Researches On Funerary Musical Instruments In The Central Plains Region Of The Western Zhou Dynasty

In this paper, the Central Plains region which is including the centralShaanxi plain area, the southern area of Shanxi province, the southernarea of Hebei province and most areas of Henan province. It is the mainactivity area of huaxia nationality in the pre-qin period and the centralregion of the emperor’s rule in the Western Zhou dynasty.According to statistics of the archaeological data that has beenpublished, there are22cemeteries with42graves of funerary musicalinstruments have been found in the Central Plains region of Western Zhoudynasty, including10cemeteries which15graves in the central Shaanxiplain area,6cemeteries with11graves in Henan Province,6cemeterieswhich16graves in the southern area of Shanxi province, and the southernarea of Hebei province have not been found. These cemeteries or graveshave unearthed musical instruments made from bronze, stone, clay andbone for a total of10categories which is more than300pieces, and therecognizable musical instruments inclue100bronze Yong bells,26bronzeniu bells,162stone qing chimes,11bronze nao bells,4bronze zhengbells,1bronze duo bells,9counted ling bells,2bronze gou diao bells,5bone panpipes and2xun potteries.The funerary musical instruments in the Western Zhou graves can bedivided into three phases. The first phase, it inherits the system of Yin dynasty, which is using for the bronze nao bell and individual stone qingchime. Its age is roughly equivalent to the wu and cheng era of the earlyWestern Zhou dynasty, the individual area extends to the Zhao and mu eraof the mid-Western Zhou dynasty. The second phase, it initially forms thecombination of funerary musical instrument of the Western Zhou style,expressing in the emergence and spread of the bronze chimes, the rowarrangement of chimes range from3to5pieces. The age is from theKang and zhao era of the early Western Zhou dynasty to the Mu era orlater of the mid-Western Zhou dynasty. The third Phase, the combinationof funerary musical instrument is basically fixed, it is manifested by theemergence and spread of regular two-pitch bronze bell, the increase andstability in number of row arrangement of chimes, Yong chimes is mostlya group of8, niu chimes is mostly a group of9, the combination ofbronze chimes and stone chimes is popularly. The age was from the gongand yi era of the mid-Western Zhou dynasty to the period betweenWestern Zhou and eastern Zhou dynasty. The kang and zhao era and themu and gong era are turning points of the two changes.About the funerary system of the Western Zhou graves in the CentralPlains region, not only using the numbers of funerary bronze dings reflectthe rank of the tomb，but also the bronze and stone musical instrumentsare important implements for indicate the identity and rank of the tomb.The higher rank of the tomb, the higher specification of funerary musical instruments, and the power of funerary musical instruments is controlledby princes and other high-rank nobility，the ordinary nobility rarelymeddles.The power and the specification of funerary musical instruments inthe Western Zhou noble graves are also restricted by sex, the femalenobility is much lower in using proportion of funerary musicalinstruments, and smaller in application scope of funerary musicalinstruments than the male nobility, but the specification of funerarymusical instruments does not seem to be always inferior to the malenobility.Systems of funerary musical instrument among the various areas ofthe Central Plains area have large differences, which reflected in threeaspects. In the first place, it is not common that the phenomenon offunerary musical instruments in the noblewoman’s graves, which is onlyfound in the individual noblewoman’s graves of some areas, and thespecification of funerary musical instruments also has noticeable highlyvariable among these noblewoman’s graves. In the second place, there aredifferent administrative levels of rank for the system of funerary musicalinstruments among different regions. In the third place, initially the rowarrangement numbers of bronze chimes and stone chimes in the princesand other high-rank graves among different regions have dramaticdifference, the row arrangement numbers of the Yong chimes broadly keep to a group of eight until the late Western Zhou dynasty, the stonechimes seems to have the strong regional characteristic.The function of funerary musical instruments in the Western Zhougraves mainly contains two main parts: secular function and sacralfunction. The secular function is to highlight the wealth, merit and glorybefore tomb’s death, marked the identity, status and rank of the tomb; thesacral function mainly contains showing filial piety and entertainingancestors, the purpose is inextricably to show filial piety for the departedand give blessing for the living.The system of Funerary musical instruments in Western Zhoudynasty is not compatible with the Western Zhou music system in theliterature of “Zhou Li”, and there are two possible reasons for thephenomenon. The first reason, Yue Xuan system in the “Zhou Li” hasonly been partially corroborated in the late Western Zhou dynasty, it maybe closer to the music system in the Eastern Zhou dynasty, perhaps it isonly the idealized description of finished state of the Zhou dynasty musicsystem; The Second reason, the graves only reflect the social reality to acertain degree, the funerary objects certainly can’t include all objects inthe real life, the funerary musical instrument system with musicalinstruments in the Western Zhou graves as the carrier can’t reflect wholeof the Western Zhou music system.