Among the ancient Chinese cultural relics, the number of ancient stone carvings and the rich cultural content they contain should be among the best. Judging from the existing stone carving cultural relics, ancient stone carvings contain cultural content in many aspects such as text, decorative patterns, sculptures, and architectural components. They are not only an important part of Chinese archaeological research, but also involve philosophy, literature, etc. , history, folklore, art history and many other disciplines. Nowadays, in the research of social sciences, the study of ancient stone carvings has formed a specialized branch, which has always been highly valued by the academic community.

The study of stone carvings has a long history in China. Previous research on stone carvings mainly focused on the collection and arrangement of stone carving materials from past dynasties, compilation of catalogues, recording of relevant information, identification of stone carvings and textual research on their contents. Wait for several aspects. Chinese epigraphy, which has emerged in the Song Dynasty, takes stone carvings of past dynasties as its main collection and research objects. Judging from the ancient books that can be seen now, since the Song Dynasty, nearly a thousand kinds of special records related to stone carvings have been produced, and a large amount of textual materials on stone carvings have been preserved. In modern times, after archeology was introduced to China, the application of scientific excavation and archaeological research methods opened up new avenues for the study of stone carvings. That is to say, we focus on the study of stone carving types, and better interpret the content of stone carvings through the induction of stone carving types. We also reveal the inherent laws of the development and change of ancient Chinese civilization by studying the generation and change processes of various stone carving types, so that traditional stone carving research emerges. A new atmosphere. In modern times, a large amount of new stone carving data has been obtained through scientific archaeological excavations and surveys, which helps us complete the above research topics. Regarding the new discoveries of Chinese stone carvings, I have given a relatively comprehensive introduction in a small book "Archaeological Discovery and Research Series of Chinese Cultural Relics in the 20th Century - Ancient Stone Carvings", which you can refer to. Generally speaking, the process of the emergence and development of ancient Chinese stone carvings should be from the original practical stone carvings to the evolution of tomb memorial stone carvings. The large-scale use of tomb stone carvings in the Eastern Han Dynasty caused the first climax of the development of ancient Chinese stone carvings, forming the Some basic types of stone carvings, such as steles, cliffs, epitaphs, palaces, pillars, etc., thus laid the foundation for the use of stone carvings in China. Later, the popularity of Buddhism led to the emergence of religious stone carvings represented by Buddhist stone carvings, and also formed some new types of stone carvings with foreign cultural factors, such as statues, pagodas (pagodas), scripture buildings, carved scriptures, etc., which were formed during the Sui and Tang Dynasties in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. The second climax of the development of ancient Chinese stone carvings. Since then, the various types of stone carvings that have been finalized have been used until modern times. This process can be confirmed through a large number of archaeological discoveries.

Especially the important discoveries about early stone carving types in archaeological discoveries are of great value for a comprehensive understanding of the formation and evolution of stone carving types. It is worth noting that compared with several ancient Western civilizations, ancient Chinese stone carvings appeared relatively late. Ancient Egyptian stone carvings can be traced back to 3000 BC, and ancient West Asian cultures can be traced back to 3500 BC. In the Mesopotamia and ancient Iran, there are text stone carvings from the first to the second millennium BC. However, specialized stone carvings of characters in ancient China may not have appeared until 500 to 300 BC. This raises a major question about how we understand the origin of ancient Chinese stone carvings, that is, whether the production of ancient Chinese stone carvings was influenced by foreign cultures. To correctly understand this issue, we must make a scientific analysis of the basic types of ancient Chinese stone carvings and their formation processes. Here we try to give a brief analysis and introduction to the main types of ancient Chinese stone carvings and their formation and evolution processes. The earliest extant stone carvings of ancient Chinese characters - the Qin Dynasty's "Shiguwen" - were carved on natural stones and may have been a product of the Spring and Autumn Period. They are either carved on an independent large natural stone, or carved on a natural stone with slight surface treatment. In ancient China, such stone carvings were called "Jie". This is the most primitive form of stone carving.

Stone carvings formed by directly inscribing characters on the cliff were called cliffs in ancient China. It is also the most primitive stone carving. Generally, a relatively straight stone wall is selected among the cliffs and the characters are carved directly on it.

There have been many speculations about the time when epitaphs were produced in ancient China. It was proposed that epitaphs were produced in the Western Han Dynasty, epitaphs were produced in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and so on until the Southern Dynasties. In fact, the production of Chinese epitaphs is a long-term process of gradual evolution. It is different from the sudden appearance of the monument. There are many unearthed cultural relics that can prove this. In ancient China, the ideas and customs of marking tombs first came into being, and then in the long-term evolution, the objects used to mark tombs changed many times, and finally became the long-term use of Chinese epitaphs.

