"Special Feature" is on a business trip in China, and Chu people explore the dome —— Unveiling the mystery of Chu astronaut "Feather Man"

Special business trip to China, Chu people exploring the dome —— Unveiling the mystery of Chu astronaut "Feather Man"

Text/Zhang Weiping

Figure/Jinling

On April 16, 2022, the return capsule of Shenzhou XIII manned spacecraft landed successfully at the Dongfeng landing site, and the six-month space trip of the "business trip trio" ended successfully, setting a new record for the continuous flight time of China astronauts in orbit. The eyes of the whole country immediately focused on astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu.

I remember that at 9: 50 on June 7th, 20021,10, Shenzhou XIII astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu successfully opened the cargo door and entered the Tianzhou III cargo ship. I happened to pass by the east gate of the ancient city of Jingzhou, and accidentally saw the symbol of Jingzhou-the fire phoenix flying with its head held high, stepping on a huge steam wheel. I think, as the totem of the bird king and the worship of Chu people in the ancient legend of China, does Phoenix also entrust the ancient people with their space dreams?

This reminds me of a lacquer phoenix with bird feathers unearthed by the archaeologists of Jingzhou Museum from the No.2 Chu Tomb in Tianxingguan, Jingzhou in 2000.

The so-called feather man, as the name implies, is a man with feathers on his body. I naturally call him an ancient astronaut in China in my mind.

This unique unearthed cultural relic in China is the only one found in Chu tombs so far. It consists of three parts: feather man, phoenix bird and toad. At the top of the vessel, stood a man with feathers, a face, a bird's tail, a bird's legs and claws. He is holding an object with his hands folded, fat, with a bulging chest and round hips. He looks like a man, a bird or a bird. The toad on the pedestal, with its mouth open, its teeth bared, its eyes wide open, and its four feet clutching a snake. Paint the whole body with black paint, and draw feather patterns in red, brown and blue.

An Angel with Wings Spreading —— Qifeng Bird Feather Man

Warring States period (22 1 year before 475 BC)

The overall height is 65.6 cm

Among them, the feathered man is 33.6 cm tall.

The bird's tail is 15 cm long.

Phoenix bird is 20. 13cm high.

Wings spread 34 cm wide.

The height of the holder is 17.6 cm.

50.3 cm long

32.8 cm wide

Unearthed from No.2 Chu Tomb in Tianxingguan, Jingzhou

Collection of Jingzhou Museum

People are inhuman, birds are not birds, become phoenix birds and step on toads. Experts interpret it as: "Toad represents the spirit and life of the moon, phoenix bird is a divine bird soaring between heaven and earth, and feather man is an unpredictable divine man. The combination of the three embodies the desire of the Chu people to travel for nine days and live forever, and presents a beautiful picture of human beings traveling in space and exploring the universe. "

Chu people's creation of feather people is related to popular religious beliefs and myths and legends in Chu. It is the most creative woodcarving work in the heyday of witchcraft in Chu state, and it is also the only woodcarving and painting work with the image of a feather man unearthed in archaeological excavation.

The archaeological discovery of the feathered man's form "occurred in Shang Dynasty at the latest". The jade carving "Feather Man" unearthed in Xing 'an, Jiangxi Province is the earliest known form of Feather Man. By the Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties, the image of Feather Man had gradually increased, including portraits and objects.

According to Shan Hai Jing, in Jingshan, the birthplace of Chu, "its gods are all birds with heads and faces". He also mentioned "the Republic of China" and "the fairy couple" many times. In the Han dynasty, feather people were associated with immortals and became a symbol of immortality.

Feather man is a combination of man and bird, with unique shape, beautiful posture and exquisite production, which embodies the mysterious religious beliefs of Chu people and

Unique spiritual outlook, with high cultural relics value and artistic charm.

However, although the feather man was also endowed with the meaning of god by the ancients, his face and posture were not so beautiful, which was in sharp contrast with the elegant and graceful Phoenix. Perhaps, in the imagination of the ancients, birds are a natural attribute, but people need to go through some hardships to fly!

