The Seafood In The Chinese Ancient Material Culture

Seashell, mussel, pearl, trumpet shell had been used in other ways except being used as food of human beings. By checking the historical records and the antiques materials, this article analyzed the fact how the ocean production being used in the ancient culture.The contents can be divided into three parts. The first part is about the use of seashell, mussel, and trumpet shell in the ancient culture. The most important use of the seashell is as money, it have made the greatest effect to the development of the economy in that period of time. Seashell had been used as the equipment in the Old Stone Age, which had lasted in Shang Dynasty. In the culture field, the seashell had been used as the decoration of the neck, head, arms, twist and the horses from Qin Dynasty to Han Dynasty. Then it had been used as containers for the cosmetics. It also had been used in the culture of sex and funeral. It had been used in the Buddhism and as one of their eight treasures. The second part is about the inlaid way of mother-of-pearl. It started from Zhou Dynasty, disappeared for sometime and matured in Tang Dynasty. After the Tang Dynasty, the inlaid way of it had become very thin, tiny and colorful as a painting. The third part is about the pearl. From the use of ocean production in the Chinese ancient culture, we can find out some characteristics of the Farm Culture.