Look at the painted pottery in the "Hometown of Painted Pottery"

Happiness

On the eve of May Day, Linxia Prefecture’s 10th Tourism Promotion Month Event and Linxia City’s 2nd Hezhou Peony Cultural Festival afternoon, we visited the Linxia Majiayao Cultural Painted Pottery Museum. In the crowd, I met Ma Ping, a Linxia writer, poet and editor of "Hezhou" magazine. We walked and watched with the audience, and she suddenly asked me: "Xingfu, do you like painted pottery?" I thought about it and said to her, "Yes." Other than answering "I like", I really didn't know how to answer. Then I said my true feelings, "Living in Linxia, ??especially Linxia people, should know something about painted pottery. When friends from out of town come, or ask us about what painted pottery is like, we can be more generous. It doesn't necessarily have to be... I'm an archeology major, but I should at least know a lot about it."

Ma Ping didn't say anything after hearing this. I have no way of knowing how she feels about painted pottery. I wonder if she has the same admiration for Linxia painted pottery as I do. What made me irritated was the complicated threads of painted pottery, which made me start to pay attention to the painted pottery, and began to pay attention to its appearance and shape, as well as the specific cultural types of the era it contained. However, everything is like an echo of this world. At this time, I am standing thousands of miles away, standing in front of its door, staring blankly for a long time, listening to the revelation of the chime of the earthenware cauldron, Linxia painted pottery is silent, always talking loudly The rare sound, standing in the world of the display window, is frozen in a trance in the thousands of years of star movement, waiting for the same silence as always, always only caring about a silent reminder.

Painted pottery is actually not colorful. So why is it called painted pottery?

My understanding of painted pottery began with the Linxia Prefecture Museum’s Painted Pottery Exhibition. The Linxia Prefecture Museum in Hongyuan used to have a complete collection of cultural relics and categories. The numerous painted pottery exhibits ranked first in the country in terms of quantity, scale, and grade value. The "treasures" of the Linxia Prefecture Painted Pottery Museum are the painted pottery cultural relics and a Jin Dynasty tomb unearthed in Nanlong, Linxia. In this excavated tomb from the Southern Song Dynasty, archaeologists were pleasantly surprised to find a stone tablet with a peony pattern carved on it. Its discovery was like a stepping stone, opening up the study of Linxia's humanities and history, and it will bring Hezhou The history of peony cultivation and the history of Hezhou brick carving art date back to more than 800 years ago. Perhaps it will be earlier than this. The only existing physical objects only bring people's attention to this place.

Further forward, the clue is broken.

At first, I heard Ma Ling, an interpreter from Linxia Prefecture Museum, explain painted pottery to tourists. When she participated in the first Quanzhou Tour Guide and Instructor Competition, she still opened the competition with the topic of painted pottery. Many years later, her explanation of painted pottery Although there were no props, she faced the audience and judges with a smile on her face, as if she was not here to compete, but indeed in the painted pottery hall, confidently and skillfully giving another explanation to the tourists. The stories about painted pottery were touching and inspiring. This left a deep impression on people. When it came to the third Quanzhou Tour Guide and Instructor Competition, Linxia Tourism Bureau had three contestants. They successively took the topic of painted pottery explanation and achieved good results in the competition. The enduring mystery of painted pottery lies in the historical and cultural evolution process it encompasses, which has attracted the attention of the world for thousands of years. Those known and unknown parts, the open propositions are just like its shaping, and the secrets that are still wrapped in the urn. Still waiting for later interpretation. In the development process of more than ten years, Linxia's tourism industry has gradually grown into a large scale, and tourism products have been continuously improved and enriched. With the deepening of academic research in the field of Linxia painted pottery, it is unveiling its mystery.

There is an oil painting in the Painted Pottery Hall of the Dongxiang Autonomous County Museum, which depicts a simulation of how ancient people made painted pottery thousands of years ago. It is a labor scene copied by modern people based on their imagination, with mountains, rivers, lush green grass, and The Shed Farm, a warm and pleasant paradise, outlines the fiery large-scale production in the Paleolithic Age where men farmed and women weaved. Around the camp in the picture, there is a group of people making painted pottery, mostly women and their children. Each tribe performs its own duties and has a division of labor. The men are responsible for heavy physical labor such as hunting or clearing land, pioneering and farming. Due to the simple and limited labor tools, many labors require people to work together to complete. In the period of matrilineal society, mothers were the head of the family, taking care of the home and the courtyard, and making painted pottery in between feeding their offspring. Perhaps many of the painted pottery we see today were made by mothers, who were very ingenious.

