In the spring of 1969, archaeological experts from the Shandong Provincial and Jinan Municipal Museums excavated a Western Han Dynasty cemetery on the southern slope of Wuying Mountain in the northern suburbs of Jinan City, conducted exploration and cleaned up 14 Han Dynasty earthen pit tombs. These tombs are all buried in the gravel layer. They are earth pit tombs with vertical pits. Seven of them have two-story platforms, and two of the two-story platforms have brick walls on both sides. Among them, the bottom of one tomb is 3.76 meters long and 1.65 meters wide. There are brick eight-character walls on both sides of the front end. Burial pottery is placed in between. The display position of the utensils is in an inverted convex shape. The group of acrobatic figurines is placed near the owner of the tomb. There are pottery chariots and horses in the front, one on each side of the front, a plate on the right, and two pottery doves on the left. One pottery dove carries a pot, and the other carries a cauldron to carry people. Among these unearthed artifacts, the group of acrobatic pottery figurines, pottery doves carrying pots, pottery doves carrying people and tripods, and pottery chariots and horses are the most distinctive.
The group of Tao Lewu acrobatic figurines is the most important discovery. There are 21 pottery figurines, which are fixed and shaped on a square pottery plate 67 cm long and 47.5 cm wide.
In the middle of the pottery plate, seven people were divided into two groups to perform music, dance and acrobatics. The two people on the left are both young women with red cheeks and long buns hanging down their backs. They are dressed in slender floral dresses, one red and one white, with ocher belts wrapped around their bodies. They wave their long sleeves and dance toward each other.
The four people on the right are all young men, wearing pointed ocher hats, tight knee-length shorts, and white belts around their waists. The two people in front put their hands on the ground and performed a handstand opposite each other.
According to literature, the content of acrobatics mainly includes handstand, jujitsu, jumping ball sword, dancing on the altar, carrying a tripod, pushing poles, walking ropes, etc. Another term for inversion is called inversion, which means inversion on the ground. There are also inversions on bottles, drums, high poles, theater carts, horsebacks, and overlapping tables. Among them, inversion on overlapping tables is also called the "Five Resting Cases". It can be seen that the "Five Rest Cases" may have been influenced by Western performing arts. For example, the technique of moving and stacking cases on the Han portrait bricks in Sichuan is in the form of "Five Cases of Rest". The opera cart and rope skills in the Yinan Han Tomb Hundred Opera Pictures are inverted on the opera cart and ropes. The two men in the Wuying Mountain acrobatic figurines are also in an inverted position, which shows the inversion in the form of a stronghold.
The two people behind are doing a jujitsu performance: one person is lying on his back and doing a somersault; the other person is lying on the ground, head held high, legs bent forward from behind, feet on both shoulders, hands on Hold the feet and shins, and connect the head and feet.
This kind of acting requires flexibility in the waist and legs. The terracotta performers' flexible and flexible limbs and very calm demeanor show that they are very skilled. The backward movements indicate that the action is in progress. The other person's contortion performance is more technical and more difficult. , the performance should be the action of "holding flowers in one's mouth".
In front of the two groups of performers, there is a person wearing a wide long-sleeved red dress with a white belt around the waist. He tilts his head back, opens his arms to both sides, and can rotate his body. This person may be The conductor of the entire music and dance drama.
On the back side of the pottery plate is an accompaniment band, with seven people in a row. Two from the left are women, with long buns hanging down behind their backs, kneeling and playing the sheng. The remaining five are men. Close to the sheng-playing musician, his hair is tied into a ring and raised above his head, playing the harp. A person on the left is playing a flat drum. Further to the right are those who ring the bell, beat the rock, and beat the drum. Bells and drums are percussion instruments, and shengs and harps are orchestral instruments. They are both the main musical instruments in ancient my country. There was no distinction between acrobatics and music and dance, and became the dominant culture at that time. The dancers are both men and women, and their status is very low. Some are even slaves. Dance forms include pan drum dance, jian drum dance, scarf dance, etc. The accompanying band usually has a larger number of people. Musical instruments include drums, festival drums, chimes, chimes, panpipes, xuns, xuns, harp, harp, etc. For example, there is a picture of music and dance in an ancient tomb in Yinan. The picture is rich in content and powerful. The accompaniment band alone has 23 people and more than ten kinds of musical instruments. The dancers are performing the most popular pan drum dance in the Han Dynasty along with the music. . The Wuyingshan dancing pottery figurines are two women, with slim figures, without any ornaments on their heads, and no dance tools in their hands. They are only dressed in literary dance clothes, with wide sleeves stretched out, dancing towards each other. This form of double long-sleeved dance has always been a distinctive feature of my country's traditional national dance. The accompaniments of music and dance acrobatics include bells, drums, sheng, zither, etc., which are consistent with the instruments seen in the banquet images on the bronzes of the Warring States Period. They are all common musical instruments in ancient my country. There is also a "bell and drum music" in the "Book of Songs". There are records such as "The harp and the harp and the drums are used to return to the ancestors" and "I have a guest, and the drums, the harp and the sheng are played".