China has a long history, so that no matter what we do, what we do and what we think, we can say that "this has realized the Millennium dream of the Chinese nation". From "Shenzhou I" to "Shenzhou XIII", from "Shenzhou" spacecraft to "Chang 'e" project, there are profound historical deposits and contemporary people's responses to the dreams of their ancestors.

I remember that in the 1970s and 1980s, there was a pure literary publication, Fei, which sold well all over the country. This magazine comes from Gansu, and the cover of each issue is a flying fairy with different images. Flying means human's thirst for knowledge, and it means that human yearns for another freer and different shore. Perhaps it is precisely because the ancients had the dream of flying that the artists in ancient China created the artistic image of flying.

In the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, there are different flying images in that mysterious treasure house. One of the flying immortals playing pipa is the soul and flag of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes. Feitian is a god who serves Buddha and Indra. It can sing and dance well and is a typical symbol of Dunhuang art. Almost all of the 492 caves in Mogao Grottoes are painted with Feitian, totaling more than 4,500. In the murals, beautiful flight suits fluttered in the sky and danced in the vast universe, some rolled up with the wind, some like meteors, and some like Youlong. ...

Without technical level, it does not mean that there is no dream. Like today's science fiction stories, the ancients also had expectations for the future, but such dreams or expectations are often mixed with religious or mysterious colors. Therefore, we can see that ancient myths and legends such as Goddess Mending Heaven, the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon, Cowherd and Weaver Girl have created a number of characters with supernatural energy, which should be the idealization of primitive human understanding and wishes. Of course, ancient books and documents also record the ancient people's exploration and practice of flying, such as Lu Ban cutting bamboo to make birds, Mozi making wooden kites, and Zhang Heng making wooden birds, especially the earliest rocket launch test conducted by thousands of families in the Ming Dynasty. The goddess in the murals of Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang soared into the clouds, and the cultural relics such as phoenix birds and feathers made or drawn by Chu people unearthed from Chu tombs confirmed this. Therefore, myths and legends, ancient documents and precious unearthed cultural relics reflect China people's dream of flying for thousands of years from different aspects.

When did the Chinese dream fly? According to ancient legends, it originated in ancient times. From the archaeological point of view, at least in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Chu people already had the dream of flying, and integrated the dream of flying into the worship of the phoenix, and constantly created some artifacts that reflected the spirit of flying.

In Jingzhou Museum, in addition to feather people, phoenix bird shapes and patterns can be seen everywhere to communicate with heaven and earth and extradite souls to heaven. For example, the Tiger-seated Phoenix, which has the most Chu cultural characteristics, unearthed from the Chu tomb, shows the guiding god of Chu people's soul flying in the sky. A tiger is prone. On the tiger's back, stood a phoenix with wings flying. On the back of the phoenix, there are a pair of antlers. In ancient times and pre-Qin times, phoenix, tiger and deer were all regarded as divine birds and beasts, and they all had the ability to communicate with heaven and earth, prosper Switzerland and ward off evil spirits. When the Chu people made this artifact, they put the phoenix bird in the center and combined the skills of tigers and deer to make the phoenix bird more powerful.

The Chu people buried this artifact in the tomb just to successfully extradite its soul to another world-heaven with the help of the magical power of the phoenix bird.

Not all ancient people's dreams of flying in the sky are illusions. Lu Ban, the founder of the carpenter, not only made a "ladder" for the siege of Chu and a "hook" for the water war, but also made a wooden bird flying in the sky. "Moruz Wen" said: "The loser cut bamboo and thought it was a magpie. After success, he flew for three days." The loser in this article is Lu Ban. The notebook novel Youyang Za in the Tang Dynasty is the interpretation of this story. It is said that Lu Ban left home to work as a carpenter. Because he was eager to miss his wife, he made a wooden kite and often rode it home to see his wife. Luban even used homemade wooden kites to carry people in the war as a reconnaissance mission. In this regard, "The Old Story of Zhu Gong" said: "Taste it as a wooden kite and take it to see Song Cheng."

