired, and slip is a wide rectangular thin wooden board (or bamboo board) that has been repaired, on which documents are written with a brush. Wait.Among them, the earliest bamboo slips were unearthed from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng in the early Warring States Period (about 433 BC), with a total of more than 240 pieces and 6,686 characters.Jane is 72 cm to 75 cm long and about one centimeter wide.The content records the chariots, horses and soldiers used for funeral ceremonies, which belong to the category of "dispatch policy".The dispatch policy is the list of burial objects in the tomb, which is the most common in bamboo slips.For example, the bamboo slips unearthed from Yangtianhu Tomb No. 1 in Changsha, Hunan Province and Wangshan No. 2 Tomb in Jiangling, Hubei Province can be compared with the burial objects in the tombs.Among the bamboo slips unearthed from Tomb No. 1 in Changtaiguan, Xinyang, there is a group of 108 bamboo slips with about 600 characters, and the content includes "Zhou Gong", "First King", "Three Generations", etc., reflecting Confucianism. of real books.In addition, the bamboo slips unearthed from Wangshan Tomb No. 1 in Jiangling, Hubei Province also record that the owner of the tomb performed divination and offered sacrifices to gods and ancestors during his illness.There are 278 bamboo slips with a total of 12,472 characters unearthed from Baoshan Tomb No. 2 in Jingmen (Tomb Zuo Yin Shao□).The ancestors of the Chu people, Laotong, Zhu Rong and Xiong [xiong Xiong] (鬻熊) are recorded in the prayer slips, which can be mutually confirmed with the "Historical Records Chu Family".The slips of documents include records of prison proceedings and trial cases, which are of great value for understanding the judicial system of Chu State.The content of Qingchuan wooden slips is "Wei Tian Lv" revised by the prime minister Gan Mao and others in the second year of King Wu of Qin (309 BC).

Chu Silk Script, unearthed in 1942 from a tomb of Chu in the middle and late Warring States Period at Zinkaku, Changsha, Hunan.Written on white silk, it is 47 cm long and 38.7 cm wide.There are two sections in ink script in the middle.A paragraph of 8 lines is the official script; a paragraph of 13 lines has the opposite direction.The content mentions Fuxi, Nuwa, Gonggong, Yu, Qie, etc., and also involves celestial disasters and myths formed by the four seasons and day and night. It may be a lost book of the nature of numerology.The images of 12 gods are painted in color around it, some have three heads, some have bird bodies, etc., and the names of the gods are inscribed on the side, which coincides with the names of December in "Erya·Shitian", representing the 12 months of the year respectively. , arranged according to upper summer, lower winter, left spring, and right autumn.Next to each god, there is a text about taboos of this month.The entire silk script has a total of more than 900 characters.The four corners are painted with green, red, white and black plant branches and leaves.In ancient China, before the invention of paper, besides bamboo slips, silk was also used as writing materials.According to the seventh chapter of "Yanzi": "In the past, my ancestor Huan Gong gave Guan Zhonghu and Gu Qixian seventeen, wrote it on silk, applied for it, and communicated it to the princes." At the latest in the Spring and Autumn Qi Huan Gong, there was silk book.However, since silk is not easy to preserve underground, the Chu silk script is the earliest book written on silk in the era discovered so far, which is very precious.

Chu silk painting.Two pieces have been found.One was unearthed in 1946 from the Chu tomb in Dashan, Chenjia, Changsha, Hunan.Painted on white silk, it is 31 cm long and 22.5 cm wide.Draw a woman standing sideways with wide sleeves, thin waist and long bun standing on a crescent-shaped object with palms together, with a dragon and a phoenix on the upper left.Another one was unearthed in 1973 in the Chu tomb of Changsha Zinc Library, and it is from the same tomb as the above-mentioned Chu silk script.It is 37.5 cm long and 28 cm wide, with a thin bamboo strip wrapped around the upper edge and tied with a brown silk rope.When it was unearthed, it was laid flat on the partition between the coffin cover and the outer coffin, with the picture facing up.It depicts a man with a high crown and long robe with a sword riding a dragon. The dragon makes a boat, with fish below and cranes behind.According to research, the characters on the silk paintings are the portraits of the tomb owner, and the content of the silk paintings shows that the soul of the tomb owner is ascended to heaven under the guidance of gods and animals, which is closely related to the popular idea of ​​immortals at that time.The nature of this kind of silk painting is the inscription used in funerals.These two silk paintings are ingenious in composition, concise in image and smooth in lines, representing the high level of painting in the Warring States period and occupying a very important position in the history of Chinese art.