Liulihe Ruins Two inscriptions together confirm the three-thousand-year history of Beijing's founding

The Western Zhou Yandu Ruins Museum is located in Dongjia Village, Liulihe, Fangshan District, Beijing.

Recently, archaeologists sorted out the excavated cultural relics at the site of the Liulihe River site. Photo by Shi Fang, a reporter of this newspaper

The M1901 tomb in the excavation area of the Liulihe site is very famous. Many cultural relics have been excavated after many excavations. The lid of this bronze guither unearthed this time was mixed with the bronze guise "An" excavated in the early stage during burial. Photo by Shi Fang, a reporter of this newspaper

Kelu (left) and Kelu (left) excavated in the 1980s. Both the cup and the basket are wine vessels. Because of the owner's name "Ke", it is called "Ke Lu" and "Ke Lu".

There are two 43-character inscriptions cast inside the lid and mouth of the kei and kei, which are mutually corroborated with the newly discovered 24-character inscription.

It has been excavated many times

Gradually reveal the history of Beijing's founding

The Liulihe ruins are located on the north side of Liulihe Town, Fangshan District, Beijing, 38 kilometers away from downtown Beijing.

In 1974, the discovery of two Western Zhou tombs brought the Liulihe site into people's field of vision. From the largest bronze vessel excavated in the Beijing area, the Viodium, to the Treasure of the Town Pavilion in Shoubo ( commonly known as the Ox-headed Mane ) , all come from here ; the veil of Beijing as the capital of the Yan Kingdom has gradually been lifted by archaeologists.

Due to the high water table, the two tombs were not fully excavated. From 2019 onwards, in order to build the Liulihe National Archaeological Site Park with high quality and strengthen the level of site display, the Beijing Municipal Institute of Cultural Heritage, together with the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the School of Archaeology and Literature of Peking University and other units, reexcavated the two early western Zhou tombs M1901 (formerly IIM253) and M1903 (formerly IIM251), and carried out archaeological work on the city site area and burial area of the Liulihe site, and excavated 5 early Western Zhou tombs and 3 housing sites. It is suspected that there is a ring trench outside the city, and more than 100 pieces of various cultural relics such as bronze, lacquerware, pottery, sea shells, ivory ware, silk fabric specimens and so on have been unearthed.

Newly unearthed copper grates

Proof of mismatch at burial

In the excavation area of the Liulihe site, there is a huge circular deep pit with a small amount of water at the bottom. The tomb, which was once excavated, is now numbered M1901, from which archaeologists have excavated a copper grate with the inscription "White (Bo) Fish as Baozun Yi" and the inscription on the inner bottom of the vessel as "Wang Formula yu Chengzhou, Wang Zhiyuan bei, used as Baozun Yi". Wang Jing, the person in charge of the archaeological excavation site of the Liulihe site, said that the bronze gui was the same as the decoration of the gong excavated more than 40 years ago, and according to the inscription, the cover and body of the two gui should be confused when buried, which was wrong for 3,000 years, which also proved that the (Bo) fish and the yuan were actually the same person, and the study of the name and character system of the Western Zhou added conclusive evidence.

The bronze masks, animal-shaped copper ornaments, groups of bronze carriages and horses, and hollow bronze ge, exquisite ornamentation and rich details, exhibited at the archaeological site, are all discovered for the first time, showing a variety of cultural factors. The structure and decoration of the hollow copper ge are influenced by many surrounding areas, and the structure of the capped pipe brass is similar to the weapons of the northern grasslands, and Wang Jing believes that this type of ge is not from the Yan land, and the origin may be in the south. The use of shields such as bronze masks and animal-shaped copper ornaments, including the samurai image holding a shield in one hand and a goe in the other, shows that the owner of M1901 is not ordinary.

M1902 excavated copper quartz

Precious inscriptions appear

Between M1901 and M1903, the newly discovered Tomb M1902 unearthed the earliest tomb head box cover known to Beijing, which is also rare in the northern region. Inside the box, there are copper beams, bronze zuns, bronze lords, copper dings, copper swords, lacquerware, pottery, etc., and the combination is rich. The coffin and human bones are well preserved, and the rafters contain a whole burial dog, and a brass bell is produced with the dog, which is a rare complete material.

