The role and introduction of the Four Sheep Fangzun, what is the role of the Four Sheep Fangzun?

The Four Sheep Fangzun is used for sacrifice. Siyang Fangzun is a bronze ritual vessel and sacrificial article in the late Shang Dynasty.

The Four Sheep Fangzun is a bronze ritual vessel and sacrificial article in the late Shang Dynasty. In 1938, it was unearthed on the mountainside of Yueshan Puzhuanerlun, Huangcai Town, Ningxiang County, Hunan, and now belongs to the site of Tanheli. It is in the collection of the National Museum of China.

Four sheep Fangzun is the largest of the existing Shang Dynasty bronze Fangzun in China, each side of the length of centimeters, height centimeters, weight kilograms, long neck, high circle foot, neck towering, the four sides are decorated with banana leaf pattern, triangular pattern and animal face pattern, the middle of the Zun is the center of gravity of the vessel, the four corners of the Zun each plastic a sheep, the four corners of the shoulder are 4 curly horn sheep head, the sheep head and the sheep neck stretch out of the vessel, the sheep body and the leg of the sheep are attached to the belly and the ring foot.

At the same time, Fang Zun's shoulders are decorated with a dragon pattern with a high relief snake body and claws, and the four sides are in the middle of the two sheep, and each has a pair of horned dragon heads poking out of the device table, winding from the right shoulder of each side of Fang Zun in the middle of the front dwelling.

According to the analysis of archaeologists, the four sheep Fangzun is cast by two sub-casting technology, that is, the horns and the dragon head are cast separately, and then they are arranged in the outer fan, and then the whole casting. The whole utensils are cast with the block model method, in one go, ingenious, showing a superb casting level, and is called "the ultimate bronze model" by the historical circles, ranking among the top ten national treasures.

Siyang Fangzun, a bronze ware of the Shang Dynasty, is the largest existing one of the Shang Dynasty Fangzun, and its unique shape and exquisite craftsmanship can be called a national treasure. Period: Shang (about 14 BC 11th century), the land of Siyang Fangzun in Ningxiang County, Hunan Province, from the thirties of the twentieth century, unearthed a large number of bronzes, called"Ningxiang Bronze Group"。

The Four Sheep Fangzun is"Ningxiang Bronze Group"It is also the earliest bronze unearthed in Ningxiang. Most of these bronzes are consistent with the characteristics of the bronzes unearthed in Yin Ruins. "Zun" is a kind of wine container.

The statue is generally round, bulging belly, and large mouth, and there are also a few square statues. "Zun" is often called a group of bronze ritual vessels together with "Yi", and such utensils were mainly popular in the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

Siyang Fangzun is a kind of wine container. The Zun is generally round, bulging belly, and large mouth, and there are also a few square Zun, and the Four Sheep Fang Zun is one of the examples.

On the one hand, the original totem worship is retained, and the meaning of replacing sheep as a sacrifice to the gods is also included, and it also contains the expectation of the prosperity of sheep and other domestic animal breeding, and may also sprout various concepts about sheep in later generations. For the owner of Yangzun back then, it was not an artifact that could not speak, but the hope of himself and his family and country.

Symbolic meaning of sheep:The sheep has become the object of the bronze heavy weapon's performance, which has its own unique symbolic meaning.

First of all, the status of sheep in the sacrificial rites is second only to cattle, the capital of the Shang Dynasty is located in Anyang Xiaotun, Henan Province found a large number of sacrificial pits, the most is cattle, sheep, dogs, a piece of Shang King Wuding period about the Shang royal family to Wu Ding sacrifice materials mentioned in the "Bu with a hundred dogs, a hundred sheep", another material mentions "fifteen sheep", "fifty sheep", it can be seen that the sheep as a sacrifice is very large.