Source: wechat official account: Jiubian has been authorized to reprint
I’ve always wanted to talk about this topic in detail, because this thing has suddenly caught fire in the past two years, which makes people feel a little caught off guard. Moreover, online articles are copied from each other, and the amount of information is very low, so I’d better study it myself. Recently, after in-depth understanding, I found that there were plenty of materials. There were a lot of papers, from the appearance to the molecular level. In addition, I knew a little partner before. They belonged to the Tianzhu counterfeiting family in Taiwan Province, so I wrote an article to chat with you.
First of all, put a picture. It can be said that the outbreak of Tianzhu in recent years has a lot to do with Jet Li. He has been entangled with Tibetan Buddhism for the second half of his life. Later, he spent 20 million to buy a nine eye Tianzhu, which suddenly became popular.
In fact, there was no name “Tianzhu” before the 1980s. Although this thing has always existed in ancient times, it was not called “Tianzhu” before, but “Sezhu”. This name is obviously not very good, just like the “Security Bureau” is not as powerful as the “juntong”, which seems to have a very low pattern. Later, Taiwanese people with full skills in pyramid selling fraud renamed themselves “Tianzhu”, which we are familiar with. Their temperament and style came up at once, and the price also increased exponentially. They estimated that it had increased by thousands of times in the past 20 years.
As for Tianzhu, you must have heard a saying that it was produced by Tibetans. Tianzhu after the Tang Dynasty was fake, because the craft was lost, and it was not re studied until recent years.
This sentence makes me puzzled. I believed it in advance before. Later, when I checked foreign papers, I found that the beads they found were found in all dynasties, so it was not at all, and even found some other problems.
First of all, the beads were not produced by Tibetans, but picked up on both sides of the Himalayas, so that for a long time, Tibetans had always thought that the beads were natural and changed by insects, similar to Cordyceps sinensis.
What? Don’t know what Cordyceps sinensis is?
That thing is an insect (bat moth larva) infected by fungi. Later, the insect became fertilizer and a grass grew on its head.
As for the role, most of it is hype, but the country seems to be happy to see its success. After all, this thing belongs to transfer payment. Rich people in the East bought the crops of farmers in the west at a high price. Why not do it? Eating it won’t kill them.
However, in recent years, it has been found that this thing is not completely harmless. It is clearly stated in the “consumption tips on Cordyceps products” released in 2016 that it is not useful, but it may lead to arsenic poisoning. It is estimated that eating too much is not conducive to physical and mental health.
Continue to chat about beads. Tianzhu is not born. This thing is made by 100% people. Now the general guess is that the local government in Tibet went out to fight and loot it. Tibet used to have a ZhangXiong Kingdom, which also expanded wildly at its peak. It should have obtained a large number of them in Central Asia, and then moved back. Because the shape of Tianzhu is very compatible with the temperament of Tibetan Buddhism, it slowly began to become a religious relic.
Tibetans themselves attached great importance to this thing and paid tribute to the Tang Dynasty, so that the earliest record of Tianzhu in historical books was in the history of the Tang Dynasty.
Then why is it said that the craft was lost after the Tang Dynasty?
My little friend who made fake pearls in Taiwan laughed and said that this statement was made up by his grandfather and several colleagues. He drew a line artificially, and the force in front of that line immediately went up, giving people a feeling of small stock.
The most important thing is that if you get a celestial bead, it’s difficult to confirm whether it was before the Tang Dynasty. If you have good eloquence and convince others that it was before the Tang Dynasty, you may sell it at a sky high price. Before the millennium, Tianzhu was a very, very small circle, which was just pushed out by a bunch of scripts.
Strictly speaking, the Xiangxiong heavenly beads did disappear after the Tang Dynasty, because the Xiangxiong Dynasty was destroyed by Tubo at that time. This time point coincided with the year when Xuanzang returned from India, that is, the last few years of Li Shimin’s reign.
Was it difficult to make beads that day? It’s not too difficult, but it’s really not easy.
