The excavation of Tomb M1 brought many surprises to Chen Han and them.

The surprise is not only the two "crowns" that seem to represent status, but also the unearthing of a jade cong in the tomb.

As we all know, the jade cong thing, from the beginning of its birth, is not something that ordinary people can touch.

It is a ritual that symbolizes power.

Even in Tomb M1, there is only one piece of Yucong!

This jade cong is yellowish-white, partially green, with more reddish-brown, gray-brown, dark green patches or gossamer crystals, and the whole is not pure jade.

In other words, the jade products unearthed in the ancient country of Liangzhu are not the "jade" in the consistent impression of modern people.

The jade in everyone's impression is more of the soft and translucent appearance of Hetian jade and green jade.

And the jade unearthed in the ancient country of Liangzhu is not so much jade as marble.

Because most of these jades are very primitive, and most of them are washed out in the open air or in rivers.

There was no way, the productivity at that time could not be used to dig rocks, and most of them relied on natural discoveries.

There is no way to ask for anything about jade.

However, the quality of jade is not good, but its meaning is not low at all.

"Cong" was first seen in ancient books such as "Zhou Li".

Its shape is explained by "Zhou Li, Examination of Gongji, Jade People": "Dacong has two inches out of ten, four inches for shooting, and one inch thicker."

"White Tiger Pass Literary Quality" said: "The tooth body in the circle is called Cong".

When Zheng Xuan supplemented the "Zhou Li", he said: "Cong, the eight directions are like the earth."

Xu Kai of the Southern Tang Dynasty said: "The shape is like an octagonal and the middle is round."

Later, because it was difficult for later generations to distinguish the cong-like entity, it was called "Zhengui" in the Southern Song Dynasty.

To the Qing Dynasty Qianlong according to the Eastern Han Dynasty Xu Shen "Saying Wen Interpreting Words", with "Cong, Ruiyu, eight inches, like a car?" arguments.

Yucong, later generations also known as "rim head".

Its use has always been thought to be a ritual vessel of "using Huang Cong to ceremonial ground".

It is one of the great ritual vessels used for sacrifice, and it is called "six instruments" with jade, jade, jade, and jade.

As one of the important rituals in ancient China, "Zhou Li" "to the sky with the sky, to the yellow cong to the earth", jade cong has become the ruling class to sacrifice the vast earth, but also the wizard of the gods.

However, since a large number of jade congs of the Liangzhu culture have been unearthed, this kind of attachment of the scribes of the Qin and Han dynasties of the Warring States period is not enough to rely on.

Because the jade of Liangzhu is not topaz, there should not be the concept of "rite land" at that time.

Some scholars speculate that the Liangzhu jade cong is a kind of magic weapon for shamans to worship ghosts and gods through heaven and earth, with a strong primitive witchcraft color.

The shape of the jade cong is the inner circle (hole) outside, which seems to confirm the truth that "the bi circle is like the sky, and the cong square is like the earth".

Wizards also often use inferior jade, stone, or burned jade cong to suppress evil spirits, collect corpses and embalming, and avoid evil spirits.

It is also a symbol of power and wealth.

When the jade cong was unearthed in the tomb, it had the following characteristics: the tomb was of high specification, large scale, and rich in burial goods; Most of the tomb owners are male, and Cong often comes out of the wall, and there are martyrs in some tombs.

All kinds of phenomena show that the Cong style is closely related to the primitive religion and sacrificial rituals, and its owner must belong to the tribal chieftain, the high priest and the upper class of the shaman.

From the excavation site, it can be seen that the more prominent the identity of the tomb owner, the more Cong and Bi in the burial goods, as if to show everything in his lifetime, and the burial just shows the original identity of the tomb owner, and the extent to which he enjoyed wealth and power among various tribes.

It also represents a kind of burial system in the Liangzhu culture period.

Other specific methods of use are yet to be verified.

Yucong was still common in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, but it was rare after the Warring States and Han dynasties.

Its use in later generations was also incorporated into the Confucian ritual system as a ritual or burial vessel.

In the Neolithic Age, more Liangzhu jade was found, and the jade material was tremolite jade produced in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the texture was impure, mostly cyan, some yellow, and it was misty milky white after soil immersion.

Except for a few cylindrical shapes, most of them are made into regular inner circles and outer squares.

The body is cut neatly, and the middle hole is made of pipe drilling, and there are often two layers left at the middle joint.

