Later, I searched more relevant information and found an interesting phenomenon: the media's views on the contents of this tomb mural are not uniform. Some media said that "the messenger holds the black rabbit head"; China Heritage Newspaper published a summary of archaeological excavations in the edition of June 5438+February 65438+August 8, 2020, in which the waiter on the mural was mentioned: she was holding a "black pig head"! Look at other media, and some reports are "holding the head of a black pig"; Some also quoted the dictation of the person in charge of the archaeological project-of course, when other media quoted the person in charge, they still "held the black rabbit's head". This is even more interesting! There is a big difference between "pig head" and "rabbit head".
The mural of this tomb was painted by a folk painter. His technique is a bit poor and his painting is clumsy. It is really difficult to accurately identify the food carried by the waiter; Moreover, the differences in site conditions, light and shade, and observation angles of archaeological excavations may cause temporary identification problems. However, as a professional archaeologist, when publishing professional archaeological reports or articles in a professional newspaper such as "Cultural Relics" magazine or "China Cultural Relics Newspaper", there should be no ambiguity, and the difference is so great.
Through careful observation and pondering on the mural photos, we can still draw the conclusion that "the waiter holds a black pig's head" from the appearance and size of the food held by the messenger. It is obviously a misjudgment to say "pig" as "rabbit"!
The slate murals of the Yuan Dynasty found in Niujiachuan Village, Geyishang Township, Xing County can prove the theory of "pig head".
In June 2005, the staff collected a batch of stone murals left after the tombs were stolen in the homes of residents in Niujiachuan Village. The color lines of slate murals are still well preserved, and the characters are rich in connotation, which embodies certain times and regional cultural characteristics, and has strong life-oriented content and artistic appeal. In 2008, it was collected in Shanxi Museum.
There are six slate murals, which are well preserved as a whole. The content of the picture is the scene of the owner's home life and travel. They are a couple sitting side by side, two trips, two seats and one seat.
Other contents are skipped in Figure 2, but only the banquet is prepared. The picture consists of four waiters and a rectangular table, and the periphery of the rectangular table is painted with ochre. Four waiters wear hoes without legs or cross legs. From left to right, the three men wore round neck gray, ochre and yellow robes in turn, holding trays, which contained food (such as pig heads), Dulu bottles and bowls as offerings. Among them, the left four classes are dressed in their right hands, holding trays with jade pots and spring bottles. In retrospect, it seems that they were at the scene before the banquet. On the table, three short round plates are filled with food, such as steamed bread, steamed buns and fruits. The tall handle cup is upside down or upright, with two lotus-covered pot and one pot (see figure).
This scene, characters, movements, demeanor and furniture are almost the same as those in the murals of Shuozhou mural tomb! It's just that the things on the plate here are lighter in color, but it should be a "pig's head" when magnified. It shows that this mural is a custom to express the wealth of the deceased's family and pray for wealth. I think: accordingly, the murals in Shuozhou mural tomb should be clearly identified as "pig head"!
It's just that the pig's head in the mural of Shuozhou Guanting Tomb is a little small, so it is appropriate to understand it as "suckling pig's head", and it makes sense to say the origin of "stewed suckling pig".
The question is, did the Yuan Dynasty eat pork?
According to literature retrieval, from the pre-Qin to the Han Dynasty, pork and beef and mutton were collectively called "prisons" for offering sacrifices. "Book of Rites" "The emperor eats too fast, and there are all kinds of cattle, sheep and tapirs. Governors eat cows, Qing eats sheep, doctors eat tapirs, and scholars eat fish and vegetables. " At that time, apart from offering sacrifices, only the monarch and doctor Qing could eat meat at the table. The tapir here is pork. Book of rites? Wang Zhi once recorded: "Governors don't kill cows for no reason, doctors don't kill sheep for no reason, scholars don't kill dogs for no reason, and Shu Ren doesn't eat treasures for no reason." During the New Year holidays or celebrations in China, low-ranking officials and people at the bottom can eat some pork. "Salt and Iron Theory" records: "Non-rural drinking, fat wax, sacrifice without wine and meat." Cattle are production tools and are generally fasted. For a long time, people used sheep to make meat, pork and so on.
There was such a bridge at the Hongmen banquet at the end of Qin Dynasty. Fan Kuai rushed into the tent to save Liu Bang. When Xiang Yu saw it, he was interested and said, "Give him a drink, strong man." Kuang ... drink immediately, "give it a shoulder." Fan Kuai shouldered his life, covered his shield on the ground, added his shoulder, and drew his sword to spit it out. Fan Kuai ate raw pork. What a good man! This also shows that pork was not popular at that time, and it was not the food of the upper class. Xiang Yu wanted to play tricks on Fan Kuai at the Hongmen banquet. Imagine that at the banquet, the host family gives you a large glass of wine to drink at one go, making you eat raw pork that is not cut. Can this be regarded as respect for people? -Thanks to Fan Kuai selling dog meat, he is familiar with the art of using saber, otherwise he doesn't know how to eat it!
