1. According to "Shuowen" written by Xu Shen in the Eastern Han Dynasty: "Sheep are auspicious." Because "sheep" and "auspicious" are synonyms, and "auspicious sheep" means "auspicious", people used to carve the auspicious words of "Daji sheep" on utensils at that time, and match them with the image of sheep, so as to make life auspicious and all the best.
At that time, people not only wanted to be lucky in life, but also carved the inscription of "auspicious sheep" and sheep-shaped patterns on daily bronzes. For the sake of peace after death, they also put the image of the sheep's head in the center of the door when building the tomb. For example, at the tomb gate of Shaogou Han mural tomb in Luoyang, Henan Province, a sheep's head is shaped opposite, and a pair of big horns are rolled down around, and the composition is regular; The lower side of the sheep's head is painted with a mural of a god tiger eating a woman, in order to achieve peace and exorcism.
2. The richer the ancient families were, the more livestock and poultry they naturally raised. In the Han dynasty, people died as if they were alive. In order to simulate the sheep raised at home when they were alive, a ceramic sheep model was buried in the tomb. This kind of Xiao-shaped pottery sheep was unearthed in the tombs of the Western Han Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the number placed in the tombs of ordinary people was small.
However, in the burial pits of the Mausoleum, there are groups of pottery sheep. For example, some of the burial pits of Yangling, the Mausoleum of the Western Han Dynasty, have been excavated. You can see groups of pottery sheep, which can be divided into sheep and goats according to their shapes, and each has male and female characteristics, and their shapes are real and vivid. Some tombs in the Han and Wei dynasties did not put pottery sheep, but painted pictures of shepherds on murals, which is also a symbol of the owner's wealth.
The image of shepherd is often painted in brick tombs of Wei and Jin Dynasties in Gansu Province, because they are all painted on the brick surface of a brick, and the frame is very small, so the lines are concise, interesting and full of regional characteristics.
Extended data:
Sheep has always been one of the favorite themes of folk art, and there are many successful works of paper-cutting and clay sculpture. In addition, it combines the folk auspicious language "Three sheep open Thailand" to produce a variety of three sheep shapes, which are also the most widely spread and are commonly used works of art for people to decorate their rooms during the Spring Festival.
At the latest in the Han Dynasty, twelve o'clock (twelve Chen) has been represented by the appearance of animals in the world (only Chen is an imaginary dragon). Wang Chong in the Eastern Han Dynasty clearly described the animals corresponding to twelve o'clock in On Wu Heng's Poems, and pointed out that "there are no sheep". Among the popular patterns on the back of bronze mirrors in the Han Dynasty, twelve o'clock images are also very common, all of which are realistic animal shapes.
By the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the twelve points in the paintings of Lou Rui's tomb wall in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province were still realistic animal shapes. However, in the Sui Dynasty, the image of twelve o'clock began to change. Twelve-point figurines buried in the Sui tomb were shaped into the shape of an adult animal head, often sitting in a robe, but the head was shaped into an animal head. The twelve-hour figurines in the tombs of the Tang Dynasty followed the tradition of the tombs of the Sui Dynasty, and were also the shape of devil wears prada's head, but changed from sitting posture to upright posture.
In addition, in the traditional Chinese calendar in China, the year of the main branch is the year of the second year, and the year of the sheep is also the year of the sheep, so it should also mean that it will be an auspicious year.
People's Network-"sheep" has two sides: the double meaning of "auspicious beast" and "sheep disaster"