On both sides of the pottery figurine, there are seven viewers on the left and right sides, all with long clothes and wide sleeves, standing with hands and arms. Among them, three people on the right side wear wide clothes and crowns, with a crown in front of them. The two pottery pots should represent nobles enjoying music and dancing. According to ancient etiquette, when nobles have a banquet, they must have two pots to hold wine. This also proves that this group of pottery figurines represents the form of banquets and various performances. In "Yi Li", there are records of setting up two pots for activities such as the rural drinking ceremony, the rural shooting ceremony, the big shooting ceremony, and the swallow ceremony. The banquet scenes seen on the engraved images of Warring States bronzes unearthed and handed down are consistent with those recorded in the documents. From the hats and attire of the three people and the jugs and wine vessels placed in front of them, they must be nobles holding banquets and enjoying music and dancing. The four figures on the left side of the figurine plate have their hair tied up in a ring, towering high on the top, also in an ornamental shape.
From the perspective of subject matter and content, the performance of the Wuyingshan acrobatic figurines should belong to the category of Han Dynasty opera. Baixi is the general name for ancient music, dance and acrobatic performances. Since it is actually a comprehensive performance of various folk skills, mainly acrobatics, later generations are accustomed to regard Baixi as the predecessor of today's acrobatics.
Baixi belongs to the category of miscellaneous dance, and its content is extremely rich, including wrestling, competition, animal taming, illusions, etc.; it is obviously different from the "grace dance" that has been a trinity of poetry, dance and music since the Zhou and Qin Dynasties . Guo Maoqian of the Song Dynasty believes in "Yuefu Poetry Collection" that miscellaneous dances "all originate from folk customs and then become immersed in the palace." Another view is that "since the Han Dynasty, music and dance have flourished, so there is Athens and miscellaneous dance. Elegant dance is used for court feasts in suburban temples, and miscellaneous dance is used for banquets." But no matter which point of view, we can be sure that acrobatics originated from the folk, and later entered the court and became an emerging art form.
According to literature records, acrobatic performances for entertaining people have appeared in the pre-Qin period. For example, "Liezi·Shuofu" records the performance of "Tiaowan Sword"; "Zhuangzi·Xu Wugui" talks about When the warriors of the Chu Kingdom arrived, they should be good at making pills; "Guoyu·Jinyu" talks about the "Fulu" technique, which is the play of Yuangan. During the Warring States Period, it became a fashion for the ruling classes of various countries to promote singing and dancing to promote entertainment. After Qin Shihuang unified the six kingdoms, he not only moved the bells and drums of the princes from various countries to the Xianyang Palace, but also gathered the artists who were good at singing and dancing in the palaces of the six countries in Xianyang to perform the "play of horns and actors". Even in Xianyang, "women advocate excellence, and tens of thousands of people promote it; the music of bells and drums spreads endlessly." "Historical Records: Biography of Li Si" also records that Qin II once watched a wrestling show in Ganquan Palace.
The ruling class concentrated folk skills in the capital on such a large scale and used them as part of court entertainment, which greatly stimulated the development of various skills. It was this kind of stimulation that led to the flourishing of Baixi during the period of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty. Emperor Wu inherited the Qin system and set up a Yuefu institution to oversee the performance of fine music during palace banquets. The Yuefu of the Han Dynasty collected, organized and adapted folk music for the enjoyment of the rulers. At the same time, after the rule of Wenjing, the social economy of the Han Dynasty was restored and developed, and the national strength was greatly enhanced, which laid a solid material foundation for the popularity of Baixi.
