Did all ancient men have beards?

Beard, whether in China or ancient western society, is regarded as a symbol of male strength. In ancient China, advocating? Beard? Cultural psychology has a long history. Thick and luxuriant beard means vigorous male vitality, so the ancients used it directly. Eyebrows? Is it beautiful to represent men and give birth to aesthetic feeling? Beard? As a prominent symbol of the magnificent image of men.

In Huangdi Neijing and Shennong Materia Medica, we can see that the ancients paid attention to beard, hair and nails. This kind of thing that can be regenerated after cutting is considered by the ancients to be the most wonderful, full of life and energy. Thick hair and beard represent exuberant vitality, on the contrary, the scarcity and shedding of hair and beard are the manifestations of life and energy exhaustion. Therefore, the ancients believed that using beards, hair and nails as medicine could supplement the lost vitality and energy. In view of this conclusion, in some modern TV series, the beard of the emperor (dragon beard) and the hair of the queen mother (phoenix hair) have been introduced into medicine, which is not completely absurd.

0 1 Pre-Qin: Shaving hair is a great sacrifice.

Beards and hair may be more important to the ancients than we thought. "Imperial Century" in "Taiping Magnolia" has such a record:

After the Tang Dynasty, seven years of drought, Luochuan tired? Yin Shibu said, "Pray with others." Tang said: so I invite people who rain. If I have to pray with people, I will do it myself. "Then I fasted, cut off my hair and claws, sacrificed myself and prayed to the Sanglin Society.

After Shang Tang Shaq, it was dry for seven years, and even Luoshui dried up. At that time, merchants needed to make sacrifices and pray for rain after divination. Shang Tang stood up and said, if you want to sacrifice people, I'll do it! So he bathed and fasted, cut off his beard and nails, and prayed to heaven for rain. In our opinion, Shang Tang's practice is more "beautiful" than Cao Cao's behavior of cutting off his hair after trampling on the grain fields in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. But in the eyes of the ancients, Shang Tang was willing to pray for all people with a beard and nails representing vitality and energy, which was a great sacrifice.

Qin Dynasty: Being shaved is a great shame.

It is a great sacrifice to shave off one's beard and hair voluntarily, while being forced to shave off one's beard is a special criminal law called "resistance". "Harmony" is like a beard, and the "inch" beside it symbolizes statutes. Professor Han Shufeng from the School of History of Renmin University of China believes that being punished is the first thing in Qin State, and shaving off one's beard is a shame in Qin and Han Dynasties, which means expelling oneself from the ranks of normal people.

This kind of punishment was punished during the reign of Qin Shihuang (Ying Zheng's mother Toy Boy) for the fallacy of temporary loss of options, and a large number of records about punishment tolerance can also be seen in Yunmeng Qin bamboo slips unearthed. This kind of punishment can often be seen in the historical materials of the Han Dynasty. Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty once promulgated the imperial edict of "putting all your eggs in one basket to resist crimes and removing officials by writing". It can be seen that "resistance", as a penalty, was widely used in Qin and Han dynasties and was highly valued by the rulers. It was not until the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties that the punishment of shaving beard gradually began to fade out of the historical stage.

What kind of beard looks good?

With the continuous development of Qin, Han, Wei and Jin dynasties, the mysticism attached to the beard gradually disappeared due to the ancient reproductive worship and ancestor worship, and the function of the beard as a cultural symbol became increasingly prominent. People think that "hair is the appearance of the body" and "the skin of the body is influenced by parents", so they never shave off their beards easily, and they pay attention to their eyebrows. This is the embodiment of China's traditional cultural consciousness and ethics. Beard is a very important element in China's ancient evaluation of handsome men.

When we open the history books, we can see that whenever we write about a man's outstanding appearance, we often write about "beautiful eyebrows" and "beautiful beard", which shows that beard occupies an important position in the aesthetics at that time and has become an indispensable appearance feature of a beautiful man. For example:

(Huo) Because people are thoughtful, they are seven feet three inches long, white, with sparse eyebrows and beautiful beards.

(Liu) There is a certain amount of worship. He is eight feet long, beautiful, has good eyesight and has a good academic career.

I want to respect you. Sex is in Zhuang, clothes are in You Mei, and every court lists and goes in and out.

Wang Hongzi, Jinghui of Linchuan, announced that Wendy had six sons. Eight feet long, beautiful man, Rong Zhi is considerable.