There are two main types of painted pottery handicrafts: plate construction and strip construction. Making pottery pots purely by hand without molds and calibrators shows the maker's superb skills and exquisite aesthetic ideas. That day, I visited the Majiayao Cultural Painted Pottery Museum with a group of foreign tourists. According to the guide's introduction, there were three information points that summarized the development of the painted pottery culture. One is the distinctive feature of "living by water and grass", which can well explain the characteristics of the birthplace of Huaxia civilization, a cultural ecological chain formed in the upper reaches of the Yellow River and the middle and lower reaches. For example, at the Lajia site in Minhe County, Qinghai Province, unearthed remains include the world's earliest bowl of noodles, scattered painted pottery relics, and pottery pots from the Qijia culture, which correspond to the Qijia culture unearthed in Guanghe County. . One is the change in shape and decoration, which records the ancient people's thoughts and emotions of infinite reverence for nature, and is a totem that expresses people's worship of unknown life, from plain and plain wide-belly thin bottlenecks to open basins, from hand-painted waves. From the pattern to the grid pattern, then to the divine baby pattern, the divine man pattern, to the three-dimensional texture that suddenly emerges from the surface.

One is the rise of the Neolithic Age, the gradual transition to a patriarchal society, the degradation process of painted pottery, the Neolithic Age to the replacement of bronze ware in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River Basin, especially the revitalization of the Wei River Basin, the gradual decline of the painted pottery civilization, and then ushered in the Porcelain Age It reached its peak of glory during the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.

In the Shaanxi Provincial History Museum, some types of painted pottery from the Yangshao culture are on display, and the majority of the exhibits are Tang Sancai, majestic horses and vehicles, respectful waiters, and plump ladies on glazed rough porcelain. From shaping to firing, it marked the level of porcelain at that time. The famous pottery basin with human face and fish pattern was unearthed at the Banpo site in Xi'an. On the way to see the Terracotta Warriors and Horses that day, the taxi driver said about traveling to Shaanxi, "You can see more than two thousand years of history in Shaanxi, you can see five hundred years of history in Beijing, and you can see one hundred years of history in Shanghai." ——His face was filled with pride, and I could feel his confidence and happiness sitting next to him. And from this, I feel the cultural nourishment that a city gives to a person, and the same infinite glory that a person transmits to a city. Let a person gain more inner satisfaction, have a real sense of gain, and have enough reasons and cultural confidence to fall in love with the city where he lives.

On May Day this year, I walked along the Daxia River with Linxia writer Wang Guojun. We wandered in the ten-mile peony corridor filled with bright sunshine. On the way, he put down his mobile phone and suddenly asked me: "Happiness, tell me, what is happiness? Look at the sparkling river water, the colorful cherry blossoms on the bank, and the willow branches dancing in the wind. What we see is , this is it!” He said excitedly, the mountains and rivers of Linxia and the ecology of Linxia not only give Linxia people confidence, but also create a culture that turns stone into gold, radiating the people’s minds and creating creations that combine wisdom and nature. Listening to his poetic emotion moved me deeply.

The Almighty Creator shows mercy and care without mercy. God treats Hezhou well. The gift from the dry and barren land gave Linxia people the courage and courage to start a business, and gave Linxia this hot land humanistic inspiration. In Linxia, ??the extremely complete Painted Pottery Civilization Museum is actually on par with, or even worse than, the one in Linxia. The painted pottery displayed in the Linxia Prefecture Painted Pottery Museum, Qijia culture - Majiayao culture - Machang type - Banshan type - Bianjialing type, Dongxiang County, Guanghe County, Kangle County, Jishishan County Museum, in He The Zhengxian Ancient Animal Fossil Museum is like a cultural corridor connected by archaeological sites. Being in a geological corridor composed of mountains and rivers, it seems like a time tunnel traveling through thousands of years.

Painted pottery is beautiful, but it was not a decoration at that time. What is its main use?

At first I thought it was a sacrificial vessel. Because many of them were discovered later in tombs, it gives the impression that they are burial objects of ancient people. Just like the bones in the inscriptions and the oracle bone inscriptions on the tortoise shells, the bronze tripod, the musical instrument chime, and the carbonized rice grains found in the pottery pots. It can be seen that it is used to store food, hold water, and boil water for cooking. The reason why they are often unearthed in tomb groups is that they are more concentrated and completely preserved in tombs. Qi Yongren, a farmer from Sanping Village, Anji Township, Jishishan County, once saw a spot of water shining on a dry soil pass on the road. He walked closer and used his hands to peel away the loess layer covering the surface, revealing a There was only a complete earthenware urn, which contained half a jar of accumulated rainwater. This accidental encounter made farmer Qi Yongren the discoverer of the "King of Painted Pottery". There are various legends about painted pottery in the local area. The dry food packed in the pottery pots will be as fresh as ever after a week in the dog days of summer, without mold, hair, or deterioration. The principle of storing painted pottery and its preservation effect are similar to those of purple clay pots. Wei Wenzhong, the Civilization Office of the Jishishan County Party Committee, told me that Qi Yongren was his father-in-law and was familiar with the story of the Painted Pottery King. He has accompanied reporters to Sanping Village many times to interview the old man's experience of discovering the Painted Pottery King. That day we were going to see the ruins of Sanping Village in Anji Township. It suddenly started raining heavily early the next morning. When we went to Sanping Village, the road was being built. The other side told us that the village road was muddy and could not be accessed by trucks, so we had to give up.

The sky and the earth are wide in the pot, and the sun and moon are long in the pot. Painted pottery civilization strives for the top spot in Hezhou, and Linxia, ??full of charm, has a better future.