China News Service, Taiyuan, April 10 (Reporter Li Xinsuo) Enjoying delicious food, drinking wine, and regaining beauty, the high-quality life of the noble ladies of the Zhou dynasty is not lost.
On the 10th, an exhibition of some unearthed cultural relics from the Baie Zhou cemetery in the northwest of Shanxi revealed to the world the life of a noblewoman more than 2,700 years ago.
The Beibai'e Cemetery is located in the east of Beibai'e Village, Yingyan Township, Yuanqu County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province. In 2020, a total of 9 tombs from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn Period were rescued and more than 500 sets of cultural relics such as copper, jade and bones were unearthed.
In the afternoon, the exhibition "Yan Ji's Dowry-Women's Life Revealed by the Archaeology of the North White Goose in Yuanqu" was completed. The exhibits were mainly based on the cultural relics unearthed from the North White Goose in Yuanqu. The curator used the archaeologically unearthed inscriptions (dowry) Pin) is an introduction, cutting into the life of women in the Zhou Dynasty, showing the protagonist’s family background, the women’s rituals, feasts, and makeup at that time.
The exhibition starts from a copper box. Although it is only the size of a palm, it is shown in a complicated car-like shape.
The lower part of the copper box is equipped with two wheels, surrounded by animals, and two birds are placed on the lid of the box.
At the front of the car, a cow wearing a nose ring is pulling.
“When a copper box from Tomb No. 4 was unearthed, the box was filled with red material, which was completely different from the filling of the tomb.” said Nan Puheng, director of the Science and Technology Archaeology and Collection Management Department of the Shanxi Archaeological Research Institute. After testing, we Cinnabar, animal fats, and plant essential oils were found, presumably cosmetics.
When sampling, a copper spoon was also found in it.
This copper box should be a container for the high-level female nobles of the Zhou Dynasty to hold and use cosmetics.
Cao Jun, the person in charge of the White Goose Cemetery in Yuanqu, Shanxi Province, said that the cosmetics in the copper box have whitening and moisturizing effects.
Seven copper boxes were found in the nine tombs of Beibai Goose, and they were exquisite in shape and full of imagination. This shows that "the ancients lived in a diverse and spiritual world".
In the exhibition hall, a square bronze vessel is engraved with the inscription "Guo Ji is a 匽 (yan) Ji 媵甗 Yongbao Yongbao".
This dowry not only demonstrates Yanji's aristocratic status, but also reveals a political marriage.
"Guo Ji married his daughter to the Yi (Yan) Zhong family as his wife. This bronze piece is a dowry article." said Yang Jiyun, the project leader of the Yuanqu North White Goose Cemetery in Shanxi. The two princes of "Gu" and "Yan" The aristocratic family had a huge influence in the royal politics of the two weeks. The bronze 甗 embodies the specific practice of the Zhou people's ritual system and patriarchal system.
Cao Jun said that the bronze 甗 is similar to today's steaming pot. The 甗 has a grate on the top and water under it, and the food can be steamed by heating.
In fact, in Yanji's time, aristocratic women's life was also indispensable to fine wine in addition to beauty and good food.
In the middle of the exhibition hall, beside a large copper pot, there is a bottle of transparent liquid.
According to Nan Puheng, residual liquid was found in the copper kettle unearthed from Tomb No. 1 of Beibai'e.
After testing, it contains alcohol, acetic acid, tartaric acid, syringic acid, fumaric acid and other alcoholic ingredients, which should be the remains of pre-Qin fruit wine.
Nan Puheng said that feasting and eating were an important part of women's lives in the Yanji era.
It is generally believed that the pre-Qin wine in our country belongs to the fermented grain wine, and the discovery of the North White Goose Fruit Wine may change the old cognition.
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