"Five stars rise in the east, good luck to China"! This Spring Festival Gala dance has a "hidden secret"!

Have you watched the dance "Jinxiu" in this year's Spring Festival Gala? This dance is an excerpt from the dance drama "Five Stars Rising from the East". As the host introduced, the inspiration came from a national first-class cultural relic called the Han Dynasty brocade armguard "Five Stars Rising from the East, Prosperity for China".

Unfortunately, the host's introduction to this cultural relic was rather brief, and audiences who are not familiar with this cultural relic may have difficulty understanding the content of the dance performance.

Dance "Splendid" from the 2023 Spring Festival Gala of Guimao, image taken from CCTV 2023 Spring Festival Gala

01

"Five stars rise from the east"

What kind of cultural relic is it?

In October 1995, archaeologists discovered a pair of bodies buried together in a Han tomb at the Niya site in Xinjiang on the ancient Silk Road. One of the people had a brocade armguard tied on his right arm. The armguard was 18.5 cm long and 12.5 cm wide, with cloud patterns, animal patterns and other designs on it, as well as seal-style Chinese characters woven on it: "Five stars rise in the east, bringing good luck to China." Therefore, we now use these words to refer to this cultural relic.

"Five stars rise in the east, bringing prosperity to China" brocade arm guard, Image source: Wikipedia

Brocade is different from embroidery. The patterns on brocade are woven directly, which relies on a technique called "jacquard": different colors of warp and weft are interlaced to present different patterns on the finished brocade. The patterns and text on this cultural relic were woven in this way.

Image taken from: National Treasure Season 2

Another unearthed brocade pattern, "Red Color Stripes with Dragon and Phoenix Patterns" unearthed from the Zuojiatang Chu Tomb in Changsha, Hunan in 1957:

A replica of the Warring States Period "Dragon and Phoenix Brocade", image source: China National Silk Museum

The loom weaves directly into dragon and phoenix patterns, which shows that the weaving technology during the Warring States Period was already very advanced...

Organizational structure of brocade with dragon and phoenix patterns, source: Zhao Feng et al., "Study on Brocade with Dragon and Phoenix Patterns in the Warring States Period"

At first glance, it seems that weaving such complex patterns requires very sophisticated craftsmanship - then you underestimate the people of the Han Dynasty. These patterns were not woven by people one by one, but by machines. Several loom models were unearthed from the Han Tomb at Laoguanshan in Chengdu (the Han people really took everything into the tomb), which may be the machine for weaving this kind of brocade (called " the computer of the Han Dynasty " in "National Treasure").

This machine has several "heddles", each of which is set to indicate the position of a line of longitude and latitude. By using them in a cycle, a brocade with a circular pattern can be woven.

Image taken from the second season of National Treasure

A replica of the China National Silk Museum, with the inscription "Five stars rise in the east, which will benefit China. Punish the southern Qiang and the four barbarians, and the Chanyu will surrender to the sky":

The following words were made up by later generations, because a small piece of brocade fragment with the same pattern and "Zhu Nan Qiang" was unearthed in the same tomb, and later generations speculated that these words were connected. Image source: China National Silk Museum

A piece of brocade can be cut and processed into this kind of arm guard or other decorations. The large number of colored silks that appear in the background of the Spring Festival Gala dance are intended to reflect this technology.

Dance "Splendid" of the 2023 Guimao Spring Festival Gala, image taken from CCTV 2023 Spring Festival Gala

For those who are interested, I recommend watching the second season of "National Treasure", which provides a more vivid display of the principles and operation of the loom.

02

"Five stars rising from the East bring good luck to China"

What does it mean?

"Five stars rise in the east, bringing prosperity to China" brocade arm guard, Image source: Wikipedia

Simply put, these words on the brocade mean that the five major planets of gold, wood, water, fire and earth all appeared in the eastern sky. People in the Han Dynasty believed that this astronomical phenomenon was beneficial to China .

Although only one arm guard with such a pattern has been discovered in archaeological excavations so far, you have to think that the ancients would have to start with at least one piece of brocade to make it. Considering that this is a piece cut from a large piece of brocade with repetitive patterns mass-produced on a loom, we have reason to speculate that there were probably quite a few brocade products with the same pattern at that time.

03

The symbolic meaning of "Five stars rising from the east"

The Han people attached great importance to the five major planets of gold, wood , water, fire and earth. There is a similar record in "Records of the Grand Historian·Book of Celestial Officials": "The five planets are divided in the middle of the sky. If they gather in the east, it will be beneficial to China." This means that if the sky is divided into two parts along the north-south direction, if the five major planets of gold, wood, water, fire and earth are all in the east, it will be beneficial to China.

The "Book of Han" records that when Liu Bang was in Bashang, "five stars gathered in the East Well" (this was a false astronomical phenomenon they made up for the so-called auspicious sign); Emperor Xuan of Han also said: "Now five stars have risen in the east, which will greatly benefit China and will greatly defeat the barbarians."

This allusion is also used in the TV series "Emperor Wu of Han":

The picture is taken from the TV series "Emperor Wu of Han"

We have always known that people in the Han Dynasty were particularly fond of the celestial phenomenon of "five stars rising from the east", but the discovery of this armguard undoubtedly shows that people in the Han Dynasty probably loved this celestial phenomenon even more than we learned from literature - they weaved "five stars rising from the east" into patterns, wore them on their bodies, and took them into tombs .

Saying goodbye to this difficult year

Welcome to the new year 2023

What the dance "Splendid" wants to convey

It is not only the ancient Chinese brocade craft that amazes the world

It has been passed down from more than two thousand years ago to the present day.

The Chinese people's beautiful expectations for their homeland and future

Five stars rise in the east, good news for China

I hope everyone will have a better life in 2023

Teacher Chen Baoguo should appear here:

The picture is taken from the TV series "Emperor Wu of Han"

Review:

Source: Planet Office

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