The Preliminary Research Of The Han Dynasty’s Four Numinous Creatures Mirror

“Four Numinous”, which is also known as “Four deities”,“Four Xiang”,“FourDimensions”,“Four Gong” and “Four beasts” etc, has a different form in eachdevelopment stage of chinese cluture from Shang Dynasty. It has been recorded in the ancientliteratures such as 《SHI JI》、《Han Shu》、《Li Ji》、《Huai Nan Zi》 and so on.“Dragon,Phoenix, Turtle, Unicorn” has been called “Four deities” in the ancient literature---《Li Ji· Li Yun》;“Dragon, Phoenix, Turtle, Unicorn, White Tiger” has been collectivelycalled “Five deities” in《Li Wei Ji Ming Zheng》 and 《Da Gao》 which were writed in lastphase of west Han Dynasty; the commonly referred “Four Numinous”refers toTsingdragon,White tiger, rosefinch and Turtle now, which could Comply with the views of《San FuHuang Tu》.As a system of specific images,“Four Numinous” has been refelected in a large number ofarchaeological materials such as the remaining stone carving, frescoes, bronze mirror, eavestiles, etc from Spring and Autumn, Warring States to Song Dynasty, and it was a class of one ofthe main pattern. Most Senior scholars focused on case studies of “Four Numinous”, orexploring the origin of “Four Numinous” from documents; though,there were somearchaeological materials of “Four Numinous”, most of them limited to the angle of Argumentview; but monographic researchs on “Four Numinous” were few, such as studys on Typologydivision, evolution and area spreading of each type of“Four Numinous”were weak.On the basis of previous archaeological discoveries and research results, this paper will makea comprehensive and systematic combing and comprehensive study on “Four Numinous”bronze mirros in Han Dynasty by the method of combining iterature and archaeologicaltypology. Through the typology analysis of “Four Numinous” bronze mirros in Han Dynasty,we will preliminarily discuss the popular time and area spreading of each style of bronzemirros.In addition,,there are rare academic discussions about "mutation Four Numinousmirror"and "short form Four Numinous mirror", I also put forward some personally academic views about it in the paper.