The tomb of Zeng Houyi is located on the Dongtuanpo of Leigudun, two kilometers west of Zengdu District, Suizhou City, Hubei Province. It is a large wooden tomb with a zigzag shape. 1in the autumn of 977, the local garrison discovered this ancient tomb while expanding the barracks. On March 1978, the cultural relics and archaeology department organized a joint exploration, which began in early May and was cleared at the end of June. Through the identification of the inscriptions on Zhong Bo unearthed, it is the tomb of Ceng Houyi underground palace, also known as the first emperor of Zeng State in the early Warring States period.
The underground palace is like an ultra-luxurious "three rooms and one living room", with 1 main coffin and 8 funerary coffins in the east hall; Thirteen coffins are placed in the west room; Weapons, chariots and horses, bamboo slips in the north room; The middle hall is about the music room and concierge reception hall of the tomb owner, with a large number of ritual vessels built in; Put a dog coffin at the door leading from the East Hall to the Central Hall. The underground palace is 2 1 m long from east to west, 16.5 m wide from north to south, 13 m deep on the ground and covers an area of 220 square meters. The whole tomb is composed of floor, wallboard and cover *** 17 1 giant rectangular wooden mat, with 500 cubic meters of nanmu wood used. The top and periphery of the wooden coffin are filled with 60,000 kilograms of moisture-proof charcoal. The charcoal is covered with green paste mud and white paste mud, covered with slate, and then covered with clay, reaching the tomb directly.
Ceng Houyi bronze frame painted nanmu main coffin (divided into inner coffin and outer coffin) weighs 7000 kg, with 2/kloc-0 painted coffins. Ceng Houyi, male, about 45 years old, was buried in the late autumn of the fifty-sixth year of King Hui of Chu (433 BC). She was buried with women aged 13-25. In the later period of slavery, there were as many as 2/kloc-0 martyrs in this tomb, which was the bloodiest one at that time.
In recent years, thousands of tombs of the Warring States Period have been excavated in Hubei Province, which is the largest and only tomb with an exact date. Its tombs are magnificent, with many unearthed cultural relics, exquisite production, rare and precious, well-preserved and rich inscriptions, which are rare in tombs of the same period. A large number of exquisite bronze ritual vessels, musical instruments, weapons, gold wares, jade articles, chariots and horses, lacquer wood, bamboo slips, etc. have been unearthed in the tomb, reaching as many as 15404, many of which have unique shapes and exquisite craftsmanship, and 8 of them have been designated as national treasures.
The tomb of Zeng Houyi, a tomb with four chambers in the east, middle, west and north, is like an underground music palace. The spacious central hall is the "main hall" of "Zhong Ming Shi Ding", and the musical instruments are well hung. A group of clocks stand tall along the south wall and the west wall; A set of braids was erected along the north wall; Bronze seat on a big tree near the east wall of Gudong; In addition, there are musical instruments (7 pieces), sheng (4 pieces), Xiao (2 pieces), pool (2 pieces) and tambourine (2 pieces) arranged in a rectangular space composed of chimes, chimes and drums. The whole chamber music instrument, like a large-scale "bell and drum" band, embodies the spectacular momentum of playing "the sound of stone" and "the music of bell and drum", and constitutes a complete scene of hanging bells on three sides during the feast and sacrifice of ancient princes.
In the East Room, there are Qin (2 pieces), Qin (5 pieces), Sheng (2 pieces) and Drum (1 piece), all of which are gathered near the main coffin, such as the light music group playing "The Sound of Qin" in the Living Palace.
In the "bedroom" and the western room similar to the "backyard", there are 2 1 painted coffins with1girls aged 3 to 25 lying inside. They may be "female musicians" who perform music and dance, and they are buried with musical instruments. There are three lacquered wooden boxes in the North House, which are specially used to hold stone plates. The most prominent thing in the music hall is the chime. The huge clock stand, made of copper and wood, is in the shape of a ruler, 7.48 meters long, 3.35 meters wide and 2.73 meters high. Seven painted beams, both ends of which are reinforced by bronze sleeves embossed with dragons and petals, are supported by six bronze columns and columns in the shape of swords and warriors. The bell frame and bell structure have 246 parts, which are detachable and exquisite in design. Sixty-five bronze clocks are hung on the shelf in three layers and eight groups: the upper layer is three groups of push-button clocks and nineteen; There are eleven short clocks, twelve non-clocks and ten long clocks in the middle floor. There are two groups of 12 big dragon bells on the lower floor, and the other group has one bell. The largest one is 153.4 cm long and weighs 203.6 kg. The total weight of the clock body alone is 2500 kilograms.
There are 3755 words engraved on the bell rack, bell hook and bell body. The content includes numbering, notes, phonetic notation and music theory. Most of the inscriptions on the clock are gold-plated. According to the inscription on the bell, in the fifty-sixth year of the reign of King Hui of Chu (433 BC), in memory of Ceng Houyi, a Zhong Ding was cast and presented to the State of Zeng. On one side of the clock is the inscription "Ceng Houyi wrote for the first time", which indicates the owner of the clock. The phonetic symbols of the clock and the push-button clock are on the positive drum and the side drum on one side of the clock body, and the sequential names or phonetic names of the musical sounds issued by each clock are recorded according to Gu Xijun (C key). On the other side of the clock, there are sentences and paragraphs in the drum. This paper discusses the corresponding relationship between legal names, imperial names, inflected names and different countries and country titles.
