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TAOTIE, DRAGON, PHOENIX, AND FARMER: A HIGHLY DECORATED QIN EXCAVATED FROM JIULIANDUN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

Yuanzheng Yang
Yuanzheng Yang*
Affiliation:
Yang Yuanzheng 楊元錚, Department of Music, The University of Hong Kong; email: yuanzhen@hku.hk.
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Abstract

The mythical origins of the Chinese qin have been forged by ancient literature ever since the age of Confucius, nevertheless, very little is known about the morphology of the ancient qin and its embodied symbolism. This article, by analyzing a most recently discovered ancient qin found in a fourth-century b.c.e. tomb in Jiuliandun, Zaoyang city, Hubei province, in 2002, will explore the relief carving and lacquered drawings found on the instrument itself and their symbolic significance as a representation of the worldview and philosophical state of mind of the Warring States period. I will suggest that a qin contemporaneous to Confucius and played by him looks distinctly different from the version produced by the fertile imagination of the medieval Chinese; instead, it was divided into five registers, and it is this segmented subdivision which defines the ancient qin and differentiates it fundamentally from its classical counterpart. Strikingly, the symbolic depictions in which it was clad represent not only the fertile imagination of the Chu aristocracy, but also include portrayal of the more menial tasks of the ordinary Chu farmer and herdsman as he proceeds through the cycle of the agricultural year, and thus provide the modern scholar with an extraordinarily vivid insight into contemporary Chu life.

提要

琴的起源，在孔子時代流傳下來的古典文獻中就已經被神化了。目前我們對上古琴的形製及其象徵意義仍知之甚少。本文通過考察2002年湖北棗陽九連墩出土的一床戰國琴，嘗試解讀該琴無與倫比的華麗浮雕和精美漆畫中隱含的象徵意義。作者指出孔子時代人們所彈奏的琴的真實形態與中古時代人們對上古琴形製的想像大相徑庭。出土上古琴構造分爲五節，這種分段結構是上古琴與中古以來的傳世琴的最大區別。尤其值得重視的是：該琴的文樣和圖案所展現的情景並不囿於楚國貴族所特有的瑰麗想像，其中相當一部分還可以闡釋爲楚國農夫牧者一年之中種種勞作的平凡場景，從而爲現代學者揭示了戰國時代楚人日常生活的生動一瞥。

Keywords

QinWarring States periodChu kingdomrelief carvinglacquered drawing琴戰國時代楚國、浮雕漆畫
Type
Articles
Information
Early China , Volume 38 , 2015 , pp. 129 - 150

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References

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2. For a complete facsimile of Lidai qinshi tu 歷代琴式圖 (literally, the Manual of Qin Styles in the Past Dynasties), see Guoli Gugong bowuyuan bianji weiyuanhui 國立故宮博物院編輯委員會, ed., Gugong shuhua tulu 故宮書畫圖錄, vol. 22 (Taipei: National Palace Museum, 2003), 102–11Google Scholar.

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7. Hubei sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo, “Hubei Zaoyang shi Jiuliandun Chu mu,” 12.

8. For illustrations of the numerous bronze, jade, and musical instruments excavated from the two tombs, see bowuguan, Hubei sheng, ed., Jiuliandun: Changjiang zhongyou de Chu guo guizu damu 九連墩: 長江中游的楚國貴族大墓 (Beijing: Wenwu, 2007)Google Scholar; and bowuguan, Shenzhen, ed., Jian wu Chu tian: Hubei chutu Chu wenwu zhan 劍舞楚天: 湖北出土楚文物展圖錄 (Beijing: Wenwu, 2010)Google Scholar.

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10. Wang Hongxing 王紅星 suggests the age of the male occupant was between 50 and 60, that of the female occupant between 45 and 55, but Hu Yali 胡雅麗 suggests that the age of the male occupant was between 35 and 40, that of the female occupant between 26 and 30. See: Hongxing, Wang, “Jiuliandun yierhao Chu mu de niandai yu muzhu shenfen” 九連墩一二號楚墓的年代與墓主身份, in Chu wenhua yanjiu lunji 楚文化研究論集, vol. 6, ed. yanjiuhui, Chu wenhua 楚文化研究會 (Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu, 2005), 433–37Google Scholar; Hu Yali, “Jiuliandun yierhao mu zongshu” 九連墩一二號墓綜述, in Jiuliandun: Changjiang zhongyou de Chu guo guizu damu, 21 and 23; and Hu Yali, “Jiuliandun Chu mu fajue yu chubu yanjiu” 九連墩一二號楚墓發掘與初步研究, in Jianwu Chu tian: Hubei chutu Chu wenwu zhan, 19.

11. Hu, “Jiuliandun yierhao mu zongshu,” 21.

12. The qin's museum accession number is M1: 851; its temporary excavation number is M1: 363 (this number is written in yellow on the back of the instrument's front plate), whilst next to this number, I found another number M2: 363 in white. This confusing state of affairs might explain why some commentators have erroneously described two different qin as having provenance in this tomb complex. See Hubei sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo, “Hubei Zaoyang shi Jiuliandun Chu mu,” 12; and Ding Chengyun 丁承運, “Handai qinzhi gegudingxin kao” 漢代琴製革故鼎新考, Zijincheng 紫禁城 2013.10, 48. The archeological designator of the qin is M1: W363. See Hubei sheng bowuguan, ed., Jiuliandun: Changjiang zhongyou de Chu guo guizu damu, 89.

13. The average diameter of the string holes is 0.3 cm, and the distance between two adjacent string holes is 1.9 cm. The sound-hole on the back of the top plate is 29.4 cm in length, and 2.0 cm in width.

14. Some scholars argue that zoomorphic taotie face designs can be traced back to jade pieces found in the much earlier Neolithic sites of the so-called Liangzhu culture (3310–2250 b.c.e.).

15. Rawson, Jessica, “Late Shang Bronze Design: Meaning and Purpose,” The Problem of Meaning in Early Chinese Ritual Bronzes, ed. Whitfield, Roderick (London: Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1993)Google Scholar, 75. For discussions regarding the presence or absence of the symbolic meaning of the taotie motif, see also Bagley, Robert, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collection (Washington D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1987), 30–36 Google Scholar; Sarah Allan, “Art and Meaning,” The Problem of Meaning in Early Chinese Ritual Bronzes, ed. Whitfield, 9–33; Robert Bagley, “Meaning and Explanation,” The Problem of Meaning in Early Chinese Ritual Bronzes, 34–55; Chang, K. C., Art, Myth, and Ritual, The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; and Paper, Jordan, “The Meaning of the T'ao-t'ieh ,” History of Religions 18 (1978), 18–41 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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20. Chu (c. 1030–223 b.c.e.) was an ancient Chinese state in the Yangtze valley during the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1046–256 b.c.e.). See Barry B. Blakeley, “The Geography of Chu,” Cook and Major, Defining Chu, 9–20.

21. Music in the Age of Confucius, 134.

22. Yuanzheng, Yang, “Inventing the Fuxi Style of Qin ,” Studien zur Musikarchäologie VIII, Orient-Archäologie 27, ed. Eichmann, Ricardo, et al. (Rahden/Westf.: Leidorf, 2012), 195–98Google Scholar.