Books on Oracle Bones
As early as the late Yin Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago, books about divination of good and bad luck appeared. Paper had not yet been invented at that time, so people used local materials, using tortoise shells and animal bones as recording materials, and engraved the divination contents on the tortoise shells or animal bones. This was the earliest book - the oracle bone book.
The content of oracle bone inscriptions, that is, the inscriptions, cover a wide range of topics, including celestial phenomena, such as solar eclipse, lunar eclipse, sunshine, rain, wind, snow, etc.; there are regular predictions, such as divination, divination, etc.; Predict upcoming events, such as travel, fishing, hunting, and war, as well as matters of life, death, illness, dreams, and sacrifices to ancestors and gods. The former Central Research Institute once obtained a large tortoise shell during excavations, with the inscription on it: "Dingyou rain, as for Jiayin, ten days and eight days, September." This shows that in September from Dingyou to Jiayin, it rained continuously for 18 days. Another divination from the Wu Ding period recorded: "On the following Wuwu day, I will burn and capture you.
Wuwu divination, "Zhen": I hunt for you, and I hunt on the day I capture you. I am allowed to capture one tiger, forty deer, Fox one hundred and sixty-four, Qiu fifty-nine."
The meaning of this inscription is: whether the forest can be burned to capture wild animals on Wuwu the next day. On the day of Wuwu for divination, the historian asked: "If the King of Shang went hunting in this place, could he capture wild animals? So he went hunting on this day and captured 1 tiger, 40 deer, 164 foxes, and 59 deer. "This is a document about hunting activities.
Decoration on bronzes
Bronzes are often decorated with various patterns, reliefs, and semi-reliefs, which have a unique historical appearance and era style. , to a certain extent, reflects the characteristics of arts and crafts at that time.
Most of the artistic decorations of bronzes use the image of animals. Many of the animals in nature are closely related to human production and life. Such as: fish, frog, turtle, silkworm, sheep, cow, elephant, bird, etc.
Among various animal patterns, the most distinctive one is the animal mask pattern, which was popular in the Shang Dynasty and the early Western Zhou Dynasty. The important characteristics of this kind of animal decoration are: huge eyes, staring, wide mouth, fangs or serrated teeth in the mouth, a pair of vertical ears or large horns on the forehead, and a pair of sharp claws. This image mainly shows the head features of animals. This type of decorative pattern was formerly known as the Taotie pattern. According to ancient myths and legends, Taotie was an "untalented son" of the god Jinyun. It was so greedy for human beings that it stuffed people into its mouth, but was unable to swallow them. It eventually killed itself and turned into a monster with a head and no body. Ancient Confucian scholars said that the purpose of this kind of decoration on the Zhou Dynasty tripod was to let people know the principle of karma and retribution. Scholars in the Song Dynasty called this pattern representing the head of an animal the Taotie pattern, which is still used today.
The Book of Stones
In ancient times, stones were also used as writing materials, and entire works or entire works were even engraved on stones.
Due to the rise of stone carving, the technique of rubbing branches appeared. The characters engraved on the stone surface are all recessed on the front. You can first soak a piece of tissue paper in alum and bletilla striata water and stick it on the surface of the carved stone. Brush the paper evenly with a soft brush, then beat it gently to remove the paper. Embed it into the strokes of the inscription. After the paper is dry, wrap the rubbing bag made of cotton with fine cloth, dip it in ink, tap it evenly on the paper, peel off the paper, and get the same copy. This operation process is called "Tu". Those who use ink are called Mo Tuo, those who use red pigment are called Zhu Tuo, single sheets are called rubbings, and those connected together are called rubbings.
It can be known from the records of "Old Book of Tang·Zhiguan Zhi" and "New Book of Tang·Zhiguan Zhi" that there were "rulers" specializing in rubbings in the Tang Dynasty court. Rubbing technology has a long history and has been a document reproduction technology for more than a thousand years. Rubbings became a type of book. In the later period, its main function was no longer to spread knowledge, but a special type of book through which the art of calligraphy was spread. Calligraphy enthusiasts can learn the techniques and art of famous ancient calligraphers from rubbings.
Books on bamboo slips
Before the invention of paper, bamboo slips were the most important form of books in my country and had a profound impact on the book system of later generations. To this day, the terminology, writing format and writing methods related to books still inherit the tradition formed during the bamboo slip period.
Bamboo slips and wooden slips are the general term for the bamboo slips and wooden slips with written characters left over from ancient my country.
