Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

Obviously, the shape of the jue makes it unsuitable as a drinking vessel, but if you take wine as a foothold and explore in other directions, you will find that the jue is not suitable for either filtering wine or warming wine.

Warming and filtering wine are uncommon practices today. This is because the wine-making technology of ancient people was not as good as today. They used fermentation instead of distillation. This kind of natural fermentation wine inevitably mixes the lees with the wine.

Even in more ancient times, such as in ancient Egypt or the ancient Sumerian civilization, the wine made was not so much wine as fermented thick wheat porridge.

This is why many people in ancient times called drinking wine "eating wine", but it was really "eating wine". The ancient "eating" does not agree with the modern "drinking".

In ancient times, most people drank "turbid wine" because it contained koji and other substances left over from wine making. Of course, if the hygiene work was not done well, it was not impossible that there was sand in it.

So for them, filtering wine is a must-do thing. For example, they use some textiles to filter out the impurities in the wine, and the filtered wine is called sake.

Often only better wines will be filtered, and filtration will also increase the cost of making wine and increase the loss during the production process, so it is often expensive. This is what Li Bai's poem said about the ten thousand golden cups of sake. of wine.

As for warming wine, it has something to do with the production of wine by ancient people. The ancient method of brewing wine can easily produce things like formaldehyde or methanol. Heating is conducive to the volatilization of these harmful substances.

Of course, a more important reason is that the brewed wine tastes better after heating, so ancient people were willing to do this.

But Jue is obviously not made for these two purposes, because its volume is too small. Whether it is used to warm wine or filter wine, it is a thankless task.

"So now this thing is not a practical instrument, but an ancient ritual instrument." Liang En said to Joan of Arc, whose face showed a thirst for knowledge. "A kind of bronze vessel used in naked ceremonies together with the goblet."

There is a sentence in "Shuowen" that "there is a good wine in jue", so if you want to decipher the purpose of jue, you must use good wine as a breakthrough point, and what kind of wine is this? Zheng Xuan annotated "Zhou Li. Better People" Said: "Hang, the brewing cabinet is for wine."

At the same time, "Shuowen" said that Qiang wine "has a fragrant and smooth fragrance that can enchant the gods", which means that it is used for the gods to enjoy. But the problem is, at least in this world, it is impossible for God to open his mouth and drink. So the ancients used their imagination and created two "drinking methods".

One is a practice that has been passed down to this day, that is, spilling wine on the ground; the other is mainly to evaporate the aroma of the wine as much as possible. "Book of Rites. Jiao Te Sheng" records: "The most respectful people do not enjoy the taste, but the aristocratic smell (smell).

Kong Yingda, a Confucian scholar of the Tang Dynasty, wrote in "Shang Shu. Jun Chen" that "the fragrance and fragrance move the gods." The ingredients of Liquor are tulip, vanilla and black millet.

During the naked ceremony, the bottom of the tulip will be slowly roasted over a low fire. After being roasted by the fire, the smell of tulips will spread, just in time for the gods to smell it. This kind of smelling behavior is called "Xin".

Jueli's wine will also be used for "irrigating the ground" ceremony and poured on the thatch bundles spread on the ground. This is what "Book of Rites. Jiao Te Sheng" said, "Zhou people still smell (smell), and the wine used for irrigation is stinky (smell)." Smell), the Yu combines with Qian, and the smelly (smell) yin reaches Yuanquan."

In other words, when the aroma goes up, it is called "Xin", and when the wine goes down, it is called "Naked". A sacrifice means that all the gods or ancestors in heaven and earth have enjoyed this sacrifice, and the three-legged jue as a ritual vessel is Do this.

As for the jue actually used for drinking, it is a Zan-shaped jue. According to Zheng Xuan's annotation "Zhou Li. Dian Rui", it is said: "The head of Gui is used as a vessel, which can be used as a sacrifice to the naked body, which is called Zan."

In "Kao Gong Ji. Jade Man", Zheng Xuan added: "Zan is like a plate, and its handle is made of Gui." That is to say, the shape of Zan is like a round plate in the front and a handle in the back. It is generally in the shape of a kei, which may look like a large spoon in today's terms.

These two things look completely different. The reason why they are considered to have the same name is because the uncle Gongfu Zan was unearthed in Yuntang, Baoji in 1976.

In front of Uncle Gongfu Zan is a container with a rounded mouth and a swollen belly. There are outward-turned feet under the container. There is a handle in the shape of a Gui at the back. The inscription on the handle reads: "Uncle Gongfu is a golden jue. Use it to offer wine and drink it. Use it to enjoy filial piety." .”

In other words, this thing has an inscription engraved on it, calling itself Jue, and the shape of this thing is obviously more conducive to drinking than those three-legged Jue.

It's just that because there are too many three-legged jue products, it eventually became the representative of jue and its side as a drinking vessel was gradually forgotten by people, but the saying that it was a drinking vessel was still used.

"As for this title, it is likely that it belongs to a certain prince. At least judging from the patterns on it, only the first level of princes can have these things." Liang En concluded in the end.

"As for the origin of this thing, it is most likely a museum, because I found a kind of paint on it to mark cultural relics, and judging from the paint, it is very likely that this thing was in the museum at least 50 years ago."

"Can you tell which museum it was from?" Joan of Arc asked, looking at the white paint remaining on the bronze.

"It's hard to see because it's too worn." Liang En shook his head and said, "But I think it would be more appropriate to put this thing on display in the museum donated by the French last time."

Because a group of lost creatures from French churches were discovered before when they took over the winery and were returned to those churches, so those churches also chose to return a group of cultural relics to China in accordance with Liang En's request.

Because there were a large number of cultural relics and many of them were fine, the Chinese established a small branch next to the Mingzhu City Museum at the mouth of the Yangtze River after receiving this batch of cultural relics.

Out of gratitude to Liang En, there is a small exhibition hall in this museum specially prepared for Liang En. There are some records of the entire museum and thanks to Liang En.

So Liang En thought it was a good thing to take this very exquisite-looking bronze knight back, because it would further make him famous.

After all, Liang En's main market for his industry is in China, so it is obviously very important for him to have a good relationship with China. After all, he has gained a lot of benefits from the relationship between the two parties.

After carefully inspecting the Bronze Lord, Liang En focused on the items found in the same batch, but compared to the Bronze Lord, the other items were definitely not as dazzling.

These things are some porcelain, woodware and silverware. Although many of them have a strong foreign style, they do not look exquisite or special enough.

Compared with the previous Bronze Lord, these things were more like mass-produced low-level luxury goods. At first glance, Liang En felt that these things had little historical value other than economic value.

But out of professional habit, he still checked everything here one by one. And when he inspected a palm-sized silver plate, he unexpectedly found a familiar yet unfamiliar symbol on it.