التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
| العنوان: |
THE ASTRONOMICAL MEANING OF SOME JADE ARTIFACTS UNEARTHED AT THE LINGJIATAN SITE. 1: THE JADE TORTOISE AND THE JADE TABLET. |
| المؤلفون: |
Shi Yunli |
| المصدر: |
Journal of Astronomical History & Heritage; Jun2024, Vol. 27 Issue 2, p245-260, 16p |
| مصطلحات موضوعية: |
SUNRISE & sunset, AUTUMNAL equinox, TESTUDINIDAE, VERNAL equinox, SUMMER solstice |
| مصطلحات جغرافية: |
ANHUI Sheng (China) |
| مستخلص: |
Unearthed in 1987 from the Neolithic site in a village called Lingjiatan in Anhui Province, China, a Jade Tortoise and a Jade Tablet are believed to be components of a set of divination tools that retain both astronomical and cosmological meaning. On the basis of the works by previous scholars, this paper aims to study this special set of jade artifacts from a syncretic point of view. After a verification of the previous researchers' opinions that the eight arrows carved in the central position of the Jade Tablet represent the Eight Cardinal Directions while the four arrows carved at its four conners represent the rising and setting positions of the Sun at the March and December Solstices. I argue that the five pairs of round holes on the Tablet's two short sides may represent the five pairs of the horizontal positions of sunrise and sunset corresponding to the later Eight Festivals in the Chinese calendar, i.e. the Beginning of Spring, the Spring Equinox, the Beginning of Summer, the Summer Solstice, Beginning of Autumn, Autumn Equinox, Beginning of Winter, and Winter Solstice. Together with the other twelve round holes on the two long sides of the same Tablet, they might have been used by the residents of the Lingjiatan site as a date-counting device related to the Eight Festivals in a year. Put together as a unified set, the Jade Tortoise and the Jade Tablet indicate an early model of the cosmos, reflecting the image of space and time in the minds of the residents of the site, which made the set a 'standard model' of the other tortoise-divination tools unearthed at the same site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
|
Copyright of Journal of Astronomical History & Heritage is the property of University of Science & Technology of China and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) |
| قاعدة البيانات: |
Complementary Index |