In particular, it is worth mentioning that a bronze stele excavated from the tomb of M1902, the inscription in the tomb can be recognized: "Taibao Yong, Yanwan Marquis Palace, Taibao gave the album of the bei, used as the father Xin Bao Zun Yi." age. According to the inscription, it is inferred that its meaning is: "Taibao built the castle in Kuei, and then held a sacrifice at the Palace of the Marquis of Hehou." Taibao rewarded Him with a gift for his father, Xin. age. The inscription appears in the contents of "Taibao", "Yongyan", "Yanhou Palace" and so on, which proves that more than 3,000 years ago, the King of Zhou summoned the duke and personally visited Yandu, which is the site of today's Liulihe Yandu, and built the city wall of the capital of Yanguo. Lei Xingshan, a professor at Capital Normal University, believes that the word "Yong" in the inscription is the meaning of building a city, confirming that Zhao Gong personally came to the ruins of Liulihe and built a capital here. Sun Qingwei, a professor at the School of Archaeology and Archaeology of Peking University, believes that this inscription empirically proves the history of Beijing's founding of the city for more than 3,000 years with indisputable written materials, which has unique value in the study of world urban history and can be called the treasure of Beijing.

The inscriptions on the bronze tablets complement the inscriptions excavated in the 1980s and are valuable historical materials for studying the early history of the Yan state.

Take advantage of new methods and new technologies

Achieve refined archaeological excavations

Guo Jingning, director of the Archaeology Department of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics, introduced that the excavation used the latest surveying and mapping methods, information recording means and cultural relics protection technology to carry out refined excavation of cultural relics. In the large tomb where the boji mane was excavated and is now numbered M1903, a number of new lacquerware have been excavated this time, and the identifiable ones are triangular grains, beans and so on. The discovery of lacquerware makes up for the limited technology of on-site cultural relics protection in the last century, and is of great significance for the study of the system of burial utensils.

Cultural relics protection professionals participate in the archaeological excavation work throughout the process, for the protection of cultural relics of different materials according to local conditions, the use of menthol and other organic cultural relics such as wooden poles, mat marks, cinnabar, fabrics for temporary reinforcement treatment; lacquer wood and other cultural relics take menthol, gypsum, polyurethane foaming agent, etc., combined with the overall box after rapid extraction, quickly placed in the laboratory for laboratory archaeology and protection restoration.

In order to fill the gap in previous field excavations and study the coffin regulations of Western Zhou tombs, archaeologists for the first time adopted the "broken wall excavation method" of cleaning inward from outside the rafters, cleaning 1/2 of the key phenomena and excavated artifacts, and leaving the key traces to take the profile. A number of previously undiscovered lacquerware and fabric overlaps were cleared out, and for the first time, the wooden arrow rods and mat patterns of the bronze arrows of the Western Zhou Dynasty in Beijing were identified. For the first time, the silk fabrics with ornamentation in the early Western Zhou Dynasty in Beijing were successfully extracted, which accurately restored the spatial position of each artifact unearthed, providing rich materials for restoring the burial process and funeral system.

For the first time, the Liulihe site has established a network geographic information system in the large site in Beijing, unifying the results of remote sensing archaeology, coordinate information, aerial photography, electrophysical exploration, exploration and excavation into the "one map" of the large site, establishing a three-dimensional model and comprehensively collecting information. Archaeologists have also carried out plant archaeology, animal archaeology, metallurgical archaeology and dating and isotope analysis.

Newly discovered rammed earth buildings on a large scale

Yandu "through the well to rule the city" level is developed

"We have identified two burial forms, namely the unity of residence and burial and the simple cemetery, and have a deeper understanding of the structure of the cemetery and the distribution of ethnic groups." Guo Jingning introduced that 4 large-scale rammed earth building sites and 7 large-scale wells were newly discovered in the city. The preservation of large rammed soils is good and the scope is large, which belongs to the forefront of western Zhou archaeology. The rammed earth width of the large well is more than 30 meters and the depth is more than 10 meters, which is distributed in the area including the south of the city, indicating that the level of sinking technology in the Western Zhou Yandu has been quite developed, and the possibility of high-grade buildings near the large wells is very high. Experts believe that these findings will help to further judge the distribution of functional areas in the city and understand the planning concept, organizational model and governance capabilities of the yanguo fiefdom.

"The scope of the Western Zhou cemetery clarified this time exceeds the boundaries of the originally recognized burial area, indicating that there are small settlements outside Liulihe City, and the situation of burial nearby." Guo Jingning said that this is valuable for further understanding the radiation range and ethnic distribution of the Liulihe site, and provides strong archaeological support for the construction of the Liulihe Ruins Park.

