Jimu News Reporter Xu Ying
Intern Shi Binbin
Recently, high temperature warnings have been issued frequently, and this summer has been extremely hot. Many friends have air conditioners and fans in their homes 24 hours a day. So how did people escape the heat in ancient times without the blessing of "high technology"? Jimu News reporters have found these refreshing cultural relics from the museum for you and invite you to enjoy them.
A must-have "cooling friend" in summer
When it comes to cooling down in summer, the oldest tool is the fan.
Legend has it that the first fan appeared during the Yao and Shun periods, and was affectionately called "Shaking Wind" and "Liangyou". Think back to the time when the sun is blazing, sitting under the shade of a tree, taking out the small fan you carry with you and shaking it twice. The breeze blowing against your face makes you feel very comfortable. Many poets have written about the necessary "cool friends" in summer. Li Bai, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote in "Summer in the Mountains": "Lazy swinging the white feather fan, naked in the green forest. Take off the towel and hang it on the stone wall, open the top to let the pine breeze." "It shows a lazy and contented scene in summer. Bai Juyi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote in the poem "White Feather Fan": "The color is natural, and the roundness is the result of tailoring. It rustles like a pine tree, and floats like a crane flying in the air. There is no snow in midsummer, and there is endless wind all year round. It leads to autumn. In the hand, the moon is hidden in the arms..." The poet described that with the white feather fan, it brings cool breeze all year round. With the fan, it is like holding the cool autumn in the hand, like hiding the moon in the arms.
Literati also like to leave calligraphy, paintings, poems and other works on fans, which makes the simple fans have aesthetic and collection value. The Palace Museum has nearly 10,000 fan-like cultural relics in its collection, most of which belong to the old collection of the Qing Palace. According to relevant information published by the Forbidden City, there were two peak periods in the development of palace fans in the Qing Dynasty: one was the Qianlong period. At this time, the fans used in the palace were exquisitely designed, made of sophisticated materials and finely crafted, and the collection and production of complete fans reached their peak. The second is the period when Empress Dowager Cixi was in power. The completed fans have an advantage in quantity. Most of the completed fans from the Qing Dynasty in the Palace Museum now belong to this period.
Among them, calligraphy and painting fans were favored by the emperors of the Qing Dynasty because of their profound literati interest. The direct participation of the royal family greatly promoted the development of the art of fan calligraphy and painting, making this art form flourish in the court and gradually reached its peak during the Qianlong and Jiaqing periods. For example, this piece of folding fan "Emperor Qianlong painted a picture of Shouxuan and wrote a poem to serve the Empress Dowager on viewing the lotus".
Emperor Qianlong painted a folding fan with a painting of Shouxuan and a book to serve the Empress Dowager with poems about viewing lotuses. It is collected by the Palace Museum.
The reporter also saw from the digital collection library of the Palace Museum that the museum also collects a variety of embroidered fans, which are exquisitely made and complicated. Not messy, beautiful. For example, these are a yellow silk embroidered flower and bird pattern round fan with a dyed bone handle, a light blue gauze embroidered peony flower pattern round mahogany carved flower handle round fan, and a silk embroidered flower pattern embroidered brocade edge black lacquer handle round fan.
Red silk embroidered orchid butterfly pattern and ivory carved Eight Immortals figure handle round fan, collected by the Palace Museum
Light blue gauze embroidered peony flower pattern and mahogany carved flower handle round fan, the Palace Museum collected
silk embroidered flower pattern round frame fan with black lacquer handle, Forbidden City The museum's collection of "refrigerators" and "air-conditioned rooms" of ancient nobles
When it comes to heatstroke prevention and cooling, we have to mention the ancient "refrigerator" - Bingjian. It is a container used to hold ice and put food in it in ancient summer days. It is recorded in "The Rites of Zhou, Tianguan, Ling Ren": "Sacrifice and offer ice as a mirror." 2,400 years ago, the ancients used ice. The Bronze Ice Fou of Zeng Hou Yi, unearthed from the tomb of Zeng Hou Yi in 1978, is the most primitive and structurally complete "refrigerator" ever discovered in the world. It is now in the Hubei Provincial Museum. This is an ancient container used to hold ice. It consists of a square jian and a Fang Zun Fou. The Fang Zun Fou is placed inside the Fang Jian. Ice cubes are placed in the gap between the Jian and the Fou, and then the wine bottle is put in. Fang Zun is in a can, which can have a cooling effect. Ice bins are generally equipped with lifting rings on both sides, a cover on the top, and double money holes on the top, which are both a handle and an air-conditioning outlet. Its function is clear, it can not only preserve food, but also distribute air-conditioning to keep the room cool. .
The Bronze Bingjian Fou of Marquis Zeng, collected by the Hubei Provincial Museum (drawing by Liu Yang, data map of this newspaper)
In addition to refrigerators, the ancients also thought of cooling down the entire house in summer. During the Tang Dynasty, the emperor built "air-conditioned rooms" in the palace. The so-called "air-conditioned room" refers to the cool hall built by the emperor in the palace specifically for summer vacation. The hall is equipped with mechanically driven refrigeration equipment. This kind of equipment uses the method of cold water circulation and uses a fan wheel to rotate to generate wind and transmit the cold air to the temple. At the same time, machines are also used to send cold water to the roof, allowing it to flow straight down along the eaves to form a water curtain and stir up cool air to achieve the purpose of relieving the heat.
Plain gauze garments that look like nothing
Plain gauze garments, collected by Hunan Museum
The heat in summer is all-round, so people often have to take countermeasures in terms of food and clothing expenses. Wearing light gauze is naturally cool in summer, and princes and nobles spared no expense in this aspect. The plain gauze garment now stored in the Hunan Museum is a top-notch piece. It was unearthed in Han Tomb No. 1 in Mawangdui, Changsha in 1972. It has a cross collar, right gusset, and straight skirt. The style is similar to the popular top and bottom garments at that time. Deep clothing. The fabric is plain yarn with geometric velvet brocade edges. Because there is no color, there is no lining. "Shuowen Jiezi": 蝝, the clothes are not heavy. Congyi, single voice. The strands of plain yarn are extremely thin and weigh less than one tael. If the cuffs and collar are removed, the jacket weighs only about 25 grams. After folding, it can even be put into a matchbox. It can be described as "as thin as cicada wings" and "light as smoke". The colors are bright and the patterns are gorgeous. It represents the highest level of sericulture, silk reeling and weaving technology in the early Western Han Dynasty. Plain gauze clothes are light and transparent. How to wear them? Some people think that it is put on the colorful silk cotton robe to create a hazy visual effect; some people think that it cannot be put on and should be worn as underwear when resting indoors.
(Source: Jimu News)