In the late Western Han Dynasty, inscriptions engraved with the official name of the tomb owner and the year of burial first appeared on the stone pieces in the portrait stone tombs. For example, the inscription on the stone portrait of Feng Ruren on October 17, the fifth year of Tianfeng's founding in Xinmang (18th year) unearthed in Tanghe, Henan: "Feng Junru, the great Yin of Yu Ping, was buried in Guisi on October 17, the fifth year of Tianfeng's founding of the country. Thousand years old "Not sent." It is engraved on the central stone pillar of the main chamber of the tomb. Another example is the stone inscription on the portrait of "On April 8, the 12th year of Yongyuan, the residence of Wang Deyuan" unearthed in Suide, Shaanxi Province. It is carved on the standing stone on the back wall of the main chamber of the tomb. These inscriptions appear as subsidiary inscriptions on portrait stones, and are not mainly used as epitaphs, nor are they a very common phenomenon. However, it is the earliest complete stone inscription that appeared in a tomb, setting a precedent for the use of stone inscriptions in tombs. According to the unearthed sarcophagi of the Han Dynasty in Zoucheng, Tengzhou and other places in Shandong, sarcophagi were widely used in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty. Ancient documents record examples of the use of coffin inscriptions in the Han Dynasty. "Han Shu? Xue Xuan" says: "He used the government to decide Cao Cao's book and set up a coffin to show his soul." Volume 552 of "Taiping Yulan" quoted "Natural History" as saying: "The Duke of Teng in the Han Dynasty passed away, and the officials sent him to the East. At the gate of the capital, the four horses screamed and couldn't pull the ground. There was a stone coffin under their hooves, and there was an inscription: "The beautiful city has been gloomy for three thousand years. When the sun shines, Duke Teng lives in this room." '" This can reflect that the Han Dynasty already had the habit of carving inscriptions on coffins. Among the existing objects is Wang Hui's sarcophagus from the 16th year of Jian'an (211) in the Eastern Han Dynasty unearthed in Lushan, Sichuan. The head of the coffin is engraved with the image of a woman closing the door. The portrait and the inscriptions on the right side reflect the original inscriptions on the coffins of the Han Dynasty. Volume 20 of "Li Xu" also records the inscriptions on the coffin of "Prolonging Life and Promoting Life" in the seventh year of Yongchu in the Han Dynasty (113 years). These may also be the inscriptions on the stone coffin. . It should be noted that although inscriptions and epitaphs are two different types of artifacts, some inscriptions in the Jin Dynasty changed their shape and were no longer engraved on the stone coffin, but were engraved on a separate small piece. Although the stele is still called "someone's coffin" in its inscription, it has no direct relationship with the coffin, and its shape is closer to that of tombstones and epitaphs. Even in previous epigraphic records, people also referred to it as "someone's coffin." They are treated as epitaphs. For example, the inscription on Guo Huai's coffin of Jia Chong's wife in the sixth year of Emperor Kangxi's reign (296 AD) looks like a small standing monument with a Gui head. It is 0.76 meters high and 0.312 meters wide. It is similar to another in the same period. There is a similar tombstone of Guan, Mrs. Xu Jun, dated February 19, the first year of Jin Yongping (291). Although this tombstone of Mrs. Xu Jun and Guan is inscribed as a tombstone, it was unearthed from the tomb and should have been used as an epitaph. Another example is the coffin of Chiang Kai-shek dated June 14, the first year of Kang's reign in the Jin Dynasty (291), unearthed in Shouxian County, Anhui Province. The Pei Zhi coffin inscription on the 11th day of the lunar month is also a separate stone inscription. In addition, the Wei Chu coffin inscription in the eighth year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Jin Dynasty (298) is a brick inscription with two small stone pillars, 0.455 meters high and 0.21 meters wide. They are all very similar to later epitaphs, or they can be considered as artifacts like epitaphs.

In addition, some stone inscriptions buried in tombs during the Eastern Han Dynasty also called themselves tomb gates. Seal, etc. Its content is also relatively complicated. In his article "Stone Carvings", Ma Heng introduced a Western Han Dynasty Zuobiao tomb door and believed that "the Zuobiao tomb door mentioned above records the official name and date of the deceased in detail, which is an epitaph. intention. "These tomb doors should refer to the stone tomb doors of brick chamber tombs or portrait stone tombs. It is not common to carve words on them, and it may not have become a trend yet. The tomb inscriptions (also called seals) are the same as the inscriptions on the tomb bricks. , is a stone carving similar to an epitaph. Among the handed down items recorded in epigraphic records are the tomb of Jia Wuzhong's wife Ma Jiang on September 10, the first year of Yanping in the Eastern Han Dynasty (106 years).

These tomb inscriptions were carved on approximately square stone tablets or bricks. For example, the tomb inscriptions of Jia Wuzhong’s wife Ma Jiang unearthed in Wangyao Village in the northern suburbs of Luoyang in 1929 were carved on red sandstone. According to what Guo Yutang saw at the time, they “looked like yellow Intestinal stone, the word "The buyer" cut off the engraved end and discarded the rest. The existing stone is 0.46 meters long and 0.585 meters wide. The stone surface has been polished and there are still chisel marks. Huang Zhanyue pointed out: "The Wangyao Village area is the mausoleum area of ??the Eastern Han Dynasty. Huangchang stones and Huangchang stone carvings have been found many times. There is no doubt that the Ma Jiang tomb stone is Huangchang stone. Ma Jiang's tomb should be a Huangchang stone tomb. This tomb stone was probably originally Embedded in an obvious part of the tomb wall, the tomb inscription shows a ceremonial function dedicated to commemoration. The writing style and content are very similar to the formal epitaphs of later generations. So these tombstones may be the earliest epitaphs.

