Tell the story of centuries-old archaeology

Author: Zheng Yan

The cultural relics of various periods and the archaeological discoveries of the past years are connected, and the points, lines and surfaces are combined, and the people are seen and known, presenting a splendid and colorful picture of Chinese archaeology to the reader

On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of modern Chinese archaeology, Yang Hong's book "One Hundred Years of Archaeology: Recreating China" was published, presenting readers with a brilliant and colorful picture of Chinese archaeology.

One Hundred Years of Archaeology: Recreating China: By Yang Hong; published by Beijing United Publishing Company.

The book connects cultural relics of various periods and archaeological discoveries over the years, combining points, lines and surfaces, seeing people through things, knowing people and saying things. The eight chapters run through all periods from prehistory to the Song Dynasty, and basically cover the main scope of work of Chinese archaeology. Compared with his previous works, the author adds many important archaeological discoveries in the past three decades, such as the Erlitou site, the Hundred Drama Figurines Pit of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, and the Mural Tomb of Chang'an in the Western Han Dynasty. Different from the popular reading materials that mainly introduce the "national treasures" of the artifact category, the book also covers city sites, palaces, temples, grottoes, mausoleums, the Great Wall and other sites, and at the same time introduces the history of the development of Field Archaeology in China, with a broader vision.

The author pays great attention to the readability of the text. At the beginning of the book, it is written that the Great Wall "slender body stretches from the northeast of China to the northwest, stretching for thousands of miles, quietly frozen between the mountains and deserts", which is deep and full of picture. Another example is to write about the use of bows and arrows and the popularization of fine stones, starting from the legend of the Houyi Shooting Sun, so that the ancient relics that look cold become vivid. Another example is the section "Qin Law Reappears in the Human World", which translates all the ten original Qin Jian texts quoted into modern Chinese for the reader's understanding. This style of writing makes "One Hundred Years of Archaeology: Recreating China" read with a strong sense of substitution and no jerkiness. The author seems to lead us to the posture of the ancestors' habits, from the mouth of a faience pot to a bird's eye view of the eight-petaled flowers blooming on the shoulder of the pot; with the unique precision of a famous sword casting master, examine the lines of the double-edged two-degree curved arc of the double-edged sword in the Tomb of Wangshan No. 1; or together with the rhyme feet of Tang poetry, the steps of the tang Chang'an City's street market palace...

To bring archaeological knowledge to life is inseparable from the unique vision of the author when reading antiquities. Introducing the art of the Shang Dynasty, it not only uses the "perusal" method to interpret bronzes, but also analyzes the warmth and agility of jade in a new way. From the jade rabbit excavated from the tomb of Yin Xu, the author extracted two parallel arcs above and below, from which it was judged that the craftsman first made a piece of jade bi, and then divided three pieces of fan-shaped jade. The jade billet in the shape of a jade billet becomes a jumping rabbit by careful carving. In this way, the production process of the unknown jade carver about three thousand years ago is as long as it is in front of you. The way this book is told is popular and vivid, but it does not mean that it caters to "shallow reading", and it is carefully studied in specific details, reflecting the rigorous attitude of an archaeologist.

One Hundred Years of Archaeology: Recreating China bears witness to the persistence of an archaeologist. Yang Hong has worked for decades in the editorial department of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and since the 1950s, this small editorial department has gathered a group of senior scholars and is the "information center" that brings together archaeological findings. Other scholars have dabbled in less popular writing, and it is one of the fields in which Yang Hong works hardest. Insiders know that to be able to speak the profound truths clearly and clearly in plain language, they must have a thorough understanding of things, and they must also have a broad vision and flexible and diverse expression ability, which can really be described as "the most strange and seemingly ordinary, as easy as it is difficult." A Hundred Years of Archaeology: Recreating China is a valuable exploration to comprehensively introduce Chinese cultural relics and archaeology in poetic language. It is expected that more Chinese field archaeologists will share their academic gains with the public in a simple and simple way, and show the humanistic feelings of modern Chinese archaeology. (Zheng Yan)

Source: People's Daily