Books written with bamboo pieces are called "Jian Ce", and books written with woodblocks (also called "boards") are called "Ban Shou". Long articles of more than 100 words were written on Jian Ce, and short articles of less than 100 words were written on wooden boards. Most of the texts written on the woodblocks are related to official documents, household registers, notices, letters, dispatch books and pictures. Due to the different content of the text, its names are different. For example, military documents are called "Xi"; those used for notices are called "Bang"; letters written on wooden boards and then added with another version are called "Jian". Writing the names and addresses of the sender and recipient on the envelope is called "Date" --- this is the origin of the envelope. Then the two plates are tied together, and the knotted area is coated with clay, stamped with an inscription seal, and a raised word appears on the clay, which is "seal", and the clay used is called "seal mud". Since the wooden tablets used to write letters are usually only one foot long, letters are also called "foot tablets". Jian is a short slip in ancient times for readers to annotate at any time. It is attached to the corresponding slip for reference. What people call notes today originated from this. The bamboo and wooden glyphs of Congce, bamboo slips, Ji, book, Jian, Zha, Jian, Cong, etc. all reflect the materials from which the slips are made.
The writing tools used for slips include pens, ink, knives, and chisels. The text on the slips was written with pen and ink. The main purpose of the knife was to correct wrong text, not for engraving. Pre-Qin bamboo slips mostly used ancient script and seal script. After Qin Shihuang unified China, official script became popular and the fonts changed from round to square, so official documents and letters were mostly written in official script.
Jian is the basic unit of ancient books, equivalent to the current page.
A bamboo slip is called a bamboo slip, and often contains one line of straight writing. Those with a larger number of words are written on scrolls and compiled together, called a "volume". A long piece of text that becomes a unit is called a "piece". One "article" may contain several "volumes". As for the title of the "volume" of the bamboo slips, there are still differences. Lao Gan believes that there are 77 bamboo slips in the "Book of Waiting for Soldiers" in the southern part of Juyanguang District. They are made of hemp rope, like a bamboo curtain, and can be rolled up. Therefore, "the simplified book is a book, and the scroll is a roll." Chen Pan pointed out: There is a saying in the preface of Kong Anguo's "Gu Wen Shangshu": "Fifty-nine chapters are prefaced together, making up forty-six volumes." Chen thought that there are both chapters and volumes here, which can prove that one chapter or Several articles can be included in one volume.
Books on silk and silk
Although bamboo slips are cheap and easy to make, such bulky books are inconvenient to carry, and each slip has a limited number of words. Once the long works compiled into a volume are scattered, , "wrong bamboo slips" will occur, and the ribbons, hemp ropes, and belts used to compile the bamboo slips are easy to be worn and broken, making reading difficult. Silk is a silk fabric, soft and smooth, wide in width and easy to ink. The length and width of the fabric can be cut according to the amount of text, and it can be folded or rolled up at will. It is easy to store and carry, and can make up for the shortcomings of simple slips. Therefore, silk scripts and simplified scripts coexist, and together they constitute the unique bamboo and silk culture in ancient my country.
The writing on silk books is very exquisite. "Taiping Qingling Book" is written on white silk, with straight grids drawn in red, and the head wrapped with green silk (the "Baotou" in ancient times is the "protector" of the current calligraphy and painting scrolls). "First"), write the title table of contents with red pen. Later, the "red silk fence" and "black silk fence" in paper books were borrowed from the red and black boundary fence woven on silk.
Silk books can be sealed for protection. In 1931, two lacquer boxes dating from the 20th and 3rd centuries AD were discovered in the Lelang Han Tomb in North Korea. The black lacquer boxes were semicircular in shape, decorated with five colors, and had small holes on both sides. They should have been used to hold scrolls.
In 1908, Stein came to China for the second time and found two silk letters from the 1st century AD in Dunhuang, which were well preserved. Two letters were sent from one person, possibly from an official stationed in Chengle in northwestern Shanxi Province, to the Dunhuang border gate. The letters complained about communication difficulties and were not dated.
In 1972, silk fabrics of various colors were unearthed from the Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha, including silk, Luo, gauze, brocade, embroidery, Qi, etc., and the most precious one is a colorful silk fabric covering the coffin. Silk painting. The painting is painted with mineral pigments such as cinnabar, azurite, and lime green. The colors are gorgeous. The painting is roughly divided into three parts: upper, middle, and lower parts, representing the scenery in the sky, the world, and the underground. Its content and technology are more complex than those of the Warring States Period silk paintings. Various, but no text. Since silk is expensive as a writing material, it is not commonly used for writing. In addition, silk books also include maps, sacrificial inscriptions, etc.