Ancient incense burner

　　Introduction to ancient Chinese incense burners Among ancient Chinese artifacts, incense burners are the most widely used, yet also the most varied and diverse in shape. In the minds of most people, an incense burner seems to be a vessel for burning incense sticks. Therefore, when it comes to the styles of incense burners, most people will think of double-eared furnaces from the Song Dynasty's Ge kilns or Longquan kilns, and then the bronze Xuande furnaces of the Ming Dynasty and their imitations. In fact, the types and uses of incense burners are far more than that, and their historical origins are at least more than two thousand years old.

　　Previous writings on incense burners mostly only describe the objects themselves. In recent years, there have been specialized studies on incense burners, such as Yang Zhi Shui's "New Evidence of Famous Things in Ancient Poems and Prose," which contains beautiful articles on incense burners and incense burners; and Meng Hui's "Sixteen Sounds from the Flower Room," which is a collection of "adding incense," "incense burners," "incense beasts and incense bags." It's quite coincidental that both authors are women. They use women's unique delicate insights and literary talent to describe the incense burners and incense burners of various dynasties, as well as their roles and interests in life. The former focuses on the consideration of famous things, while the latter mostly searches for the life interests of incense and burning incense from ancient poems and notes. During the Han Dynasty, Boshan furnaces were already popular in the courts and aristocratic life. The gold-inlaid Boshan furnace unearthed from the tomb of Liu Sheng, King Jing of Zhongshan in Mancheng, Hebei, has reached an extremely exquisite level in terms of both shape and craftsmanship. After that, Boshan furnaces were used until the Sui and early Tang dynasties. The term "Boshan" does not refer to the furnace's origin in Boshan, but rather to the overlapping mountain-shaped decoration carved on the surface of the object. According to "Miscellaneous Records of the Two Capitals," Ding Huan, a skilled craftsman in Chang'an, was good at making Boshan furnaces, capable of carving overlapping strange birds and beasts as surface decorations for the incense burner. The craftsmanship of Boshan furnaces was far more complex than the later three-legged or five-legged incense burners. Judging from the poems praising Boshan furnaces from the Six Dynasties, the overlapping Boshan style was not only "obscuring thousands of trees, emerging and disappearing among ten thousand mountains," but also capable of carving shapes such as "carved coiled dragons below, with heads slightly holding lotuses" and stories such as "Qin princes carved above, riding cranes and purple smoke." The appearance of Boshan furnaces in the Western Han Dynasty was largely related to the raw materials and methods of burning incense. Before the Western Han Dynasty, people used Mao incense, which involved placing incense grass or fragrant grass directly in a bean-shaped incense burner and lighting it. Although the fragrance was rich, there was a lot of smoke. During the reign of Emperor Wu, dragon brain incense and Suhe incense from the South China Sea region were introduced to China, and the spices were made into incense balls or incense cakes. They were placed under charcoal fire, and the high temperature of the charcoal fire slowly ignited these resinous spices. The fragrance was strong, but there was less smoke. Therefore, various Boshan furnaces with exquisite craftsmanship appeared. Although the lids of Boshan furnaces were varied and beautiful, they all had perforated holes, and the fragrance rose and spread from these holes.

　　Boshan furnaces were made of metal, pottery, and later white porcelain, but their structures were generally similar; they were all vessels for burning incense with charcoal.

　　In addition to Boshan-style incense burners, open-mouthed three-legged and five-legged furnaces made of green porcelain or white porcelain also appeared during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Civilian-used eared porcelain incense burners are also commonly found in unearthed cultural relics. The ears of the furnace are quite practical, making it easy to carry and move. Their decorative function and practical effect achieved a perfect combination. In addition, there were also incense shovels, incense stirrers, incense chopsticks, and incense boxes, which were all tools used when adding and burning incense.