It’s mainly that the materials of Tianzhu are mainly white jade pith and agate stone. These stones are too hard and harder than iron (the hardness of iron is 5.5, and the hardness of white jade pith is 7). The problem is that in ancient times, higher technology trees were not unlocked, so what should we do?
Ancient craftsmen still found a way. They found that it was still stone that was harder than stone, so they ground the harder stone into sand. When grinding jade, they constantly added this sand and used this sand to grind jade, so this kind of sand is also called “Jieyu sand”. When cutting, you need to use a thing that looks like a saw disk to stick the Jieyu sand to cut, or while grinding, inject Jieyu sand with water at the same time, and those particularly hard stones will be cut. When the solution is found, it still requires great skill to produce a decent product.
When you go to the museum to see those ancient jades, you often see that they are irregular. Obviously, when processing, they are processed askew. It is also because this process is too complex, and the top jade craftsman often cannot grasp it.
For example, the Tianzhu we talked about today needs to first make the jade into a rectangle, then constantly cut off the edges and corners, turn it into a cylinder, and finally turn it into a rolling pin shape. This process is more “cutting corners and chamfering”, which takes a lot of effort, and tests the craftsman’s ability.
Therefore, the pearls produced in ancient times generally have cut lines on them, which are unlikely to be too smooth. Of course, if you want to achieve excellent appearance, you can throw that thing into a wooden bucket at any cost, put it into the Jieyu sand, turn the bucket hard, and consume a few old men, which may be smooth.
Finally, you have to drill a hole in the top. Drilling looks easy, but it is also a technical job. It is probably like the following. That drill is called diamond drill. Holding a bow to pull the drill, you can do porcelain work or drill jade:
Before the discovery of diamond, the only way to make a hole in jade is to solve the jade sand and add sand while drilling. Sometimes it takes several months to drill. In this case, the appearance of things made by hand is generally not very good. The hole is crooked. Sometimes, in order to facilitate processing, artisans drill from two ends, resulting in a little mismatch in the hole. This has become an anti-counterfeiting logo, because modern counterfeiting is generally done with lathes and electric drills, and the quality is very good, but it is too fake. Sometimes it’s hard for you to deliberately do not so bad.
The shape is right, and the hole is also punched. Next, it’s time to make this thing a panda color, black and white. Yes, the pearls were originally pure color, usually white or brown. Not long, the black-and-white shape was also dyed by the craftsman. First, it was dyed black, and then painted with white circles, which became the pearls.
Although there was no microscope in ancient times, craftsmen had long found that the white jade pulp was not a complete piece, but like a sponge. There were a large number of tiny transistors in it. If you tried to infiltrate the pigment there, you could dye it into that black-and-white effect.
The dye that can dye stones and will not fade itself is also very complex, but it is not difficult for them to soak jade in this dye and it will be dyed black all over. Of course, it doesn’t mean it won’t fade. The top of the lower one fades and looks like a bald bead. This one must be true, because it was found by the archaeological team from the ancient tomb and is now placed in the Gansu Museum:
Finally, paint white stripes on the top with alkaline etchant and polish carefully, which makes it a heavenly pearl. Generally, according to the number of circles above, it is divided into “one eye”, “two eyes”, and even “20 eyes”. It is not that the more eyes, the more expensive it is, but that the greater the demand, the more expensive it is. Chinese people generally “worship nine”, so nine eyes are the most valuable.
It may take several months to make such a pearl. It’s not too difficult for the craftsmen of the Central Plains Dynasty to do this, but they don’t care much about it, so the output is not high. Some of them were cremated after the death of the eminent monk, or fell to the ground and broke during playing. That’s why most of the heavenly beads are broken.
The rest were basically buried with others. It’s understandable that this thing goes around in the hands of collectors. Sooner or later, it will come to a fool’s hand. This person really likes this thing so much that he simply took it away after death, especially those princes and nobles who often take a lot of it with him. It wasn’t much, but it was completely exhausted after a long time.
