100 years ago, most Chinese's understanding of their own history was still stuck: taking the mythical Three Emperors and Five Emperors as the beginning of history, history is the history of emperors and generals, and outside the Central Plains are barbarian lands... After the birth of modern archaeology in 1921, major archaeological discoveries blossomed everywhere, each time reconstructing our understanding of Chinese civilization: the discovery of Yangshao culture broke the fallacy of China's non-Stone Age; the archaeological excavation of The Oracle bones of Yin Ruins advanced China's credible history to the Shang Dynasty; The discovery of the skull of the "Peking Man" traces the history of mankind on the land of China back 500,000 years; the discovery of Sanxingdui has allowed us to get out of the misunderstanding that Chinese civilization only originated in the Central Plains...
History of Yuenan Greater China, Yuenan Henan Literature and Art Publishing House
Million-selling author Yue Nan is good at integrating history and archaeological new discoveries into literature, so that the characters buried in the dust of history can be re-revealed to readers. "Yuenan Great China History" takes us back to 12 archaeological sites such as the "Peking Man" skull, Yangshao painted pottery, Yin Ruins Oracle, Sanxingdui, etc., to witness how these archaeological discoveries have reconstructed our understanding of Chinese history time and again.
The "History of Greater China in Yuenan" has written 12 major archaeological discoveries, all of which come from Yuenan's insistence on "rescuing" archaeology with literature for more than thirty years. It is reported that in order to complete this series of archaeological literary works, Yue Nan has been conducting field investigations across the country for many years, in order to dig out a more vivid backstory, interviewing the archaeological team members and experts who can be found. When asked about the things that impressed him most during his inspections in various places, Yue Nan lamented that 80% of the people he interviewed were no longer alive. If you don't write it yourself, many archaeological stories disappear with the death of archaeologists. Therefore, he insisted on more than thirty years, using literature to rescue some materials and information that may be lost. In the book "Yuenan Great Chinese History", through the detailed record and exploration of major archaeological discoveries, he traced the historical and cultural context of cultural relics, hoping that even in another fifty or one hundred years, after everyone visits the cultural relics in the museum, they can also have a way to know the behind stories of cultural relics excavation and archaeology, and even understand more political, economic and cultural conditions of the archaeological discovery era, rather than just seeing cold artifacts and short sentences.
In the "History of Yuenan Great China", there is not only a large number of archaeological and historical contents, but also vivid characters and stories. "Mrs. Xin Chai of the Han Dynasty also loved to eat melons and snails", not only can you see such interesting archaeological findings, but also feel the aristocratic life of Mrs. Xin Chai through words. These archaeological discoveries have narrowed the distance between ancient and modern people, and also provided strong support for historical evidence.
In Yue Nan's view, archaeology can not only restore historical facts, but also often subvert the public's understanding of history. Among them, the most subversive nature is the most "internet celebrity" archaeological discovery in recent years, and the Sanxingdui that is constantly "new". Before the archaeological discovery of Sanxingdui, the academic community generally believed that "there can be no artifacts such as scepters in the Far East", but the excavation of sanxingdui golden rods completely overturned this understanding. The three-meter-high bronze sacred tree has given us a new discovery of ancient bronze smelting technology.
Recently, CCTV launched the hit program "Chinese Archaeological Conference", and the archaeological discoveries of Zhoukoudian in Beijing highlighted by the program were also reflected in the "History of Yuenan Great China": "The discovery of the skull of the 'Beijingers' traces the history of China back to 500,000 years ago." Yue Nan himself has personally tracked the whereabouts of the Skull of the Beijinger, "I later found a reporter from the Xinqiao Daily, he looked for many years, I contacted him, to Japan, after ten years, I thought I could find it, but I didn't find it yet." Yue Nan expressed deep regret that the skull of the "Beijinger" had not been recovered so far.
It is worth mentioning that most of the archaeological findings written in the "History of Greater China in Yuenan" come from the ruins of civilizations outside the Central Plains, especially the relatively "marginal" civilizations and histories of the ancient Shu Kingdom and the Zeng Kingdom, which have spent a lot of time, which reflects the great Chinese historical concept behind it. He said that at the beginning of the planning of "Yuenan Great China History", he hoped to use 12 archaeological discoveries to string together the history of 5,000 years of civilization, from the Beijingers to the Xia and Shang Zhou, from the Central Plains to the marginal civilizations, a dynasty described a site. Xu Hong, the head of the archaeological team and an archaeologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also said that "only understanding China can no longer understand China", reminding everyone to look at history with a broader vision.
Behind the "archaeological fever" of the whole people, we must also be vigilant against archaeological misunderstandings. In recent years, archaeology seems to have gradually jumped from a niche discipline to a topic of Internet celebrities: the cultural creation of Internet celebrities in museums around the world has exploded out of the circle, and every time Sanxingdui "goes to the new", it can cause heated discussion in the social media... Despite this, there are still many misconceptions about archaeology, and some people confuse archaeology with tomb robbery novels. In this regard, different people use their own good ways to correctly guide the public's interest in archaeology. Through writing, Yue Nan has written the original niche archaeological discoveries into addictive archaeological literature, taking the "Mystery of the Whereabouts of the Skull of the BeijingErs" in the book as an example, the early excavation process is detailed and eloquent, and the second half writes about the loss process of the skull, which is full of twists and turns, thrilling.
"Yuenan Great Chinese History" integrates history and archaeological new discoveries into literature, meeting the needs of everyone who can read history and archaeological science by reading stories. Young people's obsession with "archaeology" is not only to see how these thrilling archaeological discoveries reconstruct our understanding of Chinese civilization again and again, but also to satisfy the innate curiosity of human beings.
Original title: Literary Salvage Archaeology Reconstructs Civilization Cognition
Text/Xu Youting
Source/Beijing Evening News
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