In 1959, Henan is now the "first royal capital of China", nearly 4,000 years ago, does the Xia Dynasty really exist?
There's always a lot of controversy about history because time is constantly passing and we can't recreate what happened in the past. There are generally two ways for modern people to understand history, the first is through books or other carriers of writing, and the second is to obtain information through objects left over from history.
Some argue that there are still many dynasties in history that we do not know about, because no evidence of its existence has been discovered. Just as the existence of Yin Shang was once questioned, people later discovered the Oracle and The Anyang Yin Ruins and truly believed that this dynasty did exist.
There is another dynasty that has been questioned, and that is the Xia Dynasty. We have learned about the "Xia Shang Zhou" in books, but the existence of the Xia Dynasty has no evidence until 1959, archaeologists in Henan have made new discoveries in the "Xia Ruins", and since then they have truly explored the mysterious dynasty of the Xia Dynasty.
In 1977, research here was progressing rapidly. Experts named the site "Erlitou Cultural Site", and later confirmed that it should be the capital of the middle Xia Dynasty, dating from around 1900 BC and 3800 years ago.
The Erlitou site covers an area of 3.75 square kilometers, and there are also large palaces inside, which shows that the construction technology at that time was already very advanced.
Archaeologists have been studying the Erlitou site for more than forty years, and the earliest palace buildings in China have been found here. Among them, two palaces have been excavated, named No. 1 and No. 2, and The First Palace has a square of hundreds of square meters, and there are cloister passages everywhere, and from the perspective of the splendor of the building, the level of social productivity at that time was already very high.
In Erlitou archaeologists found the best of the 9 archaeologies, what are they?
They are the earliest Forbidden City in China, the earliest urban trunk road network, the earliest central axis layout palace complex, the earliest bronze ceremonial instrument group, the earliest bronze melee weapon, the earliest bronze casting workshop, the earliest turquoise workshop, and the earliest multi-courtyard palace complex in China.
The earliest two-wheeled rutted ruins and other "China's best". The center of the Erlitou site consisted of a palace, a workshop area, a sacrificial area, and a noble residential area. The height and complexity of Erlitou as the capital of the dynasty are among the few in Chinese history.
The discovery of two-wheeled ruts at the Erlitou site also advanced the invention of the Chinese two-wheeled vehicle by more than three hundred years. In this mysterious land, you will also find more of China's best, leading the Chinese archaeological culture of the 21st world to higher places.
These discoveries of "the best of China" prove that the Xia capital city was carefully planned and designed and built. It is of great significance for our modern exploration of the development of ancient civilizations.
The country originally recorded in the precise literature can only reach the Zhou Dynasty during the Zhou Dynasty, and many Western scholars question the existence of the Xia Dynasty, shortening China's five-thousand-year history by half.
Confirming the existence of the Xia Dynasty has always been the top priority of China's archaeological research projects, and the study of the Erlitou site confirms that the Xia culture lasted for about five centuries, and was later replaced by the Shang Dynasty.
This is the significance of archaeology, proving that those times were not believed. Since they have existed, they should be understood by future generations. As an ancient civilization with an independent origin, the Chinese nation is also the only country among the four ancient civilizations that has not been interrupted, and as the descendants of Yanhuang, we have the obligation and responsibility to safeguard the civilization of our motherland.