The size of the jade cong varies in size, generally short in the early stage and tall in the late period.

The body of Cong is decorated with animal face patterns, and the ornamentation is centered on the four corners, divided into four groups, and the same ornamentation is decorated on the Cong with different heights.

Part of the jade cong in the main body of the beast face pattern, with fine yin pattern carved "god" figure and cloud thunder pattern, the yin line with sharp stone carving, the line is firm.

It is also because most of the jade cong in Liangzhu are engraved with animal face patterns or god and man patterns, and scholars have associated jade cong with wizard magic weapons.

Because these ornaments are too "metaphysical".

The jade cong unearthed in the M1 tomb has a square cylinder with curved edges, a height of 3.6, a shooting diameter of 7.9, an aperture of 6.4 cm, an outer ring diameter of 0.4~0.45, an inner circle diameter of 0.12, a length of 0.1 cm at the corner of the eye, and a nose length of 1.6 cm and a width of 0.3 cm.

In terms of size, it is relatively short.

The whole cross-section is a rounded square, there are four convex surfaces, the angle of the convex surface is greater than 90 degrees, each convex surface takes the corner line as the central axis, engraving the same simplified god pattern, and the adjacent convex blocks are separated by vertical straight grooves.

The pattern is divided into upper and lower sections by the transverse groove, and the same ornament is carved, which should be the pattern of the god and the man, and the animal face pattern is not seen.

There are eight sets of identical god and man patterns in the whole device.

The upper part of the god pattern is composed of two groups of concave strings, each of which is composed of three to four concave strings cut from pieces.

The double circle is nearly round eye, the outer ring is drilled, and the inner circle is depicted with a short line, and a short horizontal line is depicted on both sides of the eye to represent the corner of the eye, and some of the corners of the eye are engraved and superimposed on the outer eye circle.

Flat and transverse convex nose, the nose wing is carved, in the form of a square fold spiral, rotated clockwise, a total of three and a half circles, the inner side of the nose is engraved with a short horizontal line and two long horizontal lines.

The whole device is finely polished, the luster is obvious, and there are no cutting marks.

It is short, the ornamentation is a god pattern, the relative production level is also relatively primitive, there is no trace of cutting on the body, and there is no excessive decoration.

It can be judged that the owner of this M1 tomb should have lived in the early Liangzhu period, not the late period.

Like the tomb of the anti-mountain king opposite the Mojiao Mountain platform, it is a relatively late tomb, and the "Yucong King" unearthed in the anti-mountain king mausoleum is 15.8 high, 7-6.5 in diameter, and 5.6-5.2 cm in aperture, which is much more than this.

And there is also a divine beast pattern.

This Jade Cong King is now hidden in the Palace Museum, and all Chinese people can visit it.

Speaking of which.

Before the discovery of a large number of jade congs in Liangzhu.

Because no samples were unearthed.

Many of the Liangzhu jade congs that have been handed down, or those that were dug up before the Qing Dynasty, have been mistaken by the academic community for the jade cong of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and they did not expect that the "jade cong" was born so early.

No way, jade is almost the same as stone.

It is unrealistic to use carbon 14 and other means to detect the age.

Besides, these jades were born on the earth tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of years ago, and the Liangzhu people just dug them out and polished them into jade.

How is it possible to scientifically detect the year in which it was polished?

That is, the Liangzhu site was discovered later, and a lot of jade cong was unearthed one after another.

Then the archaeological community found that the style of these Liangzhu jade congs seems to be very similar to the jade cong collected in many museums, and the style and jade quality are very similar!

In particular, the Liangzhu mythical beast pattern and the god and man pattern unique to the Liangzhu culture.

Under the two corresponding, the academic community suddenly realized.

Oh! It turns out that these jade congs, which were previously thought to be in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, were left by the Liangzhu culture 5,000 years ago!

However, it is worth mentioning that the earliest jade cong was not found in Liangzhu, but was found in the third phase of the Xuejiagang culture in Qianshan, about 5100 years ago.

Until the middle and late Neolithic Age, Yucong appeared in a large number in the Liangzhu culture in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the Shixia culture in Guangdong, and the Taosi culture in Shanxi.

However, considering that the AH region is also one step away from Zhejiang.

Maybe Yucong was indeed created by the ancestors of Liangzhu, but they first came to Liangzhu from AH, and then settled in Liangzhu, maybe they did.