Well-preserved bell bodies with bronze luster all retain the beautiful and charming original sound. Except for a few large-scale bell with inconspicuous side drums, most of them can play two notes with three-degree intervals in the positive drum and the side drum respectively, which is consistent with the standard sound. The full set of clocks contains a deep bass, a sonorous and mellow alto, a crisp and bright treble, and rich colors can be deployed, which is quite expressive. Its range ranges from C2 to 7, spanning five octaves, and it can play complete pentatonic, hexatonic or even heptatonic music. There are twenty-five tones in the central range, which can be rotated in the palace and play all kinds of music at all times and all over the world. The decoration of the clock and its frame takes people, animals, dragons, flowers, geometric shapes and other themes, and adopts various techniques such as round carving, relief, intaglio carving, carving and drawing, line drawing and so on. Combined with exquisite layout and exquisite description, it has achieved excellent beautification effect. The whole chime, grand and solemn in macro, exquisite and gorgeous in micro, is an artistic masterpiece that people can appreciate.
This chime has eight striking tools. Six 7-shaped mallets should be played by three people, each holding a pair, playing three groups of bells in the middle layer respectively, taking into account the buttons in the upper layer to play the melody. Two painted sticks with a length of 2 15cm and a thickness of 6.6cm, held by two people, play the bell with their hands, which can match the harmony and set off the atmosphere. This large-scale chime with spectacular modeling, complete equipment, rich sound system and accurate audio frequency is comparable to that of China ancient chimes. Because of its large number, exquisite casting, good preservation, complete melody, wide range, beautiful timbre and precious musical inscriptions, it has been called "rare treasure" and "the eighth wonder of the ancient world" by experts and scholars at home and abroad.
The chimes of Zeng Houyi are outstanding representatives of ancient chimes. The bronze gold-plated metal frame is 1.09 m high and 2. 1.5 m wide, showing a single-sided layered structure. A pair of monster copper columns, including a faucet, a crane neck, a bird's body and a turtle's foot, are joined with two copper bars, and cast copper rings are welded at equal intervals at the bottom of the copper bars for hooking. There are thirty-two stone arches hanging against each other. According to textual research, the original arrangement of the whole frame was forty-one, with one tone for each chin, a series of twelve and a half tones and a range of three octaves. The timbre is crisp, bright and unique. There are also ink books and inscriptions that communicate with Zhong Ming, which are about numbering, phonetic notation and music theory. Its exquisite chin frame, numerous chin blocks, clear braided suspension state and complete accessories (all equipped with chin box and chin hammer) have only been seen so far. The material is mainly limestone blocks, and the timbre is clear and beautiful, which is more touching than today's xylophone and more transparent than bells. It shows the musical style of three octaves, and the rich semitone shows the function of the down-turn key. Its ensemble with chimes is really beautiful. Even more amazing, the highest note is the same as the top key (G8) of the piano. It fully embodies the achievements of designing and manufacturing musical instruments in ancient Qing dynasty, and expands our vision of the scope of ancient court teams.
Ancient musical instruments unearthed in the same tomb include Gu Jian, which is the earliest similar object seen so far. Qin, Paixiao and Chi are the earliest lost musical instruments. Among them, the Paixiao is a "Paixiao" composed of thirteen bamboo tubes, which is shaped like a bird's wing because the long and short tubes are arranged neatly. Many nationalities in the world use this instrument. Without dehydration, one of these two ancient flutes can play music with seven or eight flutes, and the scale structure has exceeded five tones. Qi is a bamboo wind instrument. In the past, it was difficult to describe its shape in detail only according to different records in the literature. The pool unearthed in the tomb is 29.3 cm long and 30.2 cm long; Both of them are made of a section of bamboo tube with closed nozzles at both ends, and the tube body is provided with a blowing hole I, a sound outlet hole I and a finger hole V; Paint the whole body with black paint, and draw lines around the pipeline with vermilion and yellow. Triangular thunder pattern and deformed diamond pattern. Using its copy, you can play a scale structure other than five notes.
Sheng is a wind instrument that has been used since ancient times. Ceng Houyi sheng is divided into twelve springs, fourteen springs and eighteen springs, all of which are made of reeds, reeds and reeds. Sheng spring varies in size due to the high and low audio frequency. The gap between the frame and the tongue is thinner than the hair, and the workmanship is very fine. Imitating it, we can see that its voice is small, but simple and elegant, especially delicate and charming.
The harps and harps that have lost their sound due to string rot have all preserved their complete bodies. In imitation, you can taste its original rich charm. Eight musical instruments, including chimes, chimes, drums, harps, harps, sheng, flutes and pools, were unearthed in the tomb of Zeng Houyi, including *** 125 pieces, as well as percussion tools 12 pieces and various components 17 14. It can be roughly divided into three categories: percussion, plucking and plucking. Its quantity, variety, exquisite production and well-preserved are unprecedented discoveries in the history of world music archaeology.
From the acoustics directly and indirectly preserved by these ancient instruments, it is easy for us to know the level of ancient music in China as early as 2,400 years ago from Zhong Qing's music inscription with classic value.
Coincidentally, in 198 1 year, another set of 36 chimes was excavated in the No.2 tomb of Leigudun. According to experts' appraisal, the chimes in Tomb No.2 and Zeng Houyi belong to the same system, and their timbre and melody are the same as those in Zeng Houyi's chimes, among which eight big bells have the same melody as those in Zeng Houyi's chimes. There is an obvious vacancy at the junction of the size of the bell, which is just filled by eight big bells unearthed from Tomb No.2. From the pitch analysis of the bells, the 28 small bells unearthed from Tomb No.2 are different from the eight big bells, which just fills the high-pitched area of Zeng Houyi's bells and expands the range of Zeng Houyi's bells from five 8 degrees to six above 8 degrees. Therefore, the chime of Tomb No.2 is called the "sister bell" of Zeng Houyi's chime. There are 65,438+000 musical clocks (except clocks), and 100 chimes can be split and combined, which is a complete and magnificent chime series.