Here we need to mention the inscriptions of portrait stone ancestral halls in the Han Dynasty, such as the inscriptions of the Anguo stone ancestral hall in Songshan, Jiaxiang, Shandong, and the inscriptions of the stone ancestral hall in the first year of Yuanjia (151) in Cangshan, etc. If we connect them, we should come up with an evolution process from the inscriptions on the portrait stones in the ancestral hall on the tomb to the inscriptions on the portrait stones in the tomb or in the tomb, and then to the tomb inscriptions. If this conjecture is correct, then the stone inscriptions on the portraits in the ancestral hall should also have played a certain role in the formation of the epitaphs.

Based on the above introduction, we can see that in the funeral rituals of the Qin and Han Dynasties, there was a custom of using different forms to mark the owner of the tomb. This change in the custom of marking tombs and the shape of tombs has prompted people to continuously improve the objects that mark tombs, making them stronger, more durable, and more commemorative. Epitaph was gradually formed through such improvements. However, it has not yet formed a unified fixed form in the tombs of the Han Dynasty, so there are many stone products and brick products with many names and shapes, such as coffin inscriptions, tomb doors, seals, tomb inscriptions, etc. This is the beginning of the official epitaph. In the Jin Dynasty, small stele-shaped epitaphs began to be placed in tombs. Until the Sixteen Kingdoms period, such stele-shaped epitaphs in tombs were still popular. In 1975, a relatively rare Qianliang epitaph was unearthed in Zhaojiamo Village, Wuwei, Gansu Province. The original stone is 0.37 meters high, 0.265 meters wide and 0.05 meters thick. The head of the garden. The forehead of the monument is titled "Tomb Table". This is the tomb of Liang Shu and his wife Song Hua on November 30, the twelfth year of Jianyuan (376). Liang Shu's official position was "Zhonglang, Zhongdu, Lieutenant, Lieutenant and Prefect of Jinchang". In recent years, another piece of stone from Lu Ta's tomb dated December 27, the fourth year of Hongshi's reign in the Later Qin Dynasty (402) during the Sixteen Kingdoms period has been unearthed from Northeast Plains, Midian Town, Weicheng District, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province. The shape of the original stone is also with a stele base. The garden is in the shape of a small stele at the head of the garden, with a height of 65 cm. It was originally erected in the tomb. Two words are engraved on the center of the forehead: "Tomb Table." Comparing the situation in the tombs of the Jin Dynasty, it is obvious that this custom should have followed the funeral system of the Jin Dynasty. It can be seen that during the Jin Dynasty, the practice of erecting small tablets in the tombs of high-status officials basically formed a certain system, and such small tablets were often called tomb tables. The term epitaph had not yet appeared at that time. The earliest appearance of the name "epitaph" is the epitaph of Liu Huaimin in the eighth year of the Ming Dynasty (464) in the Liu Song Dynasty in the Southern Dynasty. Judging from the existing epitaph materials, covered stone epitaphs appeared approximately after Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty moved to Luo. The earliest known covered epitaph is the epitaph of Kou Zhen on February 17, the second year of the Northern Wei Dynasty (505). This form occupies a dominant position in epitaphs, and the style of epitaphs was basically finalized at this time and was used for more than a thousand years.

In addition, a considerable part of the ancient Chinese stone carving materials are practical building components or individual architectural forms, such as beautifully carved stone pillar foundations, stone archways, stone incense burners, stone pillars, stone figures, and stone incense burners. Beasts, such as the stone carvings in front of Huo Qubing's tomb in the Han Dynasty, stone figures in the Han Dynasty, pillar foundations in the Sixteen Kingdoms period, and the archway of the Shaanxi Guild Hall in Nanyangshan, Henan in the Qing Dynasty. They are also an important part of ancient stone carvings, but there are generally few inscriptions on them.

During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Buddhism was widely popularized. The introduction of Buddhist art brought new stone carving modeling techniques and new application ranges of stone carvings, and produced a large number of new stone carving types. Among them, stone carvings that directly serve Buddhism include cliff statues and grotto statues, statue stele, carved sutras, sutra pillars, pagodas (stone pagodas), monk pagoda inscriptions, and religious inscriptions in temples.

This project lasted for nearly 1,000 years and was basically completed in the Ming Dynasty. It contains 14,620 stone-engraved scripture tablets, 420 fragmentary scripture tablets and 82 various inscriptions. The total number of Buddhist scriptures engraved is more than 1,100 and more than 3,500 volumes. Due to space limitations, here we only briefly introduce the basic types of ancient stone carvings. There are many issues that can be discussed in depth about their formation process. We hope to conduct further research and analysis in the future.