The discovery of the Modern Yin Ruins has made the Shang Dynasty civilization, which was previously not recognized by the West, truly a foregone conclusion. A large number of Shang Dynasty cultural relics unearthed from Yin Ruins, in addition to oracle bone fragments and bronzes, there are two kinds of animal bones that are also highly valued. One is an elephant bone and the other is a whale bone.
Elephant bones are native to Henan, the Yellow River Basin in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, there are also a large number of elephants and rhinos, Yin Ruins elephant bones and domesticated elephant oracle bones unearthed, for the study of the ecology of the time is of great significance.
Whale bones naturally cannot be produced natively in Henan, although the vicissitudes of the sea, but Henan during the Shang Dynasty is far from the sea, these whale bones are naturally from the marine area.
So, where did the Yin Ruins whale bones come from? What were these whale bones used for at the time?
The ancients knew about whales earlier than they thought
During the Spring and Autumn Period, Lao Tzu said: "Whales that lose water are controlled by ants, and people give up what they keep, while disputes with their subjects are controlled by Yousi." ”
In the various texts of the pre-Qin period, the description of whales is not uncommon, although whales live in the deep sea, but people in ancient times are not unaware of the whale as a creature.
Of course, because of the limited scientific research conditions at that time, people's understanding of whales was also relatively limited: it was believed that whales lived in the ocean and were a giant fish; whales would spew water vapor clouds; whales would sometimes run aground, and once they did, they would not be saved.
whale
In fact, these cognitions are generally correct, as for the ancients think that whales are fish is no problem, at that time there was no relevant definition of taxonomy, it is impossible for the ancients to say that whales are mammals.
There are a lot of cultural relics unearthed in the Yin Ruins, and there is another thing that is very large, that is, the shells in the ocean.
The people of the Shang Dynasty were called merchants, because the commerce and trade of the Shang Dynasty were prosperous, and the Shang Dynasty people were also considered to be good at business, so later generations called the merchants as merchants to commemorate it.
Commercial trade is inseparable from money, but metal money was not yet popular during the Shang Dynasty, and the most common currency at that time was "shell coin", that is, a specific type of shell. In the oracle bones, there are a large number of records about "giving shells", "appreciating shells", and "imprisoning shells", and many chinese characters related to trade have the word "shell", which is also derived from this reason.
seashell
The core area of the Shang Dynasty was located in the upper reaches of the Heluo and Huai rivers, but it did not mean that it did not have a border with the sea, and the coastal areas of bohai Bay and the Yellow Sea at that time were also within the control of the Shang Dynasty, so sufficient resources such as sea shells could be obtained.
Whales are rare and naturally dedicated to the Shang King
Since the ancient ancestors, we are not a marine race as a whole, and in comparison, the production of the sea is a relatively rare item for the inland areas, especially whales.
Whales are huge, they are giant beasts in the sea, the ancient conditions are limited, it is difficult for manpower to hunt whales, and occasionally whales are stranded on the shore and are obtained, which is also rare today.
Ancient coastal residents may have obtained whales by chance, but their size was too large to be preserved and transported for a long time, so they unloaded their bones and transported them to the capital and offered them to the Shang king as a tribute. First, whale bones are rare and rare treasures to see; second, whales are regarded by the ancients as the king of fish, able to match the status of nobles.
Map of the Territory of the Shang Dynasty
Although the Shang Dynasty was able to control the coast, the people who really lived in the coastal areas were mainly the subordinates of the Shang Dynasty's Fang Guo, who needed to pay tribute regularly, and the rare whale bones were naturally one of them.
The whale bones of Yin Ruins may have been used to make bone ware
In addition to bronze, pottery, and stone tools in the Shang Dynasty, there was another kind of instrument that was very common, that is, bone ware, and the materials used to make bone ware included tigers, elephants, deer, and even people.
The whale bones found in Yin Ruins are from the site of a large bone ware workshop.
According to reports excavated at the time, there were two pieces of whale bones unearthed from the Yin Ruins, both of which were the shoulder blades of the whales, one was 23 cm high, 26 cm long and 19 cm wide, and the other was 14 cm high and 28 cm in diameter, and the upper and lower walls were stacked like huge bone mills.
At that time, these two whale bones were found together with a large number of other aggregates and bone organs, so the real use of these two whale bones is most likely to be used to make bone tools.
The bone craftsmanship of the Shang Dynasty was extremely complex and exquisite, and the craftsmen at that time were good at using various types of bones to make utensils for various purposes, and the rare aggregate of whale bones was naturally not something that ordinary people could use.