Archaeologists display copper grates unearthed at the Liulihe site. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Luo Xin
Beijing, December 21 (Xinhua) -- Dingkou micro-convulsions, drum abdomen, animal hoof-shaped feet, the outside of the ears are decorated with two opposite dragon patterns, and the mouth is decorated with six groups of animal face patterns with the ribs as the base... Now in the capital museum of Beijing downtown, the 40-kilogram "Violet" always attracts tourists to stop and watch.
This largest and heaviest bronze ceremonial vessel has been unearthed in the Beijing area and is one of the "treasures of the town hall" of the Capital Museum. When it was unearthed that year, because of the weight of the body, the Ding foot was deep in the silt, and it was impossible to take it out by hand, and finally had to tie the rope to the two "ears" of the Ding, and the pulley was set up on the tomb before it was hoisted out of the water.
At the Site of Liulihe in Fangshan, where Weeding was excavated, archaeologists were pleasantly surprised to find that the re-excavation more than 40 years later not only had more new archaeological discoveries, but also provided clues to further unveil the mystery of the ancient Yan kingdom.
The State of Yan was an important vassal state in northern China during the Western Zhou to Spring and Autumn Warring States periods, and was one of the Seven Heroes of the Warring States. The Liulihe ruins are the fiefdom of the Yan kingdom in the early Zhou Dynasty, the earliest capital of the Yan kingdom, and the earliest political, economic and cultural center of the Yan kingdom.
"The Liulihe site is also a precious physical evidence of Beijing's long history of city-building, and its discovery has advanced the history of Beijing's founding to the Western Zhou Dynasty, more than 3,000 years ago." Guo Jingning, director of the Archaeology Department of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics, said that the reexamination of the Liulihe site is timely.
Bronze masks and other cultural relics excavated from the Liulihe site. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Luo Xin
Since 2019, the Beijing Municipal Institute of Cultural Heritage, together with the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the School of Archaeology and Literature of Peking University, has carried out archaeological work on the city site and tomb area of the Liulihe site. According to reports, in the past three years, the Liulihe site has excavated 5 early Western Zhou tombs, 3 housing sites, and 1 suspected outer ring trench, and unearthed more than 100 pieces of various cultural relics such as bronze, lacquerware, pottery, sea shells, ivory ware, silk fabric specimens, etc.
Guo Jingning introduced that the archaeological exploration adopts a combination of general exploration, key exploration and sampling exploration, and has a new understanding of the scope of the site, a new discovery of the shape of the ruins, and a new understanding of the settlement structure. The results of archaeological investigation and exploration are reflected in the "Liulihe Ruins Protection Plan (2020-2035)", and the protected area of the site is 17.3 square kilometers, far exceeding the previous understanding of the site.
Chen Mingjie, director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics, said that this archaeological work has provided a lot of valuable academic information for understanding the Liturgical Music System, the Sub-sealing System, the Burial System and Burial Customs in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the planning of early city sites.
Wang Jing, the person in charge of the archaeological excavation site of the Liulihe site, introduced that the tombs that had unearthed the weiding and the yuangui were excavated this time with copper inscriptions, but the lid of the copper and the inscription of the body were inconsistent, and its ornamentation was the same as that of the gong, but the inscriptions of the lid and the body of the vessel were exactly opposite. Archaeologists speculate that the two bronze inscriptions record the same person, or that they will help the study of the name and character system of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
Archaeologists explain the archaeological process. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Luo Xin
On the cultural relics display platform at the scene, the newly excavated bronze masks, animal-faced copper ornaments, groups of copper carriages and horses, copper ge, etc. are neatly arranged, only to see that they are exquisitely decorated and rich in detail.
"These are the first discoveries at the Liulihe site. And this bronze goe, the back of the square part of the hollow, the front is a triangular circle, from this shape of the instrument inference, there are cultural elements from the south, which also shows that the identity of the tomb owner is not ordinary. Wang Jing said.
Guo Jingning believes that the excavation of bronzes, pottery, lacquerware and other cultural relics further confirms the patriarchal system and sub-sealing system of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The form of these artifacts is within the overall form of the entire bronze ware of the Zhou Dynasty, but it also has the characteristics of the northern region or the northern region.
"It can reflect Zhou Li's tracking of north China, and reflect the importance of the Beijing area in terms of geographical location because of the connection between the north and the central plains, which shows that Beijing has been a multi-ethnic integration region since ancient times, highlighting its important role in the process of the pluralistic integration of Chinese civilization." Guo Jingning said.
Archaeologists cleaned up the excavated artifacts on site. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Luo Xin
According to reports, the new round of excavations has realized the organic integration of field archaeology, scientific and technological archaeology and cultural relics protection. Since 2019, for the first time since 2019, the Liulihe site has established a geographic information system in a large site in Beijing, unifying the results of remote sensing archaeology, aerial photography, electrophysical geophysical exploration, exploration and excavation into the "one map" of the large site, and recording the whole process of excavation, mapping, photographing, establishing three-dimensional models layer by layer, and comprehensively collecting information.
"This means that even after 100 years, later generations can easily find the points we excavated, find the known distribution points." Guo Jingning said that "this map" will be continuously updated with archaeological discoveries.
Advances in technology have also contributed to the on-site conservation of cultural relics. For example, for some organic cultural relics such as lacquerware and silk fabrics, they can be extracted at the first time on the spot; for relics of different materials, cultural security personnel can carry out cultural relics protection according to local conditions.
In this round of archaeological excavations, archaeologists paid more attention to the combination of artifacts and the connection between the environment, which can provide more information beyond pure artifacts to understand the burial process and funeral customs of tombs in the Western Zhou Dynasty. For example, Guo Jingning said that the discovery of new relics forms in and around the Liulihe site has identified two types of tombs - the unity of living and burial and the simple cemetery, which has deepened the archaeologists' understanding of the structure of the cemetery and the distribution of ethnic groups.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
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