The objects in the town hall of the Hubei Provincial Museum are not only the first batch of cultural relics prohibited from going abroad (border), but also known as the "Eighth Wonder of the World"-----Zeng Hou Yi of the Warring States Period.

Why is this set of bells the eighth wonder of the world?

First, the fine works of art at the peak of the Chinese Bronze Age

This set of 65 bells can be described as the most complete and largest set of bronze bells to date, with a height of 273 cm, a width of 335 cm and a frame length of 748 cm.
The largest has a height of 153.4 cm and a weight of 203.6 kg, while the smallest has a height of 20.4 cm and a weight of 2.4 kg. The total weight of the whole bell body is 2567 kg, plus the copper part of the bell frame (including the hook), the total weight is 4421.48 kg.
As a representative work of the ritual and music culture at that time, the whole set of chimes reflected the splendid culture of the pre-Qin culture at that time.
The craftsmanship of the bells, such as brazing, casting and inlaying, and inlaid gold, as well as decorative techniques such as round carving and relief, reflect the high level of metallurgical casting technology in the pre-Qin period.

Second, the splendid music of Chinese pre-Qin culture

When the chimes were unearthed, archaeologists also found 6 T-shaped painted gavels and 2 painted wooden sticks nearby. The archaeologists deduced and analyzed that these wooden mallets and sticks were mainly used for ringing and striking bells.
This set can be hailed as the most majestic musical instrument in the world. Even after sleeping for more than 2,000 years, it can still have a wide range and accurate pitch. At the same time, it also has "two tones in one bell", a frontal beating and a side beating. different tones.
Since it was unearthed in 1978, the original Zeng Houyi chime has been played three times.
For the first time, on August 1, 1978, a 2-hour concert was held with the opening of "The East is Red".

Third, the historical achievements of Chinese music temperament

This set of bells was unearthed in perfect condition, with a total of 3,755 inscriptions on the bell shoots, bell hooks, and bell body, and each bell body is engraved with inscriptions in seal script in wrong gold, and the inscriptions in wrong gold can reach 2,828 characters.
These inscriptions not only marked the names of various pronunciation temperaments, but also clearly marked the correspondence between these scale names and the temperaments of Chu, Zhou, Qi, Shen and other countries.

Before the chimes were unearthed, the word "change palace" had not appeared in the known pre-Qin historical materials in the past, which led people to believe that the seven-tone scale of music was introduced from abroad along with Buddhism.
However, in the inscriptions, the names of the sounds of "Biangong" and "Bianzheng" and their actual performances can be found, which also confirms that in the pre-Qin era, the ancients had already adopted the heptatonic scale in music temperament.

In addition, the inscriptions on the bells and the subsequent inscriptions unearthed in Yutai Mountain, Jiangling, Hubei, confirmed that:
During the period of the Chu State, it already had its own twelve-law name system, which was mainly named after the four grades of Gong, Shang, Zheng and Yu except for Jiao in the traditional five-tone, plus Gong Jiao, Shang Jiao and Zheng that changed the sound names. The horns, feather horns and Gong Zeng, Shang Zeng, Zheng Zeng, and Yu Zeng are composed.
This also proves that during the Warring States Period, the ancients already had a complete system of twelve tones, breaking the previous academic belief that twelve tones were introduced from ancient Greece.

The whole set of Zeng Houyi chimes reflects the peak of Chinese pre-Qin ritual and music civilization and bronze casting technology.
It is a pity that the collapse of ritual and music also reached a chaotic level in the early Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and people's desires were overflowing. With the passing of the era of the main love and national style, even if Duke Huan of Qi and Duke Wen of Jin put forward the slogan of "respecting the king and repelling the barbarians", although Zhou Li was revived again.
However, the large-scale musical instruments with chimes were not as brilliant as before, and eventually disappeared from the stage of history.
The chimes that have been sleeping for more than 2,400 years are also quietly located in the museum, waiting for modern people to experience the national music enjoyed by the nobles in those days.