Using a combination of general exploration, key exploration and sampling exploration, the key exploration area of about 320,000 square meters and the sampling exploration area of 450,000 square meters were completed, and the protected area of the discovered site was 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 Lile system, the sub-sealing system, the burial system and burial customs, the early city site planning and other related issues in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and is a Beijing answer sheet for the construction of archaeology with Chinese characteristics and Chinese style.

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The area where the Liulihe site is located is located in the mountain plain east of the Taihang Mountains, with high terrain in the west and low in the east, with an average altitude of about 30 meters.

As the political and military center of the Yan state, Liulihe Yandu's geographical location is crucial. Liulihe Town is located on the main traffic road outside the Central Plains in the south and the North Tongsai, through the nearby Taihang Mountain Donglu Avenue, to the north to the Beijing Small Plain, to the south to the rear of the Central Plains.

The Liulihe site is located on the north bank of the Dashi River in front of the mountain to strip and level the low terrace. The Dashi River originates in the Taihang Mountains, known as holy water in ancient times, also known as the Liuli River and liuli river, from the northwest, meandering through the west and south of Yandu, forming an "L" shaped river bend, and then flowing to the southeast.

The Liuli River swallows are selected around the inlet of the river with the curved river channel, so that the sedimentary convex bank is conducive to the accumulation of sediment and the formation of soil; the water flow is slow, which is conducive to water intake; the convex bank is surrounded by water on three sides and can be used for defense. The construction and site selection are in line with the ideal environmental elements surrounded by mountains and rivers advocated by the site selection of traditional settlements in China.

The Value of the Liulihe Ruins (Link)

Historical value

A large number of cultural relics excavated from the Liulihe site record a large number of facts that the King of Zhou praised taibao, crowned the Marquis of Yan, and granted the territory of the people, provided valuable information and basis for the "Zhou King Fengyan", confirmed that the site was the location of the early capital of the Yan State, an important princely state of the Zhou Dynasty in China, and confirmed the important historical fact that the Zhou Dynasty "widely sealed the princes and took the Zhou Ping Zhou" in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty.

The Liulihe site has a rare holistic value among similar sites. The results of archaeological excavations show that the site is a site where city sites, residential sites and tomb sites coexist at the same time, and it is also the site of the capital city of the princely states where the five major elements of large palace base site, city wall base site, carved oracle bone, princely tomb and bronze ware coexist at the same time, which is very rare in the country.

The discovery of the Liulihe site is an important evidence of the geographical changes and development of the Beijing area.

Artistic value

The cultural relics excavated from the Liulihe site have outstanding regional cultural characteristics. The excavated bronzes, lacquerware, jade, pottery, etc., have complex craftsmanship, rich shapes, exquisite ornamentation, and high artistic expression, reflecting the artistic style and aesthetic orientation at that time, and also reflecting the cultural integration of the Central Plains and the northern region.

Scientific value

The Liulihe site provides valuable physical material for the study of urban planning, architecture and craftsmanship techniques in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. The city wall base site, architectural rammed earth remains and various building components left at the site of the Liulihe site provide a large amount of valuable physical data for the study of the urban scale and construction technology of the early Western Zhou Dynasty.

The bronze casting technology of the Liulihe site is in the same vein as the Yin Shang period, but it has developed and innovated, and the use of core bracing and blind core has played an important role in ensuring the accuracy of the model and improving the quality and yield of bronze casting.

——"Liulihe Ruins Protection Plan (2020-2035)"

Liulihe Ruins and Yan Kingdom (link)

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. It was first sealed in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty and lasted for more than 800 years.

The ruins of Liulihe were the fiefdoms of the Yan state in the early Zhou Dynasty, and the earliest capital of the Yan kingdom. It is a site found in the archaeological history of the Western Zhou Dynasty in China that coexists with the site of the princely states and the cemetery of the princes, and it is also the site of the capital city of the princely states founded in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, and is the earliest political, economic and cultural center of the Yan State. The discovery of the Liulihe site traces the history of the founding of Beijing to the Western Zhou Dynasty, about 3,000 years ago.

According to the existing archaeological results, the remains of the site are mainly concentrated in the two villages of Dongjialin and Loess Slope in Liulihe Town, Fangshan District, and are also sporadically distributed in Liulidian, Lijiao, Zhuangtou, Huancheng and other villages.