(Yang) A handsome man, with a beautiful beard, dignified personality and magnificent style of writing, named Xiaoyangshan, is in the middle of the courtyard.

As can be seen from the above records, whether in the Han Dynasty, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, or even the Sui and Tang Dynasties, "bearded beauty" appeared as an important symbol to evaluate men's appearance, and it was their identical appearance image. Having a beautiful beard will definitely become the envy of people.

So where is the standard of beauty?

First of all, you can't have too many beards, otherwise it will not only look bad, but also be considered as "bearded". If you have a beard like the semi-final of the conference, you are definitely not a handsome man. Therefore, when creating characters, scholars often make a fuss about beards. Most of them describe positive characters, such as "beauty needs eyesight", "picturesque eyebrows" and "dragon Zhang Fengzi". However, when portraying the negative characters, they are often described as "ugly beards", "crawling eyes and moustaches" to achieve the purpose of uglifying the characters.

The beauty of the beard also influenced the image of men in the eyes of women at that time. For example, when Wu Zetian was in the Tang Dynasty, a man thought he was "beautifully white" and recommended himself as the head of Wu Zetian. Princess Yin Shan of the Southern Dynasties and the Song Dynasty also took a fancy to Yan Hui of Chu, whose beard was beautifully trimmed, but was rejected by Yan Hui of Chu, and Princess Yin Shan was very unhappy. She said, "Look at your beard. You look like a man. Why do you do things so slowly? You don't look like a man. " ......

04 Beard also affects promotion?

Beard not only affects aesthetics, but also affects the election of officials. After all, the image of officials represents the image of the whole country, so when selecting officials in the Han Dynasty, they were required to be tall, well-dressed and have a good voice. In the Tang Dynasty, although there were imperial examinations instead of the Nine Grades system, the rites department chose scholars and the official department awarded officials. Therefore, passing the imperial examination only qualifies you as an official, but if you want to be an official or be promoted, you must pass the examinations of "style", "speech", "book" and "sentence". Among them, "body" is in the first place, that is, "physical appearance" is required. This is obviously influenced by the ethos of "respecting heroes and valuing talents" in the Northern Dynasties. As for the typical example of "physical appearance", we can learn a thing or two from Sui Shu's characterization:

(Li) Hunzi is Mu's tenth son. A beautiful woman must have a beard if she looks magnificent.

(Dou) Rong Ding, Shen Shen, formidable appearance, magnificent appearance, bow and horse.

(Wang) Historical Records: The appearance is gentle and graceful, with ten belts, fresh and refreshing, and it is outstanding.

Yang shows courage, magnificent appearance, beautiful beard and many martial arts are very afraid of courtiers.

(Wei) The artistic outlook is magnificent. Every time Yi Di attends a ceremony, he will make a whole musical instrument, defend himself and sit on a couch by himself.

(Yang) Su Shan is a writer, a worker and a grass worker, and pays great attention to the angle of wind. Beauty must grow a beard. Do you still look like a hero? Magnificent appearance, daunting: Qinghe Gong is also a river god!

From some murals in the Tang Dynasty, we can also see the description of the appearance of officials at that time: the beard of military attache usually looks fluffy and dense, and the beard with a full face is the most common external image of military commanders, which is like the pottery figurines buried with the prince in Zhuang Hui's tomb. Looks burly and strong.

On the other hand, the description of civil servants is closer to the perspective of pure literati. When we look at the official visit to Prince Zhuang Hui's mausoleum during Xuanzong period, only one of the six people has a long beard, which should be born. Others have a moustache on the upper lip and a long beard on the lower lip. They look elegant and elegant, and their manners reveal a gentle charm, which conforms to the image of an elegant and humble gentleman in the eyes of the world.

In addition, the beard is an essential appearance element for emperors, famous soldiers and celebrities in past dynasties, which has the cultural meaning of imperial bearing, loyalty, courage, wisdom and belief. As we all know, Guan Yunchang is also a famous "beard" in history.

Take an example of an emperor casually. Everyone has a beard (unless he is too young to draw without a beard).

Today, the cultural meaning of beard has faded, whether to grow a beard or not is purely a personal choice. However, it is interesting to see that many old male characters in costume TV series are white faces and like eunuchs. I have to say that there is still a lot of room for improvement in the historical textual research of China's costume film and television dramas.