However, there are records about raising pigs and sheep in the Han Dynasty. Historical records? Biography of Huo Zhi contains: "thousands of feet in Zezhong" and "thousands of feet in Sheep". The total number of legs of pigs and sheep is 1000, which is 250 (head). It shows that it was common to raise pigs and sheep at that time.
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, mutton was still the main meat on the table. Galand in Luoyang said: "Sheep are the most prolific on land". From the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty, the food culture of mutton was still fashionable. The meat most described by literati in Tang Dynasty is mutton, and pork obviously has little appeal to the upper class of society.
In the Song Dynasty, mutton, as the protagonist, was brought into full play by the royal family and literati. In Song Zhenzong, the royal chef slaughtered 350 sheep every day, including 280 in Renzong and 40 in Yingzong. Zongshen also introduced pork, but the total amount of mutton consumed by the royal chef in a year was "434,463 Jin and 4 Liang", while the pork was only "4 1 365,438 Jin". Mutton is really the best meat on the table. In the early Song Dynasty, Tai Ping Guang Ji was a collection of previous literature. According to statistics, mutton was mentioned 47 times, accounting for 44% of all the meat mentioned. There are also records of people living in Buddhism eating mutton; Pork is only 12, accounting for 1 1%, which is really a "supporting role". The reason for the low incidence rate is that the upper class despises pork. In Ode to Pork, Su Shi called pork "expensive people refuse to eat" and "cheap price and other pollution". But it is this "cheap soil" characteristic that makes pork popular among the people. The famous "Dongpo Meat" was also improved by Mr. Dongpo because he thought pork was unpalatable. Large families generally don't eat pork themselves, but their servants or people will eat pigs as meat. Pork is the food of the lower classes.
From the middle and late Song Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty, with the development of society, people began to have surplus grain and developed pigs. In addition, the number of sheep is decreasing, the price of mutton is rising, and the demand for mutton by rulers is greater. Although pork is still low-grade meat at this time, it has gradually gained some status at the dinner table. "Tokyo Dream", which depicts Kaifeng, the capital of the late Northern Song Dynasty, wrote: "From now on (Nanxunmen) only pigs slaughtered by the people are allowed to enter Beijing, and every group will expel tens of thousands of people every day until night, and no unruly people are allowed." Kaifeng consumes more than 10 thousand pigs every day and is bought by traffickers from all directions and sent to Tokyo; How many butchers slaughter these pigs and how many pork vendors deliver meat to the people. This shows the huge consumption of pork by the people.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, pork consumption increased. Wu, a poet in the Song Dynasty, wrote in Liang Lumeng that the meat market in Lin 'an is in the embroidered clothes shop in Jiaobei. "The two streets in the alley are slaughterhouses, killing hundreds of people every day." There are countless stalls selling meat inside and outside Hangzhou: "Every shop hangs into a pig, no less than ten sides." The meat was sold out before lunch. "The population is dense, and everyone who eats is dead."
The famous Kyle in Yuan Dynasty? Poirot also mentioned that there are many pigs in Zhejiang. There is also a saying that the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty strictly controlled meat-mutton, which made pork gradually become one of the main meat sources of China people.
The above information shows that during the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the demand for pork and the amount of pork for sale increased continuously, and pork gradually became the meat protagonist on the table of ordinary people in China.
A court cookbook in the Ming Dynasty recorded that 5 kg of mutton and 6 kg of pork were used. It is said that the status of early mutton has begun to decline. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, according to the court records left by Guanglu Temple, pigs 18900 and sheep 10750 were used. Although mutton still occupies a seat, pork has obviously become the protagonist of the upper table of society.
In the Qing Dynasty, the gradual popularization of sweet potato and corn ushered in the large-scale popularization of pork. The introduction of spices makes pork food taste better. According to records, a palace banquet held in the forty-seventh year of Qianlong shared 65 kg of pork, 3 pork elbows, 25 kg of wild pork and other pig parts!
Pork as the protagonist has a gradual process, but as a funeral custom, pigs symbolize wealth and status. From the burial of pigs in the Neolithic Age to the later "Three Sacrifices", jade pigs, bronze pigs, stone pigs, wooden pigs, tricolor pigs, pottery pigs and so on. Buried with jade or other materials, as well as pottery pigsty and pigsty, have remained unchanged, and later developed into tombs for painting, from simplicity to simplicity.
Having said that, it is clear to eat pork in the Yuan Dynasty.
Hereby, we take back the archaeological part of the article "Datong Rabbit Head and Others". Since the hand in the mural is not a rabbit's head but a pig's head, it can be revoked: it can be proved that "as early as the Yuan Dynasty, residents mixed in the land had the custom of eating rabbit's head with wine". But continue to preserve: there is a conclusion that "wine eats rabbit's head" in Yuan Dynasty. Eating pork in the Yuan Dynasty should not be a problem, and so should stewing suckling pigs. Then, stewing and roasting rabbit heads should not be a problem.