商周时期的“牢”

On the Penned Sacrificial Cattle and Sheep/Goats of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties

商代甲骨卜辞里的牢、■分别指经过系养的牛和羊。西周以来牢字取代了■。为了区别经圈养的牛和羊,在牢前加上大小,用大牢专指体型相对于羊要大的经圈养的牛,用少牢专指体型相对于牛要小的经圈养的羊。《大戴礼记·曾子天圆》关于"太牢""少牢"分别是牛、羊的说法更贴近周代社会实际。

The characters 牢 and ■ in oracle-bone inscriptions of the Shang dynasty should have referred tothe penned sacrificial cattle and sheep（or goats） respectively.From the Western Zhou dynasty,thecharacter ■ was replaced by 牢.In order to differentiate the penned cattle from the penned sheep（orgoats）,the characters 大 and 小 were prefixed to the character 牢.大牢 was employed to refer to the pennedcattle,larger than the penned sheep（or goats） in size.The documents in Dadailiji,in which 太牢 and 少（小） 牢 are used to refer respectively to the ritually penned cattle and sheep（or goat）,might be morerelated to ceremonial realities of the Zhou dynasty.