Zhang Heng, an astronomer in the Eastern Han Dynasty, also became a famous wooden bird producer. Then Han Xin, the general of Liu Bang, invented the kite. Zhao Xin of the Tang Dynasty said in Lights Out: In the Battle of Gaixia, Han Xin made a kite, which made Sean fly to heaven and sing the songs of Chu, which spread to Chu camp, shaking Xiang Yu's morale. In the Song Dynasty's Ji Yuan Shi, it was also recorded that Han Xin used a kite to measure the distance. Kite is an aircraft heavier than air, flying with the help of the rising power of air. It was not until the14th century that kites were introduced to Europe, which can be said to be the originator of modern airplanes.

But these dreams and practices are still too naive for real flying. Although the "wooden kite" is a bird-shaped aircraft made of wood that glides forward, and the kite is an aircraft powered by paper paste, it was not until the Ming Dynasty that the literati began to fly with rockets as power. Herbert S. Kim, an American rocket scientist, said in his book Rockets and Jet Engines: "/kloc-At the end of April, there was an official of Amin Dynasty in China named Wan Hu. He put the 47 largest rockets that could be bought at that time on a seat back. He tied himself in front of the chair and took a big kite in each hand. Then let the servant ignite 47 big rockets at the same time, in order to fly forward by the power of rockets and the rising power of kites. " As a result, the rocket exploded soon after launch, and thousands of families gave their lives to realize their dream of flying. For this reason, the International Astronomical Union named a crater on the moon "Wanhu" to commemorate "the first Ming Dynasty man who tried to fly with a rocket". It is said that in the American Air and Space Museum, there is a very striking slogan: "The earliest flying machines were kites and rockets from China".

"We both hold high our yearning for the distant place, and I want to go to the sky to embrace the bright moon." Li Bai, a great poet in the Tang Dynasty, expressed the pride of China people who dared to climb the bright moon for nine days in his poem "Farewell Minister of Xie Tiao Village in Xuanzhou". As Mr. Yu, a cultural scholar, wrote at the end of the article Mogao Grottoes: "We are descendants." Indeed, for thousands of years, China people have been exploring and working hard in space despite difficulties.

Academic Voice Zhang Yuan, Deputy Director of Jingzhou Museum:

The overall image of a feather man is: a bird's beak, a bird's tail, a bird's leg and a bird's paw, with both hands together as a grip, plump figure, bulging chest and round buttocks, which looks like a man, a bird and a bird.

Feather man is a wooden tire, composed of feather man and phoenix bird. The upper part is feather man, and the lower part is phoenix bird. The bodies of the feathered man and the phoenix bird are carved from a whole piece of wood; The feather man's arm, phoenix tail, phoenix bird's wings and tail are all carved one by one, and then combined with the body to connect quickly. The feathered man's arm and the phoenix's wing are bonded to the body with bamboo sticks as tenons and raw lacquer, and the feathered man's bird's tail is bonded to the body with tenons and raw lacquer. When unearthed, the wings, tails and other parts of the phoenix bird and feather man all fell off their bodies.

There are two possibilities in the nature and interpretation of the lacquer wood carving Feather Man unearthed from the No.2 Chu Tomb in Tianxingguan, Jingzhou. First, the image of "Lingwu" is a prop for the wizard to practice and has the function of evoking the soul to heaven; The second is the materialized image of Chu people's immortal thought; Third, spirits such as "evil spirits" have the function of avoiding evil spirits in the town tomb and are the patron saint of the tomb owner.

People riding dragons, phoenixes and jade unearthed from Chu tomb in Xiongjia, Jingzhou.

refer to

Yunnan Provincial Museum and Jingzhou Museum: Chu Wen Zhan Chu Ba Wang Zhuang, the Old Country of Chu Culture, Yunnan Fine Arts Publishing House, 20 16 edition.

Li Hong, editor-in-chief of A Beautiful Journey-Walking into Jingzhou Museum, Hubei Fine Arts Publishing House, 20 1 1 edition.

Chen Jianming, editor-in-chief, Nine Days of Phoenix Dance-Special Exhibition of Chu Cultural Relics, Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, 2009.

Hubei Provincial Museum, Picture Book of Chu Culture, Hubei Fine Arts Publishing House, 2006.