So now the “authentic” beads are all martyrs dug out of the soil. Knowing this, every time I see someone wearing that thing around his neck, I feel a little creepy.
Later, the Song Dynasty may play with Tianzhu is relatively few, because the Song Dynasty is the peak of ancient Chinese art, and the works of art produced are more and more dazzling. It is estimated that Tianzhu is not a rustic thing. Some people began to do it again in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Now most of the antique grade beads traded in the market are from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Of course, 99% are produced in the last two decades.
The revival of Tianzhu is mainly related to the rapid development of Tibetan Buddhism in recent years. Among all religions, Tibetan Buddhism is one of the few religions that encourage everyone to make money. This is also why Lama Temple can seek money, while other temples generally seek peace. At the beginning, Sakyamuni himself gave up his blue blood noble blood and became a monk. How can he encourage everyone to make money. But Tibetan Buddhism doesn’t think so. They are very worldly, which may also be related to the harsh environment in Tibet, and the eminent monks need to be supported by others to survive. In these years, rich people are very willing to provide for gurus. In these years, true and false gurus fly all over the sky, and 100000 Rinpoche are hidden in Chaoyang District.
Tianzhu has a high status in Tibetan Buddhism, and was taken out of the circle by the gurus. Jet Li was sold to him by an eminent monk. Of course, we can’t say money, vulgar, but “fate”, 20 million fate. In addition, there are Thangka. If you pay attention to those luxury houses in Beijing and Shanghai, you often see Thangka hanging at the place where they enter the door, or there is a special house for Thangka. Generally, Thangka cannot be hung casually by yourself, but you have to go to the guru. You said I would buy one from Taobao and hang it up. Is there a problem? Of course, but the rich are generally faced with uncertainty. They are prone to superstition. People who understand Thangka generally don’t hang up casually.
Tibetan Buddhism was first spread in Taiwan, so the study of Tianzhu in Taiwan Province was 20 years earlier than that in the mainland. Later, after the mainland began to become rich and pursue guru, Taiwan’s business entered on a large scale.
However, my friend also said that his family has been making Tianzhu for three generations. By his generation, he can’t do it anymore. As a result, he went to university to do computer.
Taiwan’s Pearl counterfeiting industry was first killed by Taiwan’s own people, but at that time, it was acceptable, and the profits plummeted, but it was barely passable. Until these years, the joining of Henan workshop completely turned this industry, which originally made huge profits, into a low profit industry. That is to say, many of the beads sold in Taiwan are made in Henan, and most of the beads bought in Tibet are made in Henan and forwarded from Yiwu. To put it another way, most of the local specialties you buy in various places now are sent from Yiwu. It is much more cost-effective for them to order from Yiwu than to produce by themselves.
In addition, the people of Henan Province have made persistent efforts to directly point to the explosion of scientific and technological points in the field of “high imitation”. For example, they have developed a complete ancient method, which can be baked in the oven, or irradiated with ultraviolet light to simulate the weathering effect of thousands of years, and then mixed with various potions with “coating liquid”. The coating effect of 20 minutes is more than 50 years for three old people. Finally, even the small cracks on the beads can be forged, even under the microscope, It is also a little difficult to distinguish.
A few years ago, the childe of the Tianzhu family spent 666 yuan to buy a Xiangxiong Tianzhu in Beijing. After carefully reading it, his father was surprised to say that counterfeiting can reach this level? It is said that the industry is over, and the profit of a steamed bun is not as good as that of a steamed bun.
The article is almost here. In fact, after reading this article, you probably know that many people are there to discuss the collection of Tianzhu. Seriously, don’t be in a hurry. In a few years, with the production capacity of Henan villagers, it is enough to allocate three pieces to each person in the country. Ordinary Tianzhu has no collection value. Antique Tianzhu water is deeper. With the ability of normal people, it is impossible to distinguish whether it was handed down thousands of years ago. If you look for experts, it is easy to be cheated by experts, so don’t be fooled.
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