Snake horn alias Bixi. Poisonous rhinoceros Bone rhinoceros In Compendium of Materia Medica, it is called "the horn of the serpent", "it is produced in Xifan", "the grain is like ivory" and "the color is like sapphire". "The rhinoceros is not very big, and it is priceless if it is used as a knife target" (Song and Song Wen). However, the animal attribute of snake horn is not explained in Compendium of Materia Medica. This is a way of saying.
Another view can be found in Ci Yuan by the Commercial Press, in which the entry of "drug stone" says: "A drug stone was also found in the brain of a poisonous snake in Xidao" and "it is a bone rhinoceros called in Yun Guo Yan Lu and a poisonous rhinoceros called in Plowing Field Lu". However, this statement that "there are stones in the brain" is puzzling. Imagine that any animal can survive if it has a stone in its brain. Is "the stone in the brain" a mistake of "the stone in the belly"? As far as the word "Xi" is concerned, it means short wood, not stone, but the real thing is really like a small and exquisite root carving. This statement is for reference only and needs further research and textual research.
There is another saying, represented by Cao Zhao's On Gegu in the early Ming Dynasty: tourmaline is a kind of rhinoceros horn, and it is "the most expensive". This statement is often quoted in the collection of books and periodicals and is widely circulated. Some domestic experts agree with this statement.
People can't help asking: What are the animal properties in the snake horn (tourmaline)? ; Has this animal become extinct? When did it go extinct? The legend about the snake horn is confusing in history, and there is no scientific conclusion about the definition of the snake horn in academic circles. Coupled with the lack of data and information, many people doubt or even don't believe the existence of snake horns. As the saying goes, people who can't see are not strange and understandable. However, there is no doubt about the existence of the snake horn.
This paper introduces a real snake horn. After investigation, its characteristics are basically the same as the "snake horn" in compendium of materia medica. Please see (with 5 photos): Chinese community in the Spring and Autumn Period.
1. It is 5.4 cm high and looks like a knife target, with a tongue-shaped upper part and a spherical lower part. Keratin The surface is dark (should be antique or dark blue), and the local or shadow part of the surface is turquoise (true color), with lines similar to skin.
2. There is a small bud inside, which looks like the bud of a daffodil, and its color is green, like a piece of jasper embedded in it.
3. Under the spotlight, all the tongues and a few globules are blood red, and most globules are cyan and brightly colored. Because the brightness of ancient light sources was not enough, it was difficult to show this translucent color effect, so it was not recorded.
4. Delicious (slightly bitter), strong at high or low temperature; At the same temperature, the air tastes strong when it is dry and light when it is wet. This is a characteristic of organic matter.
The characteristics of snake horn are very peculiar and unique, which is obviously different from any horniness. It is an important specimen for studying snakes and Chinese herbal medicines. Due to the small number of extinctions in the early years, organic tombs are prone to decay, small in size and unsightly in appearance, so they are extremely rare.
If the animal attribute of the snake horn is snake, then the snake horn itself has certain cultural attributes, and its cultural value will gradually attract the attention of the world. As we all know, a snake is the original image of a dragon. The difference between a dragon and a snake lies in whether it has horns or not. In this sense, the snake horn is not only the dragon horn, but also the reappearance of the fictional dragon in real life. Although we still don't know the species of the long snake horn, we can think that the existence of the snake horn enriches the connotation of dragon culture and is also a totem of dragon culture.
2. The difference between snake horn and rhinoceros horn
At the end of August last year, Liu Jing, an associate researcher at the Palace Museum, called and said that she wanted to see the real snake horn. After looking at the real thing, she said that it must be an animal horn, but she didn't know what it was, which needed further study. 1 1 month, Teacher Liu called me and told me, "This thing is called tourmaline, which is a kind of rhinoceros horn." That's all. As early as more than two years ago, I asked Professor Zhao, a famous snake expert and academician of China Academy of Sciences, about the snake horn. He also said that this thing has only been read in ancient books, and has never seen the real thing. He said he was old and hoped I could tell him the result here. When he learned the above statement, he wrote: "What I don't understand is why the ancients in China called rhinoceros horn (a famous animal horn) a snake horn?"
The crux of the matter is, are snake horn and rhinoceros horn two names of the same species? Can it be confused? The earliest pharmaceutical monograph on rhinoceros horn in China was Shennong Herbal Classic in the Eastern Han Dynasty, which said: "Rhino horn tastes bitter and cold. Indications: Pay attention to all kinds of poison, evil spirits, miasma, killing hooks, kissing, pigeon and feather poison, and eliminate evil spirits without disturbing nightmares. Long service is suitable for intellectuals. Rumor valley. " I once asked several old Chinese medicine practitioners, and they all said that in ancient medical works, there was no record of confusing rhinoceros horn with snake horn. Among the ancient books from Han Dynasty to Ming Dynasty, only Cao Zhao's On Ge Gu Yao Lun. "Bi rhinoceros" was regarded as a kind of rhinoceros horn in Volume Six of Ming Dynasty, and it was explained: "Gudu rhinoceros appeared in the west, its color was light jasper, slightly yellow, its texture was horn-like, its buckle sound was like jade, it was fragrant when it was scraped, but it didn't stink when it was burned, so it was also called" Bi rhinoceros ". "Gu Du Xi" and "Bi Xi" have been nicknames of snake horns since ancient times, and they have been associated with snake horns in many ancient books. For example, "Notes on the Classic of Mountains and Seas" said: "The snake horn of the ancient capital is called Bixi." In Song Dynasty, Shi Hao wrote "Pick Two Bills": "The so-called bones, including rhinoceros, are also snake horns. "The careful book" Passing Clouds and Smoke Records "in the Yuan Dynasty contains:" The bone is a rhinoceros and also a snake horn. "At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Tao Jiucheng wrote a record of farming in Nancun:" The bone is full of rhinoceros, and the snake horn is also poisonous. It can detoxify and cover it with poison, so it is called poisonous rhinoceros. Tang Shu has an ancient capital country and must be produced in it. Today, people are mistaken for bones. "Although the Compendium of Materia Medica appeared nearly 200 years later than Gegu Yaolun, the Compendium of Materia Medica is closer to the summary of the snake horn recorded in the above-mentioned ancient books, but there is no mention of the snake horn in Gegu Yaolun, which is far from the historical records in concept and understanding, perhaps because Gegu Yaolun confuses the rhinoceros horn with the blue rhinoceros.
Then analyze it from the perspective of zoology. As we all know, there are only five kinds of rhinoceros in the world. Although these five kinds of rhinoceros horns are single and double in size, their shapes and organizational structures are basically the same, even if the extinct species are seen from the rhinoceros horn fossils. Is this snake horn an extinct rhinoceros horn? The answer is no, because there used to be more than a dozen rhinos in the world, and the last rhino to be extinct was called hairy rhinoceros, which was from 1 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. Its horns can't be preserved so far (the earliest rhinoceros horn products in China are not earlier than the Tang Dynasty), only fossils can be preserved (the formation of fossils takes more than 10,000 years), and the shape of long-haired rhinoceros horn fossils is not much different from that of ordinary rhinoceros horns. The shape and structure of this kind of snake horn are extremely special (different from any kind of horn), which is very different from rhinoceros horn. From the point of view of animal taxonomy, they are different in nature and must not be confused.
What exactly is a snake horn? I think maybe we can only draw scientific conclusions by doing DNA testing.