At that time, banquets and performances had become an indispensable part of cultural and entertainment life. "Book of Han: Chronicles of Emperor Wu" mentioned that "in the spring of the third year of Yuanfeng's reign, people from within three hundred miles came to watch the opera." Since then, this event has been held every year. This kind of acrobatic performance conference, which added content every year, lasted for 64 years and did not stop until the fifth year of Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty. It is very common for rich families to have "bells, drums, and five musical instruments", "songs for the number of Cao Cao", and "plays and dancing statues". Even if ordinary people have guests at home, they must have this content. Some people even have to "responsible for singing and dancing rehearsals and even laughing and dancing" even during funerals.
At the same time, the opening of the Silk Road promoted the exchange of Chinese and Western cultures. Envoys from various countries in the Western Regions also brought illusions and magical objects from the Western Regions. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Anxi "sent envoys to follow the Han envoys to see the vastness of the Han Dynasty, and offered large bird eggs and Li Xuan good people to the Han Dynasty." The introduction of acrobatics and illusions from the Western Regions greatly enriched the content of Baixi in the Central Plains, and combined with traditional skills, made the performances of Baixi in the Han Dynasty more colorful.
In short, Baixi began in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, was formed in the Qin Dynasty, and fully developed during the Han Dynasty. Before the Western Han Dynasty, it was mainly performed in the palace, and in the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was widely spread among the people. Regarding Baixi, there are records in "Hanshu" and Zhang Heng's "Xijing Fu", and there are also physical materials to prove it in Han Dynasty murals, seal cuttings and stone portraits. The scale, program and form of Baixi performances are very arbitrary. At that time, there was no such thing as "Hundred Operas of the Han Dynasty", but most of them followed the Qin name, which was called "Jiaodai", such as "Jiaodai Opera", "Jiaodai Qixi Opera", "Jiaodai Various Operas" , "A corner is worth a hundred plays" and so on. After the Eastern Han Dynasty, the above different artistic performance forms were collectively referred to as "Hundred Operas of the Han Dynasty".
The acrobatic pottery figurine discovered in Wuying Mountain is an expression of a basically complete Han Dynasty opera with acrobatics as the center, music and dance as well. Until now, few complete images of Baixi in the early Western Han Dynasty have been found. Therefore, the discovery of the early Han Dynasty acrobatics in Wuyingshan, Jinan, is very precious.
The painted pottery dove with a negative pot is made of muddy gray pottery, with a height of 52.9 cm and a width of 43.5 cm. The dove bird has a plump body, eyes wide open, upper beak hooked, and neck raised high. The chest is painted with ocher scaly feathers, the wings are spread flat, and the legs are thick and powerful. The three claws of the feet are spaced apart. Standing on a square flat base. On each of the two outstretched wings of the pottery dove is a pot of the same shape. The pot has a plate mouth, a high long neck, a round belly, and a high ring foot. The lid is decorated with three bird-head-shaped flat buttons. There is a long zigzag pattern of red painting on the neck, and a colorful band of red painting on the abdomen.
The painted pottery dove for carrying people and the tripod is also made of clay and gray pottery, with a height of 53.5 cm and a width of 45 cm. The dove has a high neck, a short beak, a flat belly, strong and strong legs, and a white body. , the neck and chest are painted with scale-like feather patterns, the wings are spread flat, the long tail is slightly upturned, and the two feet are on a square base. There are three people standing on the back of the dove, one of whom is wearing ocher clothes and holding a national umbrella with both hands; the other two are both wearing red wide clothes and high buns with ring-shaped headbands, and their sleeves and hands are facing each other under the umbrella canopy. On each of the two unfolded wings is a cauldron of the same shape, both with curved covers with fungus-shaped handles. It has square ears and a shallow belly. The tripod's belly is painted with heart-shaped vermilion patterns, and the tripod's feet are in the shape of a human being.
The pottery chariot and horses are on a red wheel. There are five horses, two red and three white, all with long bodies and short tails.
In the other 13 tombs, 9 pottery pots and pots were unearthed, including two copper belt hooks, two Wuguo copper half-liang coins each, and a bone ring. Judging from the shape of the tomb and the burial artifacts, it should be from the same period. Among them, one tomb contained half a tael of money from Emperor Wen of the Western Han Dynasty. It can be preliminarily speculated that the age of these tombs is approximately the first half of the Western Han Dynasty.
Wuying Mountain is a group of painted pottery figurines with music, dance, and acrobatics from the Western Han Dynasty. It shows a complete scene of hundreds of opera performances in the early Western Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. It is one of the most eye-catching works of small sculptures in the Western Han Dynasty. The performance image of Wuyingshan acrobatic pottery figurines vividly reflects the high level of acrobatic art achieved in my country's Western Han Dynasty.